From Herborg Blacksmith to Vestas - Wind Power for the World: The Rise of Modern Wind Energy - page 273

inspections. Later, the OVE safety guidelines became the basis of
the Danish approval rules, and their fundamental principles can
be found in most international codes of practice.
Another important event at the VindTræf was a very inspiring
speech by Torgny Møller, who had bought the first 22 kW
Riisager wind turbine in 1976. At the end of his speech Torgny
Møller suggested that an owners' association should be established,
something like Association of Danish Wind Electricity, which
had organised the owners of the la Cour-type of wind turbines
producing power during the years around the First World War.
Torgny Møller's association came into being in May 1978 and
was named Danske Vindkraftværker, and it soon reached a
membership of almost 50. Later it changed its name to Danmarks
Vindmølleforening, at almost the same time that it reached 10 000
members. The importance of this association for the development
of wind energy cannot be overestimated. Particularly in the area
of community wind turbines and subsidies for establishing wind
turbines, two factors that are considered by many people to be the
most important reasons why Denmark got its lead position in the
wind energy sector, the association has been the decisive moving
power.

9.5 Æ Dunderværk

Although the VindTræf and what resulted from it was of essential
importance for the development in an broader sense it was still
more important for myself that a few days later I met the man
who was to be my partner in the development of wind turbines
during the coming years. I needed to have some big holes machined
in the flange of an elastic coupling that was to be mounted on the
main shaft of my wind turbine, and the only place in the vicinity
that this could be done was in a blacksmith's shop in Herborg near
Videbæk. Here I met Karl Erik Jørgensen. He was standing there,

messing around with a so-called super wind rose, when I drove up
to the door with my clutch flanges. Karl Erik Jørgensen was in many
ways the epitome of an entrepreneur. He was born and grew up
in the countryside in modest circumstances but had succeeded
in becoming the proprietor of a machine pool. When I met him
his main activity was a machine workshop that made various
subcontracting jobs for enterprises in the area, often assisted by
his eldest son, Per, who was at that time an apprentice mechanic.