Harteværket

Just 3 kilometers outside the city lies Harteværket - an experience center for both children and adults.

Here you'll have a good opportunity to learn about energy, water and movement in beautiful, historical settings. Bring your own packed lunch and eat it in the picnic house.

Harteværket is an attraction for both adults and children.

Inside the beautiful, historic building you can experience how water makes power. If you are lucky, there is enough water for the big turbines to start.
The interactive sandbox invites the children to lots of fun while the adults can explore the exhibition of old-fashioned electrical appliances.

The beautiful surroundings around Harteværket invite you to walk and stay in the fantastic nature.
Visit the water playground, with many hours of play or the new trampoline park with eight different trampolines. Take a walk along the large pipe where the water enters the turbines with up to 6,000 liters of water per second.

At Harteværket you can rent a canoe or a kayak and sail all the way to the city centre. Enjoy nature in a different way, have lunch in the city centre and sail back again. You can also sail under the motorway bridge and enjoy your packed lunch.

In Kolding city centre you have a stopover right at Søndertorv, where you can park the canoe, so you can enjoy the benefits of one of the nearby cafes or take a walk around the city centre.

There are different routes you can sail with different lengths, all with the opportunity to sail to the shore in different places and enjoy nature on land and eat a packed lunch.

See the tours on the Harteværket website and book your canoe here as well. It is a good idea that you get an overview of how far you can go on the trip -  please note that Harteværket is upstream, so you will need more time sailing the canoes back to Harteværket.

Read more about Harteværket here

Does Harteværket still play a role in today’s energy supply?

The short answer is: Yes. Even though the water supply has been dramatically reduced over the years, Harteværket can still be an essential part of the energy supply. The reduced water volume is due to nature restoration projects, e.g., rivers such as Vester Nebel Å. As a result, Harteværket now receives only about 1/3 of the water it did, when production was at its peak. When the plant was inaugurated, it produced about half of the electricity used in Kolding. Today, production covers only 1%.

From water to wind

The fact that the plant can still play a significant role in energy supply is due to the strong growth in wind energy. The wind is not strong every day. Therefore, wind power is inherently unpredictable. One day the wind turbines are producing at the peak of their performance. The next day they stand still, which does not happen with hydropower. Water levels can fluctuate in years of severe drought, but are otherwise stable. The water is there. It is dammed up in the Dons Lakes and has a drop of 25.4 metres, which is the highest drop in Denmark. When the plant runs at full power, 6,000 litres of water swirl through the plant every second. In horsepower terms, this gives a capacity of 1,350 hp or roughly 1,000 kW.

In this way, Harteværket, together with other smaller electricity supply production units, can help regulate and stabilise the overall electricity production. Today, more than ever, there is a need for such flexible generation, where power production can be quickly adjusted up or down in response to wind or other imbalances in the electricity system.

Bonus info: The original turbines and generators are still operating at the plant. Wear parts, such as slats, etc., are replaced as needed but the technology at Harteværket is the original and is now over 100 years old.