What benefits Denmark from wind energy?
When politicians in Denmark decided in 1985, after a long debate, to discard all forms and types of nuclear energy, they simultaneously greatly increased government support for wind turbine construction. No one could have dreamed that this trend would lead to the success story that dazzled everyone around the world in the field of wind energy.
Thanks to wind power above all else, it is believed that Denmark will inevitably achieve the goal agreed upon by a broad parliamentary majority there, which is that the country will rely 100 percent on climate-neutral energy by 2028. Denmark currently produces more than half of the country's electricity from sources. Renewable - wind power is getting the lion's share of it - and this percentage is increasing rapidly all the time.
The main factor in the success of the wind energy concept was the residents' desire to adopt and support everything related to wind energy, from the first small wind turbines built by anti-nuclear activists to the large-scale industry that exists today and its huge offshore wind farms. With more than 7,000 km of coastline, Denmark enjoys ideal conditions for producing wind energy. In addition, solid foundations for the industry were provided by the entrenched desire of Danes to reach consensus, great flexibility in the relationship between officials and citizens, and a highly developed degree of basic societal trust. In addition, politicians advocating for clean energy and environmental conservation have used attractive engagement schemes to encourage local residents affected by wind farm projects to participate in these projects rather than pushing them into endless legal disputes.
The central element of this success story is the fact that citizens and local communities have a legally guaranteed share in the profits generated by wind or solar energy farms, even when these farms are offshore farms, and then citizens can acquire shares and obtain their profits. Moreover, citizens receive compensation if wind farms reduce the value of their property. And last but not least, Denmark provides government guarantees to support independent projects that produce sustainable energy.
One of the positive spin-offs for Denmark as a whole is that Danish wind turbine manufacturers are leading the world in this area and have high export revenues. But rival Chinese companies are increasingly taking larger shares of the global market. In addition, the only place in Denmark itself where more wind energy capacity could be built in the sea. Yet the Danes remain optimistic about wind power, and this has been proven once again by the recent passage of the Climate Act with a large majority, which includes a very ambitious goal of reducing carbon emissions by 70 percent by 2030.
Wind energy plays a major role in the transition to clean energy, and Denmark in particular has been a pioneer in this development. Today, Denmark has become a global center for innovation and development in the field of wind energy. Denmark is home to some of the world's leading companies in the field of wind energy, and leading universities in wind energy research, such as the Technical University of Denmark, which has a wind energy department. For any visitor to Denmark, the excitement really begins before the landing in Copenhagen, when the beautiful offshore wind farms loom on the shores of Copenhagen, and the mind is preoccupied with the great idea of the possibility of extracting energy from the air flowing over these stunning landscapes.
And because wind energy participates in a highly competitive power generation market, it is imperative that the wind energy industry become more cost-effective, more reliable, and efficient. This fact is the main driver of many researchers, meteorologists, electrical engineers, and designers at the Technical University of Denmark, which includes different types of competencies who interact with each other on a daily basis, and therefore the university has a good and comprehensive understanding of wind energy problems.
The Technical University of Denmark publishes papers and reports and participates in conferences like other universities, but it also does more by interacting very closely with industry on the global stage, and by establishing projects with industrial partners, whether they are research or advisory projects. The university, for example, has developed the World Wind Atlas site, which was visited by about 50 thousand users, by about 150 users per day for this individual database. When preparing this database, the university not only prefers to work as an agency that carries out an advisory mission, but also likes to participate in countries where wind data are calculated for inclusion in the wind atlas. Because of the growth in wind power globally, the university needs to evaluate tens of thousands of turbine sites each year.
The university believes that it needs to educate qualified engineers to be able to conduct these assessments, but these engineers also need to develop methodologies that can make evaluations more accurate, and they also need to generate data that can be used within these assessments, so there is a lot of work to be done. They have to implement it