Denmark’s copenhill power plant sports a rooftop ski slope

A waste-to-energy plant called CopenHill in Denmark’s capital features a series of unlikely attractions – in addition to an artificial ski slope and hiking trails on its roof, it also has a climing wall on its façade. Emily Eastman reports Danish architecture firm BIG’s CopenHill power plant, dubbed the “cleanest waste-to-energy power plant in the world”, opened its rooftop ski slope to the public in October. It has been described by the factory’s managing director, Jacob Simonsen, as an example of “hedonistic sustainability”.

The green, “neveplast”, synthetic turf may not look like snow but it is actually slippery enough to ski and snowboard down – all 450 metres of it. (It’s also the steepest slope of its kind in the world.)

The 4.4 million square foot power plant, which is also known as the Amager Resource Center (ARC), opened in 2017 and has been turning unrecyclable trash into energy ever since.

By incinerating waste, it generates enough heat and electricity for 150,000 homes in the area – all while saving waste from landfill where it could emit methane, and releasing less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than if it were burning fossil fuels. (The plant is capable of converting 440,000 tons of waste into clean energy annually.)

But CopenHill isn’t just in the business of energy production – the power plant was designed to double as an “epicentre for urban mountain sport”.

In addition to a ski slope, there are 500 metres of rooftop hiking trails with real foliage and the tallest manmade climbing wall in the world (at 85 metres) on its façade. There is also a rooftop bar and fitness area.

Copenhagen itself has plans to become the first zero-carbon capital city in the world within the next five years.

Ref: globetrender