Denmark, with a flat as a pancake landscape, might be a new whimsical destination for skiing, thanks to Copenhagen’s new power plant.
That’s right. Last weekend in Copenhagen, an eight-year dream was realized when the first paying skiers took their runs down a one-third-mile course, wrapping around what's perhaps the greenest power plant on Earth.
The plant is so safe and clean that designers could turn its building mass into a new hub for social life.
A hybrid of a building and a landscape, the giant glass, and mirrored structure contains planters that cover the façade in a checkerboard pattern that may one day give the illusion of a green mountain from every direction.
Copenhill, as it is named, features ski-lifts on the outside as well as a glass elevator for seeing the inner workings of how the trash of the city is transformed into both electricity and heating for over 200,000 homes.
The waste-to-power plant opened in 2017 under the name Amager Bakke (Amager, for the island Copenhagen is on, and Bakke, the Danish word for “hill”).
Bjarke Ingels is the architect whose company, Bjarke Ingels Group, came up with this idea eight years ealier for designing a power plant structure that would incorporate mountain sports into its very nature.
Ingles says 97 percent of city residents get their house heating as a byproduct of energy production, from an integrated system where the electricity, heating, and waste disposal are combined into a single process. He thinks that it's also becoming a beacon others can look at and say, ‘if Copenhagen can do it, why can’t we?’
Although there are no hills on this island city, residents can now ski and snowboard locally, while also enjoying the best views ever seen of the harbor. Another thing missing is snow cover throughout the winter; therefore, designers installed a specially-coated “plastic grass,” which provides the perfect friction for downhill winter sports.
In Denmark, where 600,000 skiers always needed to travel to practice carving their turns, to be able to ski in their backyard finally—and, all-year-round—is, according to one skier, “EXTRAORDINARY.”
Visitors can relax in the bar and restaurant at the highest point of the building, or meander on the steep hiking and running trails. It also features the world's tallest climbing wall— 85-meter (270 feet) high, designed with overhangs and ledges of white, like an icy mountain. (For only certified climbers at the top.)
According to Good News Network, the $660 million power plant will process up to 440,000 tons of waste annually using furnaces, turbines, and steam. The electricity that it produces can heat 160,000 houses and provide electric power to another 60,000. Although these numbers are impressive, the 24-hour operation of the entire facility can reportedly be handled by just two engineers.
The developers hope 300,000 visitors will enjoy the multi-purpose experience of CopenHill every year, with the ski slope costing $22 an hour or only $366 for a full season pass.
Moreover, the city is one step closer to its ambitious goal of becoming the first carbon-neutral city in the world by 2025. We think it may be all ‘downhill’ from here.
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