KJ

Kristian Jensen

Things Kristian Says on Podcasts

Where to Find Them

Kristian Jensen has been a guest on Volts .

Recently: “What’s up with Denmark?” on Volts (October 2026).

What They Said

“I come from a rural area. Going back, my family has always been farmers. So some of them might not like what I'm saying right now. But there is more biodiversity in a solar farm than a traditional corn field.” — Kristian Jensen, Volts

Roberts and Jensen are discussing agrivoltaics and the pushback against solar farms on Danish farmland. Jensen says that growing crops in the semi-shade under panels is still an early experiment, and that biodiversity has to be designed in from the start.

Volts · 2026-10-16 Permalink → Listen →
Volts Around 33:20 into the episode
Speaker 2

A lot of agrivoltakes in the US, I think, are being built around grazing. But as I understand it, most of the livestock in Denmark is pigs. I don't know if it works as well. I don't think it'll work as well around pigs. I don't think they're as friendly to.

Speaker 4

I think we

Kristian Jensen

see in the beginning a lot tried to have sheeps together with the solar farm. And what we're seeing right now is some kind of planted crop being used. There are crops that are actually working best in some kind of semi-shadow areas. So it could be under the solar panels. But it needs to be taken into account from the beginning. And it's still early days in exactly how to do that moving forward. We are looking into that and we're trying to also look into how to create biodiversity around the solar farm so that you can actually add to biodiversity. I come from a rural area. Going back, my family has always been farmers. So some of them might not like what I'm saying right now. But there are more biodiversity in a solar farm than a traditional corn field.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Kristian Jensen

Because the field, the corn or wheat or barley or whatever you have. It's a

Speaker 2

monocrop, right? It's a monocrop. And

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode
“Right now, data centers are just firing at the grid like they're throwing darts at a board, wanting to go wherever they can, hoping to get a connection, and perhaps asking for three or four locations, but only want to use one. The 70 gigawatts of demand that's out there is not real demand.” — Kristian Jensen, Volts

Roberts asked about Denmark's grid, which has about 7 gigawatts of peak capacity and roughly 70 gigawatts of connection requests, mostly from data centers. Jensen says Denmark needs some data centers, but puts the realistic figure at 20 to 25 gigawatts ten years from now.

Volts · 2026-10-16 Permalink → Listen →
Volts Around 13:45 into the episode
Kristian Jensen

…shut down the hydro plants and save the water for later. So we are each other's battery. It's not a one-way street, it's a two-way street. And we will be able to provide Norway with a lot of power in the coming years. And they will have to provide us back when the wind is not blowing in Denmark.

Speaker 2

…central utility has just cut off all connections for a while. Moratorium on new connections. I'm just curious how you think about data centers. Are they helpful? Are they hurting? Are they something you want to work around? Would you rather just keep them out? What's your mood towards data centers?

Kristian Jensen

Well, data centers are necessary. Our computer systems work in a cloud. My bank is in the clouds. My pictures from my families are in the clouds. There's so many things in the cloud, so we need data centers. The health system in Denmark also works via data centers. So we need them. And of course, we should have some in Denmark as well. But we can't have all the data centers in the world. And right now, data centers are just firing at the grid like they're throwing darts and a board, wanting to go wherever they can, hoping to get a connection, and perhaps asking for three or four locations, but only want to use one. The 70 gigawatts of demand that's out there is not real demand. Right. Because some of them are data centers asking for more sites or batteries, hoping to get online. But at some point, batteries will also be filled up in Denmark, not needing more on the market. So I think the realistic target in Denmark should be around 20, 25 gigawatts coming 10 years from now. But that's also a huge increase, but we can manage this. You

Speaker 2

don't worry about that crowding out electrification of other sectors. That sort of soaking up all the electricity and making it that much harder for heating and cars and everything.

Kristian Jensen

Of course, we worry about that. That's also why the government actually, in these days, this week, are discussing a bill.

Speaker 2

I was going to ask you about that. It's very fascinating.

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode

Collections They Appear In

Climate & Energy