ABSTRACT
It is not obvious why a small European country like Denmark, with about 5.5 million inhabitants, managed to place itself in a global role as pioneer of modern wind power in the 1970s. Why did this role not go to large industrial countries like the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany with their manifested results as technological innovators including the field of aerodynamics applied to helicopters and airplanes? This chapter attempts to clarify part of this question where the author has been actively engaged in promotion of the modern Danish wind power project since the early 1970s. My text will focus on the period from 1974 to 1985 where large parts of the official Denmark were promoting the introduction of nuclear power and natural gas, while wind power and other forms of renewable energy sources (RES) had low priority. Wind power had to rely on enthusiastic NGOs and small private innovators in an alliance with a few independent university researchers.
