Beautiful Layouts

Study different layout alternatives and create visualisations. Public consultation to gather feedback from local citizens. Ideally, involve locals at the planning stage to gather feedback on why a proposed solution is beautiful or not to their eyes. This consultation could come together with explanation of our energy systems, and how can we produce electricity and why we are choosing the power of the wind.  

Once of the most visited and photographed offshore wind energy farms that we know today is Middelgrunden Wind Farm. Located in Copenhagen, Denmark, is the first offshore wind farm built on the MW-scale. It was built in year 2000 and it is located just 3km offshore, right in front of the most popular beach of Copenhagen.

The story of Middelgrunden goes back to the mid 90’s, when a group of wind energy enthusiasts gathered to harness the power of offshore wind by establishing a cooperative. 8500 citizens are the shareholders of the wind farm today. Every second year, the third Saturday in the month of June, the Wind Day takes place, where shareholders and their families and friends are invited to climb and visit their turbines.

However, it took more than a year in the planning period to decide upon the farm layout. The first layout, including 3 rows of 9 offshore turbines each, was highly criticized. After one year of hard work of an industrial designer, a curved line which followed the old defense circle of Copenhagen was proposed. A beautiful wind farm layout was created, which now has become one of the landmarks of Copenhagen and of the wind energy sector.  

A positive impact can be reached at different levels, by involving each of the relevant stakeholders (citizens, local authorities, academia, schools, fishermen and NGOs) at the right timing, and ideally, as early as possible in the development and planning process. 

Lead Engineer Julia F. Chozas

Julia Fernandez Chozas has been professionally dedicated for more than 12 years to the evaluation of the technical and financial aspects of offshore renewable energies (wave and offshore wind), where she has had the opportunity to apply her combined technical and financial background. She holds a power systems’ engineering degree from UPM (Spain) and a Finance MBA course from Herriot-Watt University (UK). In 2013 she was awarded a PhD by a Danish leading university in offshore renewable energies, where she studied the advantages and challenges of combined wave and offshore wind energy systems with unique real wave and wind data.