‘Europe needs to shed its naivety’: Vestas CEO Henrik Andersen on Chinese competition and the energy issue that keeps him up at night

Before wind turbines became some of the world’s most imposing energy structures, Henrik Andersen watched them from a window in Jutland, Denmark’s windswept western peninsula.

The future Vestas chief executive recalls being fascinated by the distant machines as a child. “I was desperate to understand how they worked,” he says.

A technology transformed by scale

The turbines Andersen saw in his youth were considerably smaller than those being built today. Their blades were shorter, their towers lower and their appearance closer to that of a traditional windmill.

Modern turbines have grown to an extraordinary scale. The tallest now exceed 300 meters, while their rotor blades are longer than a football field. That contrast illustrates the physical transformation of wind power technology over the course of Andersen’s lifetime.

Andersen’s childhood memory provides a personal starting point for understanding the industry’s development: what once appeared as distant, relatively modest machinery has evolved into infrastructure that dominates the landscape at previously unseen heights.

A personal connection to the industry

For Andersen, the technology was not an abstract concept encountered later in his career. It was part of the landscape around him from an early age, prompting questions about how the turbines operated and helping shape a lasting interest in wind energy.