The ”secret” behind the success of Danish wind turbines

By Joachim Plaetner Kjeldsen

For many Danes wind turbines is today something we take for granted when staring out the window. You might even say that wind turbines and their industry has become a part of Denmark’s and the Danes self-understanding as something special we as a green nation have contributed to the world. And it’s not entirely wrong to say. The world’s largest producer of wind turbines is situated in Denmark. But why is that, and how?

A part of the answer has to be found in “The Danish Concept”. The concept that all commercial Danish wind turbines more or less was built on back in the early 80’s. In this video Birger T. Madsen, engineer and former chairman of the Danish association of wind turbine producers, and Tonny Brink, CTO at Nordic Folkecenter and former Vestas-fitter, explains how the first commercial Vestas turbines and “The Danish Concept” looked like.

Birger T. Madsen was employed in Vestas Crane department in the early 70’s but ended up designing and selling wind turbines. Today he shows us around in the Vestas crane-departments old facilities which now holds The Historic Danish Wind Power Collection.