Valle Scholarship Blog 5

Valle Scholarship Blog 5

1 February 2010

 

My Move to København

There I was on a Monday evening with all my current belongings packed in the hallway of my previous residence in Vedbæk ready to start my move to København.  My landlord offered to give me a ride to the train station and when he saw my hodgepodge of stuff he thought aloud, "How he is going to do this?"  My stuff included my gigantic, red, multi-day camping backpack, my medium-sized, daytrip backpack, a bicycle named “Purple Haze”, a box of food, a suitcase, and 4 reusable grocery bags full of this that and the other.  I assured my landlord that I would make it happen.

After arriving at the Vedbæk train station, I managed to put all my things in the "lift" (or elevator) in several trips by blocking the elevator door with one of my bags.  By shouldering the elevator doors open, I unloaded my things on the top of the platform.  Great, 5 minutes until the next train leaves. I searched through my pockets and, unfortunately, I did not have the proper coinage for the train ticket.  At that time of the day, it is almost impossible to find an open store to make change and the machines do not accept bills, so I started brainstorming.  I counted the change I had and I was shy about 20 Danish crowns, but I remembered I had a little bit of money in my Danish bank account.  I heard the shrieks of the train’s wheels and saw the headlight of the train and realized I would just have to wait until the next one.  Oh Well. 

My card was not working in the machines, so I was not sure how this was going to pan out.  Thankfully, there was a girl there who spoke English and she tried to help me figure out the machine.  She ended up giving me some of her coinage and I tried to give her a larger paper bill in exchange, but she said it was fine.  What a relief.  I thanked her for her kindness and I muscled my belongings onto the train.

En route to København, it seemed like all I had to do was unload my stuff onto the platform at the central station and meet my friend who would help me from there.  However, between Vedbæk and København the train stopped in Klampenborg and never moved again.  At first, there were some announcements in Danish and since no one was leaving the train, I just hung tight.  After awhile, the conductor told us that the train could not go anywhere for some mysterious reason and advised us to go to the S-train, which meant I had to pick up and haul all my belongings.  Again, the friendly Danes came to my rescue.  The same girl and a younger boy helped me take my stuff to a different platform where we caught the S-train.  I then had to catch one more train in order to finally get to the central station, where I had to catch another train to get to Dybbølsbro station—now my local station.  In each and every place, people were helping me with my bags, holding the train doors open, and just being conscious and considerate.  I know I could not have made this move by myself.

Me

Intensive Three-Week Course

The intensive three-week course I took was called Planning and Development of Wind Farms.  The first week of the course was held at DTU Risø in Roskilde, Denmark.  We had to catch the bus at DTU in Lyngby at 8:00 AM sharp.  When a Dane says a time to meet, they are completely serious about that meeting time.  If you are only a few minutes late, they will see this as very disrespectful.  We saw this the first day the bus was leaving DTU Risø.  The bus driver left exactly at 5:00 PM, even with a few students chasing after the bus.  It was kind of crazy and I am sure this is pretty extreme case, but I think that this instance symbolizes, with valid, the Danish concept of time in society.  Everything in Denmark moves like clockwork and everyone follows the rules of society.  It seems to work great for them and I can tell my habits have changed.  For instance, nobody crosses the street until the light turns green and no one rides their bike on the sidewalk (maybe this due to the steep fines).

The first week of the course consisted of full days of lectures from experts.  The following topics were covered: wind resources (WAsP training exercises), wind energy technology, environmental impact assessment, economics, site assessment, policy, legislation, and grid connection.  I felt very lucky to be at Risø taking this course from this stellar faculty.  Risø has been on the forefront of wind energy research for over 30 years and many of these faculty members are the ones who contributed to the success of Risø.  During that week, Denmark was very cold and very dark, so I was glad to be so immersed in my studies.  By the way, someone told me that this winter is the coldest winter Denmark has had in the last 23 years.  And then, someone would have to make a joke about the COP15 Climate Conference.

The following two weeks we worked in groups on our Case Study Project.  My group was quite international with one woman from China, a Romania man, and another guy from Denmark.  I, of course, was the American.  It is always interesting working with other people, but this was a fantastic experience because I was now working with people with totally different backgrounds.  Each of us learned a lot from one another. 

