Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
In private households, a substitute for the expensive heating-
oil was the most urgent need. As a consequence most new wind
turbines were designed for heat production with a DC generator
producing power for a heating element or using a mechanical churn
system. But some of the new pioneers wanted to produce AC and
connect the wind turbines to the public grid (like Agricco did in
1919 and Johannes Juul in 1950). One of them was the carpenter
Christian Riisager. He built a small 7 kW wind turbine in his
garden at Skærbæk, near Herning in central Jutland and in 1975 he
tried—without permission—to connect the wind turbine to the
grid. Inside the house his wife registered that the electric meter
was running backwards. Later he got the formal permission
and official rules were made for the sale of electricity to the public
grid.
3.11
The NASA Connection: 1974-1978
After the oil crisis in 1973-1974, a new worldwide interest in
wind power resulted in several international workshops and
conferences. At a workshop in Stockholm, August 1974, three key-
persons in Danish wind power development took part. Niels I.
Meyer
3
, professor at the Technical University of Copenhagen and
an early proponent of renewable energy, gave a summary of the
Danish experience in the field and was supplemented by the former
project manager for the FLS Aeromotor project, Helge Claudi
Westh. The third person was Jean Fischer, a visionary high level
employee at the FLS-group, who at that time tried to revive the
interest for wind power in Danish industry. He presented a number
of innovative design sketches for vertical-axis Darrieus turbines.
Also present at the workshop were Louis Divone and Joseph Savino
from NASA, both of them involved in the design work on the US
100 kW “Mod-0” experimental wind turbine. They had already
showed keen interest in Danish wind turbine design and NASA
published translations of French and German articles on Danish
use of wind power during the Second World War [14,15]. After the
Stockholm workshop, the two experts from NASA visited Gedser
together with Meyer, Fischer and Westh in order to have a closer
3
See chapter
Danish Pioneering of Modern Wind Power
by Niels I. Meyer.
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