September 20, 2025

Wilfried Winkelmann, Judith Plagemann, and Christian Schulz used the weekend after the trade fair in Husum to travel to Denmark to the Nordic Folkecenter for Renewable Energies.

There, Wilfried Winkelmann, founder and initiator of the German Wind Power Museum, met Jane Kruse, who has been active in the Folkecenter since its inception and is now the current director of the Folkecenter.

Jane Kruse gave us an overview of the FC’s history and a several-hour tour of the extensive grounds.

Preben Maegaard, founder of the Nordic Folkecenter, bought a farm with land in 1970 where training and continuing education initially took place. It was then called the “International Craft Training Center.” In 1973, it became part of the Nordenfjord World University, which consisted of 20 training centers.

At that time, 93% of Denmark’s total energy consumption was covered by oil. Following the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the OPEC oil embargo triggered the first global oil crisis in the Western world in 1974. The consequences in Germany were unemployment, short-time work, a decline in automobile production, and austerity measures such as Sunday driving bans and a 100 km/h speed limit on highways.

In Denmark, as in almost all Western countries, nuclear power plants were immediately planned, and massive resistance arose among segments of the Danish population and many NGOs.

In 1975, the OVE (Organization for Renewable Energy) was founded under the chairmanship of Preben Maegaard. It constructed the first wind turbine in 1976, and the first wind turbines were sold.

In 1982, the Danish Parliament approved the establishment of a National Center for Renewable Energy with funding for four years. The National Center began its work on July 1, 1983. Three years later, the trainee program was launched, which remains one of the Folkecenter’s main tasks to this day.

To date, the Folkecenter has worked on all types of renewable energy generation and supply, including photovoltaics and solar thermal energy, vegetable oil CHP and pellet heating, tidal and wave power plants, aquaculture, and low-energy houses. Today, the focus is primarily on energy storage for small solar and wind energy systems. Jane Kruse emphasized that optimizing the control systems for such systems is particularly important. The Folkecenter maintains various research and demonstration facilities for this purpose.

Former Folkecenter trainees have established similar projects all over the world.

Looking back, Jane Kruse attributed the success of the development of wind energy generation to the open exchange of ideas, experience, and knowledge between scientists, industry, engineers, technicians, and craftspeople. For many years, for example, a regular meeting was held at the Folkecenter every first Saturday of the month, where the “who’s who” of European wind energy gathered. Alois Wobben, among others, was a frequent participant in these meetings. Early experiments on magnetic excitation in wind turbine generators were conducted at the Folkecenter. Two such systems were on display during our visit.

Preben Maegaard and Jane Kruse were awarded the “World Wind Energy Award” in 2008.

Preben Maegaard died on March 25, 2021. He can be seen in the film “The 4th Revolution – Energy Autonomy” by Carl-A. Fechner.

Image: CS