Denmark’s downhill slope, proves it’s on the up

Copenhagen, allegedly the happiest city in the world has even more to smile about than usual. The infamously flat country now boasts an active winter-sports industry, thanks to some innovative thinking around the aesthetics and cultural opportunities presented by a city-based waste-to-energy plant.

The CopenHill ski slope, was first conceived by Danish Architects in 2011 as part of an initiative to promote recreation and sustainability. Ten years in the making, the CopenHill Ski slope was opened to the public in 2019, allowing avid winter sports enthusiasts to soar down a 450-metre slope, complete with views of the Danish Capital, Copenhagen, while 450,000 tonnes of waste is recycled below their feet.

Denmark, a country with no hills or mountains, has long lost-out to its Nordic neighbours in terms of winter sports tourism, so, when the idea came about to build an artificial ski slope merged with the concept of a waste-to-energy-plant, plans were set in motion to make it a reality.

A 450m ski slope constructed on the roof of a large incinerator which burns waste to produce heat and electricity is not a simple feat to achieve. A first of its kind, the CopenHill Ski Slope is the perfect manifestation of aesthetic and cultural harmony between industry and environment. Costing around £490 million at point of build, the attraction now draws around 55,000 visitors per year to the city.

Copenhagen has ambitious climate goals, aiming to become the first capital city to become carbon neutral by 2025. The creation of the Amager Bakke met the criteria for meeting these goals as the new plant would burn household waste instead of burning fossil fuels.

Located in the capital city of Denmark, the Amager Bakke is said to have the cleanest incinerator in the world. The plant receives over 400 tonnes of waste for recycling every day from households and business throughout Copenhagen. Scrubbing equipment removes the bulk of sulfur and nitrogen emissions and two huge furnaces burn 400,000 tonnes of waste at temperatures of around 1,000℃. A turbine and generator produce energy which is fed into grids. Any leftover energy from the steam is used to provide heating to over 72,000 homes. This is a system called district heating which is commonly used throughout Denmark.

Prior to Amager Bakke, Copenhagen relied on a coal plant was located just outside the city. Built in 1971, far from any residential areas to minimise disruption, the plant became unsuitable as the city expanded around it, forcing the municipal corporation owners to replace the plant with one that was safer, greener and wouldn’t be an eyesore. Thus, the Amager Bakke was born.

The plant is run by waste management firm, Amager Resource Centre (ARC) and owned by five local municipalities, while engineering firms Babcock and Wilcox Vollund built the main infrastructure for the plant.