Interview with Danish Association of Wind Turbine Owners' chief technical consultant Strange Skriver

It is felt that even though more than 100,000 Danish families were co-owners of wind turbines till a few years ago, this number had gone down considerably.

For its part, the Danish Association of Wind Turbine Owners still believes that all the new wind farm projects in the country will have one or more wind turbines which are co-owned.

"This way we will get more members. However, this is not so important. Even though the number of members have decreased, the number of installed capacity by our members have increased. Today, we have 80 percent of the total MW capacity in Denmark as members, and we believe this figure will grow even more," Danish Association of Wind Turbine Owners' chief technical consultant Strange Skriver told windenergyupdate.com in an interview.

Skriver, who is scheduled to speak during Wind Energy Operations & Maintenance Summit 2008, to be held in London on 11-12 November this year, spoke about the current developments, on the role of the Association in guiding the various stakeholders and much more. Excerpts:

windenergyupdate.com: Ballast Nedam has signed a letter of intent with the Danish energy company Dong Energy for the installation of the foundations for 42 wind turbines. How do you assess current developments related wind energy sector from Danish Association of Wind Turbine Owners' perspective?

Strange Skriver: Wind power today is a big business. A lot of countries have plans for building wind parks, and all manufacturers can sell all they can produce, no matter how much experience they have. The investments are huge, and the sector recruits new employees every day. The sector needs all the manpower that has experience with wind power to make the right decisions. The experience we have built up during our 30 years of existence is widely known, and in our daily work, we contribute to the sector in many ways by passing along our experience.

windenergyupdate.com: Considering that Danish Wind Turbine Owners' Association actually represents about 60,000 members, can you provide info on the role of the Association in guiding various stakeholders in the industry?

Strange Skriver: The owners of the wind turbines differ very much from owners in other countries, as we in Denmark started with private owned wind turbines in the late 1970s. The owners at that time were people dedicated to production of power without pollution, being independent from countries with oil reserves etc. These first wind turbines were installed in the owners electrical installation, producing much of the electricity the owner consumed.

Later, as the wind turbines grew larger, people from a village formed the "Common owned wind turbines", where people could buy a number of shares each equal to 1000 kWh/year production. In the mid 90s, the investor profiles changed. Most of the wind turbines were "one person" or small companies owning a few wind turbines. From 2002, a number of larger companies have invested in more wind turbines by buying the existing machines. Some of these companies own more than 300-400 wind turbines in Denmark today. Much of this development in owner profiles have been regulated by the changing legislation throughout this period.

Today, many of our members own wind turbines in other countries, mostly in Germany. Private Danish investors have invested billions of euros in buying new or existing wind turbines in Germany through the past 5-6 years. Furthermore, we also have DONG, Vattenfall, and some of the foreign utility companies as our members.

These different members of course need different type of information and consultancy from us. On the technical side, we offer independent inspections on wind turbines for different purposes (Commissioning, end of warranty, condition of the wind turbine when buying, etc). Beside the technical issues, we produce a lot of information. We have produced "Fact sheets" (34 until today) on different topics related to wind power. These fact sheets can be downloaded from our home page. We also make special investigations for public information on a specific issue, when we see the need for it.

windenergyupdate.com: What according to you are the major challenges, which the sector faces today in this region? How do you intend to overcome them?

Strange Skriver: There are many challenges:

Sites: It is difficult to find enough sites on-shore in many countries as the population do not wish wind turbines close to their houses. Politicians do not want to make unpopular decisions. Off-shore sites are still very expensive, so sites on-shore are necessary. The necessary legislation/decisions has to be made, and information about the necessity of installing wind power should be provided.

Technical: We still see many break downs of main components on relatively new machines. I use to say that there has never been sold a finish developed wind turbine ever. The manufacturers have not had the necessary time to test and develop the wind turbines, and therefore, we see failures which the manufacturer must solve during the first 5-7 years after introducing a new type. Now we see that the speed of which new wind turbine types are introduced is decreasing, we have reached about the maximum size of on-shore machines. When the manufacturers develop a new type in the 2-3 MW range, they will have some experience with wind turbines of this range, and hopefully, we will see machines that will not need major retrofits in the first years.

Production/consumption: It is necessary to find ways to consume the wind power as it is produced. The grids have to be stronger to move electricity from one region to another.

windenergyupdate.com: Last year, DONG Energy and the Danish Wind Turbine Owners' Association had agreed to initiate cooperation on the establishment of onshore wind turbines and the establishment of large offshore wind farms. Can you provide info on how such initiatives are resulting in growth of the sector?

Strange Skriver:  Until now, we have not seen any result of this initiative, as we have few available sites in Denmark at present. All people in the sector know that it is important to have the local people owning some of the wind turbines in a park. Otherwise, the local people will not accept the park. Our initiative, where DONG will develop the wind park, and we will establish the company of local shareholders, will hopefully result in more sites for wind parks.

windenergyupdate.com: In your opinion, which is the best way to minimise the effect of the supply chain bottleneck?

Strange Skriver:  For new machines, you can not do anything. All manufacturers have sold all their production for the next 2-3 years ahead. For spare parts, I think the best to do, is to procure these parts and have them on stock ready for use when needed. Some people argue against this as these parts are taken from the parts that should be used for new machines and in this way supply chain bottleneck is will last longer. On the other hand, the investor facing 1½ years delivery time of a new gearbox to replace one already broken have very little understanding of this argument. It is essential to find out which components have a very long delivery time, and this might change during time. And each owner does not need to have the spare himself, more owners can share the investment in these spare parts.

windenergyupdate.com: What's on Danish Wind Turbine Owners' Association' agenda for future?

Strange Skriver:  Servicing our members has highest priority as we are a member organisation. Information to the public has always been our second main purpose. We are known to provide trustworthy and proper information. Information to the Government is necessary to make the right decisions regarding planning and economy in wind projects.

We will focus especially on:

-         Getting the right price for wind power electricity in relation to environment, health and security of supply.

-         Wind turbines oh-shore and off-shore in Denmark. Most on-shore as this is the cheapest option.

-         Long term planning of where shall the wind parks be in Denmark.

Wind Energy Operations & Maintenance Summit 2008

Danish Association of Wind Turbine Owners' chief technical consultant Strange Skriver is scheduled to speak during Wind Energy Operations & Maintenance Summit 2008, scheduled to take place in London on 11-12 November this year.

For more information, click here:  http://www.windenergyupdate.com/wind08/programme.shtml

Or contact Ian Evans (ian@eyeforenergy.com, +44 (0) 207 375 7575)