Climbing to new heights in Copenhagen
We travel to Denmark to learn about a radical model for community participation in clean electricity generation. And we live out a clean energy nerd dream in the process!
There’s no shortage of structures where the average tourist can catch incredible views in Copenhagen. From the old-school serpentine spires of the Church of Our Savior to riding a glass elevator to the top of CopenHill, the world’s first combo waste-to-energy plant slash artificial ski slope, there’s something for everyone in the Danish capital.
But at The Green Journey, we’ve set out to reach new heights on our GREEN world tour. So after a weekend spent enjoying Copenhagen’s exceptional bike infrastructure and feasting on veggies in Freetown Christiania, we rose bright and early that Monday to check off an unconventional to-do on our travel bucket list. Can you guess? Answer in caption.
Even our most loyal believers may be wondering, how did you pull this off? After all, we don’t quite have the Thunberg or DiCaprio level climate clout to call up a utility asking for a tour. And surely there are safety regulations associated with climbing a 100-meter-tall spinning structure in the middle of the Baltic Sea, right?
Lucky for us, just 3.5km off the coast sits the iconic Middelgrunden, a constellation of 20 wind turbines that not only pay an aesthetic tribute to the importance of the wind industry in Denmark, but also generate 4% of Copenhagen’s annual electricity. There’s something unexpected about Middelgrunden — it’s cooperatively owned. While half of the project is owned by the municipal utility, 50% percent belongs to the individual investors who make up the Middelgrunden Wind Turbine Cooperative
In true Danish democratic fashion, every two years the cooperative organizes an “open house” day where the general public can boat over to the archipelago and climb up a turbine. To my knowledge, it’s the only wind farm that still does this. The bad news? We missed the open house by just two weeks.
But that didn’t stop Megan from reaching out to the cooperative to see if there was a way to visit outside of the open house. Serendipitously, a delegation from abroad had arranged a private tour of the turbine during our time in Copenhagen, and we were welcomed to join them, and even conduct an interview with one of the cooperative’s longtime board members during the visit. Not going to lie: Megan basically shrieked with pleasure on hearing this news, which was a clean energy nerd dream come true. Cold outreach really does work!
So what was it like to climb an offshore wind turbine?
The trip started with a 30-minute ride aboard a traditional Danish fishing vessel where we donned some swanky headsets and got a short lecture about the history of Middelgrunden from Hans Christian Sørensen, one of the founders of the project with 40+ years experience in wind and tidal energy. We were lucky to be tagging along with a delegation of utility workers, policymakers, and engineers from abroad, so we received a thorough introduction to the history of the farm and technical details galore.
When we arrived at the turbine’s base, Hans passed out a few pairs of gloves, delivered a quick safety briefing (consisting of mostly, try not to fall). With a wink and a nod, he ushered us to the front of the queue so we’d have “more time at the top” — and then, spry as a mountain goat, he scampered up ahead of the group to go shut off the turbine.
Many of the newer 15 MW turbines that make up today’s wind farms have elevators or singular ladders meant primarily for engineers and technicians (these require clipping in, much as you would on the CopenHill climbing wall), but the older turbines at Middelgrunden had a series of short ladders separated by wooden platforms — no belay required.
Scaling 13 sets of ladders was tiring and slightly vertigo-inducing, but the rewards were… slightly underwhelming? We crammed into a long, hot box jammed full of gears and a generator called the “nacelle” — this is where the real work of the turbine gets done and those wonderful, carbon-free electrons get generated! But it jam-packed full of equipment, it didn’t make for the most scenic summit.
That is, until Hans cranked a knob and suddenly, the roof opened up like a convertible car, and we were met with a breathtaking view of the entire wind farm! The whole ‘standing in the sky’ part was pretty unexpected — as was Hans’s subsequent invitation to clamber around the nacelle, uninhibited.
“Just don’t touch that one wire on the left, but otherwise, have at it!”
The whole ‘standing in the sky’ part of the tour was a pretty unexpected perk of the tour, to say the least.
