222 - MIDDELGRUNDEN OFFSHORE WIND FARM, NEAR COPENHAGEN, DENMARK (55°41' N, 12°40' E).
Since late 2000, one of the largest offshore wind farms to date has stood in the Øresund strait, which separates Denmark from Sweden. Its 20 turbines, each equipped with a rotor, 76 m in diameter, standing 64 m above the water, form an arc with a length of 3.4 km. With 40 megawatts of power, the farm produces 89,000 mW annually (about 3 percent of the electricity consumption of Copenhagen). By 2030 Denmark plans to satisfy 40 percent of its electricity needs by means of wind energy (as opposed to 13 percent in 2001). Although renewable forms of energy still only make up less than 4 percent of the primary energy used worldwide, the ecological advantages are attracting great interest. Thanks to technical progress, which has reduced the noise created by wind farms (installed about 500 m from residential areas), resistance is fading. And with a 30 percent average annual growth rate in the past four years, wind farms are becoming a more popular form of renewable energy generation.