by Dish Staff
Energy Duck, an entry in the Land Art Generator Initiative competition, is conceived as a 12-story-high structure that would collect solar power in Copenhagen Harbor. Beckett Mufson summed up the project last month:
Conceived by London artists Hareth Pochee, Adam Khan, Louis Leger, and Patrick Fryer, the so-called Energy Duck would be topped with a photovoltaic mesh, gathering energy from the sun and funneling it directly into the Copenhagen power grid. Supplemented with an innovative hybrid hydrolic turbine system, when extra energy needs to be delivered— at night, for instance— the duck floods its base, transfering the water through its turbines to generate more electricity. Then next day, it uses energy generated through the solar panels to pump the water back out. A fun consequence of this design is that the duck rises and sinks depending on how much energy it needs to pump into the Danish capital city.
Andrea Chin elaborates:
additionally, ‘energy duck’ has been conceived to be completely scalable depending on the situation: a 40m high duck serves a town; a 20m high duck serves a village, and a 4m high duck serves an individual house. re-imagining our perception of what a power generator can be and do, the ‘energy duck’ brings to mind BIG architect’s amagerforbraending ski slope incinerator located nearby, that follows a similar approach, in which an industrial factory has been envisioned as a power plant, that also stands as a destination for recreational activity and art installation.
(Photo of Energy Duck: A submission to the 2014 Land Art Generator Initiative Copenhagen design competition, courtesy of LAGI. Design Team: Hareth Pochee, Adam Khan, Louis Leger, Patrick Fryer. The winners of LAGI 2014 will be announced on October 3 at the Danish Design Centre in Copenhagen, where Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner of Climate Action, will be presenting the awards)
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