A radical model of cooperative ownership
After a short photo shoot, we sat down with Hans to talk about the history of Middelgrunden In the minds of most clean energy wonks, Denmark is the wind capital of the world. A combination of large offshore wind resources and pioneering commercial development, starting in the 1970s, positioned the small country to have an outsize impact on the industry. And even though they aren’t in the Top 10 ranking for wind power generation as a country, the Danes have the last laugh — their homegrown wind power manufacturer, Vestas, has 145+ GW of turbines installed worldwide, which would make them #2 by installed capacity if it was a country.
But as we discussed with Hans, what really sets the Danish wind power industry apart isn’t just technological prowess or kitesurf-friendly gales. A long historic tradition of cooperative ownership and community involvement in Denmark meant that the Middelgrunden project had citizens engaged in the effort long before the first cables were laid.
The idea for the project actually started with Copenhageners themselves; in 1993, a small group of city residents got together and began discussing the possibility of building an offshore wind farm with the local government. From Day One, they were the driving force behind the project — from sending out advertisements for shares to be sold, to convincing a particularly stodgy group of wealthy residents in the Klampenborg neighborhood that no, a wind farm view won’t ruin your property value, the collective rallied the community — and grew and grew while doing it. Over 50,000 Copenhageners ultimately took part in the project, helping with everything from drafting designs to raising funds to drumming up media coverage.
Hans cited the citizen involvement as a critical lever in the success of the wind farm — particularly because it was set up at a time when technology was more nascent. Furthermore, the excitement of the community put pressure on both politicians and holdout “not-in-my-backyard” naysayers to approve the project. Eventually, Middelgrunden was set up as a cooperative with 40,500 shares. Local people bought shares in proportion to how much energy they anticipated using (or how much excess they wanted to purchase and reap profits from as an investment stream). And each co-operative member, regardless of how many shares they owned, has a vote. Now that’s a model of democratic participation that’s incredible to see!
According to Hans, initial principal has long since been repaid to investors and they now make a steady profit ranging from 7-15% per year! Decarbonizing the grid and making money at the same time? Priceless!
And as for the naysayers in the wealthy neighborhood? We heard on our tour that nowadays, Copenhageners love the view of Middelgrunden so much, that real estate agents now put pictures of the wind farm in publicity material when advertising houses in the area for sale!
What’s next for Middelgrunden
At the time of Middelgrunden’s opening in 2000, it was the world’s largest offshore wind farm with 20 turbines and a capacity of 40 MW. Thanks to decades of innovation bringing down the cost curve and proliferation of government support, the Copenhagen wind farm no longer even cracks the list of Top 50 offshore wind farms — good news for the planet. As of today, the first-place prize goes to Hornsea, a massive project in the North Sea with an installed capacity of 6 GW - enough to power roughly 2 million homes.
Given that the average life expectancy of a wind turbine is 20 years, Middelgrunden is already well into its golden years. In recent months, there has been debate over whether to ‘repower’ the turbines (retrofit to today’s technology standards, which have progressed significantly) or to scrap them entirely. With the foundations and towers still in good shape, the leading plan supported by the cooperative and utility is to replace the worn-out nacelles and keep the farm running well into future decades.
With no construction plans yet ongoing, it’s still possible that in the future we could see these turbines dismantled. But our hunch is that the moneyed residents of Klampenborg might have something to say about the destruction of their view!
Our trip to Middelgrunden left us dreaming about the radical possibilities made real by bringing the cooperative ownership model outside of Denmark. In the United States, wind power has been steadily rising — and even playing a critical, grid-saving role in oil & gas strongholds like Texas. But in the U.S., cooperative ownership remains scarce — according to the Energy Information Administration, investor-owned utilities are smallest by number but largest by size, serving three out of four utility customers nationwide (110M+ households) while the minority (20M+) of customers are part of member-owned utilities, more similar to the Middelgrunden model.
As we learned at Middelgrunden, public participation in our energy infrastructure opens up more opportunity for decision-making, input, and buy in — as well as a chance for citizens — rather than big oil and coal, and their investors — to reap some profits. Would you invest in a co-operatively owned wind farm in your area? Let us know what you think in the comments — or share with a friend to get your local conversation started!