My Visit to the Middelgrunden Wind Farm, Copenhagen

It was a thrill for me to be able to travel to Denmark July 19-21, 2011 and visit the Middelgrunden Wind Farm, installed in 2000. It is located about a mile out in the North Sea from Copenhagen city, and is comprised of 20 turbines in a subtle arch formation. They produce 40 MW of energy, or enough to power 3% of the city of Copenhagen. Though the tours happened to be closed during my time there, I managed to find a ferry that goes past the wind farm to Middelgrundsfortet (a small island fort) right from the beautiful area of Nyhaven, which was near my hotel. It was a glorious experience to see functioning offshore wind turbines, since my organization and many others had worked so hard to encourage a wind farm offshore Long Island. Most people I met in Copenhagen didn’t seem to think the turbines were a big deal; most said that though turbines do impact the view, it is necessary and they in fact wished their government would install more of them. I hope we can learn from others about the importance of pursuing this clean energy source as we face continuing climate change. They are a beautiful solution…

Beth Fiteni