For our project, we picked a near shore wind farm project close to the island of Sprogø in Denmark.  Sprogø is located between the island of Sjælland (where I live) and the island of Fyn in the Storebælt waters.  We were lucky that we picked this site because there was over 20 years of wind data.  This is an incredible amount of data to have and thus gave us a chance to make statistical calculations regarding the power densities and the mean wind speeds.  From these statistical calculations, we saw that when you have 5 years or more of wind data, the possibility of having underestimated and overestimated power density errors are reduced in comparison to the averaged wind data for the full 20 years.  It goes to show that the more wind data you have the more accurate your prediction will be.

There are many issues and constraints that we had to take into account when planning and designing our wind farm.  One of the environmental constraints is the EU Bird Protection Area No. 98, which is a bird sanctuary where wind turbines cannot be erected.  Another environmental issue in this area is the presence of Harbor Porpoises, which are marine mammals heavily populated in the Storebælt waters that use this area as a breeding habitat.  There are many other environmental issues and constraints that must be considered, but there are also other issues and constraints such as shipping routes, proximity to neighbors, wind resources, radar proximity, grid strength, permitting, legislation, construction issues, etc

3.6 MW wind turbine at DONG Energy Avedøore Holme site 

At the end of the first week of group work, we had a field trip to the DONG Energy’s New Wind Turbines test site called Avedøore Holme just south of København.  The personnel of DONG were all very friendly and gave us presentations about the company and wind energy.  They also supplied us with a nice spread of food—something any college student appreciates.  After the presentations and the safety talk, we took an elevator to the ground floor.  I mention the elevator because the numbering of the floors was different than what I have seen before.  Instead of saying level 1 (L1) or ground floor (G), it was listed by how many meters above sea level the floor was.  The first floor (considered the second floor in the US) would be floor 5.3 and the fourth floor would be floor 13.9—very engineering-like.  We put on our protective helmets, which made us look like Lego people and ventured to the largest wind turbines in Denmark.  There are two massive wind turbine structures that stand to the top of blade 151.5 m (500 ft) tall and the rotor diameter is 120 m (394 ft), which is much longer than a football field.  One turbine can produce 3.6 MW, which corresponds to the annual energy consumption of 2,450 Danish households.  DONG Energy is testing these Siemens wind turbines because they have already ordered 500 more to be used for an offshore English wind farm.  Also, one turbine is owned by DONG Energy and the other is owned by a cooperative of neighbors.  By involving the surrounding community, the entire planning and permitting process usually moves smoother because the locals reap the financial benefits of the project and the project is then very transparent.

The last week of the three-week course we finished the analysis of our wind farm site, put together our lengthy report, and made the slides for our presentation.  Each of us put in a tremendous amount of hours everyday and in the end we felt like we delivered a respectable report.  We were graded based on the report, the presentation, and the oral exam.  I felt like the presentation went flawlessly and we were able to answer people’s questions without too much trouble.  The oral exam was something totally new to me.  We were supplied with 33 questions that broadly covered the material of the course to study and we were told we would have to answer one of those questions randomly.  Our group was the first group to take the oral exam, so each of us one by one went in and took our oral exam individually.  I was the third one to go into the room to take the oral exam and what I saw was 64 strips of paper on a table with three professors ready to grill me.  There were 66 strips of paper, but the previous two of my group mates took their questions.  I was confident about the majority of the questions, but I felt like I drew the perfect question for me.  Here is the question: “Explain the phases of a wind project life and the main environmental issues to be considered in each phase.”  The phases of a wind energy project are pre-construction, construction, operation, and demolition.  Mainly, I talked about how you need to know what the conditions were before the project and then continuously monitor during all the phases to see what the project’s environmental impacts are during the lifecycle of a wind energy project.  All in all, I really enjoyed this course and thought I gained a lot of knowledge about wind energy and in the process came out with some good friends.  I also felt very satisfied at the end of the course, which is a great feeling.

Me at the DONG Energy wind turbine test site

My Special Project is still moving along and that is my focus until I depart from Denmark.  My project has changed a little bit though.  It still deals with repowering electrical power plants that need to be replaced mainly because of their negative effects on the environment, but I decided to look at a single 8MW hydropower plant in Southeast Idaho called Thousand Springs.  I will write more about this in my next blog.

Life in København is a lot of fun.  Right out my front door are many restaurants, cool bodegas and bars, and all the interesting characters of this city.  I have got into the tradition of watching soccer on Sundays.  My friends are most interested in the Italian soccer league called Serie A, and in particular they are obsessed with the clubs called AC Milan and Inter.  I hope all is well with everyone.  One last thing—GEAUX SAINTS!!

With warm wishes,

Hiram