As I looked down from the window of my plane, I could see the vast flat land with greenery around, old prominent buildings, a beautiful city and lot of giant structures resembling a portable USB fan. This is what you see in almost any city when visiting Denmark, the land of the wind-farms.

Denmark produces half of its electricity from wind. So it is obvious that you will see the wind farm across Denmark. Isn’t it strange that it is called farm? The group of wind turbines in a location is called as wind farm. But, how is the wind energy harvested? More interestingly, they are mostly located on land as well on sea. And did you know they float on sea?

What do people farm? Usually the farmer raises crop that are used for many useful day-to-day needs such as medicine, food for consumption and so on. What do we get by harvesting wind? – Electricity!!! The wind traveling at high speed has enough energy to rotate those really big turbines. The turbine is housed in such a way that it rotates an electric machine which generates electricity. This is transmitted for consumption via power cables.

I have seen these wind turbines transported to the desired location. On roads, these are usually done by big trucks. Ships are used for transportation to the locations in sea. But, never imagined that they are mounted on a floating platform on sea. These floating platforms are anchored to the sea bed. Such floating platforms are technically referred as ‘Tension Leg Platform’. For wind, it is called as offshore wind platform.

My electricity provider also guarantees that the 50% of electricity provided comes from wind. Denmark has made a commitment at COP25 by passing climate act to reduce the greenhouse gas emission by 70% within the year 2030. I believe the wind energy is one of the key technology among others that will make such a vision into reality.

Such a commitment is praise worthy and the actions are already visible. I am sure Denmark’s steps will be a leading example for future pollution free energy source. Denmark loves clean and sustainable energy. It will not be a surprise if in near future all the energy demand in Denmark is fulfilled only by renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass etc paving the way for others to follow.