After 40 years of operation, the blades still spin without problems on the iconic blue wind turbine at Nordic Folkecenter for Renewable Energy.
When you arrive at Thy from the south and drive over the Draget between Skibsted Fjord and Nissum Bredning, one of the first things that catches your eye is a wind turbine with a characteristic chubby, blue house, which towers over the treetops slightly diagonally to the right in the field of vision. The turbine stands at the Nordic Folkecenter for Sustainable Energy in Sønder Ydby, and here it has been turning it’s blades since February 1984.
– The tubine has reached almost three times as many operating hours as the life expectancy was when we set it up 40 years ago. The only thing that has been replaced along the way is the electronic control, so you can’t say anything other than that it is built to last, says Jane Kruse, director of the Nordic Folkecenter for Sustainable Energy.
The turbine has eight meter fiberglass blades from Danish LM Wind Power and a gearbox from Finnish Valmet. Main shaft, gear and generator are built together in a compact unit according to what is called “The Danish concept” for wind turbine design. It was born with relay control from L-M-Electric, Thisted, which has been replaced along the way with a control system from Orbital A/S in Skjern. The turbine goes directly into the Folkecentre’s installation and contributes to both electricity and heat at the centre. On Sunday the 4th of February this year, it produced 68 kwh over 10 hours at a wind speed of 9-12 m/s.
A Blacksmith’s turbine
The blue turbine is a 75 kilowatt turbine of the DANmark 17 type, developed by Nordic Folkeenter’s founder, Preben Maegaard. The turbine was part of a series of wind turbines from the Folkecenter, which were produced by Danish blacksmiths between 1978 and 1992. In the wake of the oil crises of the 70s, the Danish blacksmiths were among the first to throw themselves into the work of developing alternatives to fossil energy sources. To build machines for harvesting renewable energies.
The blacksmiths had, among other things, need of engineering help, and for that purpose the Nordic Folkecenter for Sustainable Energy was established. Here calculations, drawings and prototypes were made, which were made freely available to the blacksmiths. In 1992, the series of blacksmith-turbines was completed with a 525 kilowatt turbine. The prototype of the last blacksmith’s wind turbine was set up at Roshage in Hanstholm in September the same year and was at that time the largest commercial wind turbine in Denmark.
A copy in Brazil
A sister turbine to the blue Folkecenter turbine was set up on the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha as part of a Danish project in 1992 in connection with the UN’s first environmental conference, the Earth Summit, in Rio, Brazil.
