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Version 2.0

Version 2.0 – This IS difficult

From Samsø 1.0 to 2.0

Samsø 2.0 is what we call our efforts to make Samsø independent of fossil fuels.
In conjunction with this, we’ve listed seven intermediate goals that go from tangible to process oriented to relational. Read more below about these seven intermediate goals.

From 1998 to 2008, it was about restructuring, transitioning from fossil energy to renewable energy. We succeeded, and Samsø and its residents can call themselves today 100% self-sufficient from an energy accounting perspective, which balances annual production and consumption.

The difficult next item from 2008 is about taking a look at the various technologies and seeing how we could use them in a more detailed restructuring and a larger degree of direct self-sufficiency. In other words, not only a balanced energy account, but lasting local energy production and use. This requires that a political framework exists for these changes, and that pricing and the market are ready to support a positive renewable energy budget. And last but not least, that the various
technologies are mature and competitive compared to existing systems.

Trust and a belief in the future needed to be reinforced. There was a need for solid budgets and financing. Popular support would be weak if these conditions weren’t met and the economics were short-sighted and uncertain.

At Samsø Energy Academy, we consider 2.0 as a pause for reflection after ten hectic years with great activity in order to reach the 1.0 goal of Samsø as Denmark’s Renewable Energy Island. We needed to look forward with calm and contemplation.

What now? An examination of possibilities point to a need for a new analysis of resources. What do we have available? Can we use straw for heat in a sustainable system, or should we restructure once again and use the straw for biogas, and electricity from wind turbines for heat pumps to run district
heating? These and many other questions were considered in Samsø 2.0.
Samsø Energy Academy consolidated as an institution after the opening of its building in 2007.

Since then, we’ve looked beyond the island and Denmark to the EU and the rest of the world to network and find partners. In this way, we’ve ensured our existence and our activities, which otherwise were in danger of being shut down.

Samsø 2.0 is about the transition and rethinking the term “sustainability.” What does this mean for Samsø? And for Denmark? We participated in the exciting preparations leading up to the 2009 United Nations climate conference COP 15 in Copenhagen. The Energy Academy’s CEO Søren Hermansen was on an advisory panel for the Danish Minister of Climate Change, Connie Hedegaard, and efforts were made to promote the results we had achieved in Denmark and on Samsø.

Overall goals until 2030

To be an exhibition window to the world:
We want to expand Samsø’s role as an exhibition window for Danish knowledge and experience by incorporating an energy system without the use of fossil fuels, and at the same time show how effective energy solutions can be introduced into the community.

To ensure community support:
We want to endure the continued community support of the initiatives and aim at attaining the residents’ co-ownership of our fossil fuel independent island.

To seize opportunities:
We would like to seize the available opportunities to establish sustainable solutions – usually by using well-known and thoroughly tested technologies.

To have an international perspective:
We want to learn from international experience and ensure that we are open to the outside world.

To use the island’s resources:
We want to use the island’s natural resources in an intelligent way.

To establish and ensure skills:
To establish, maintain and develop a flexible way to organize initiatives, so goal-oriented work in the best way possible makes use of the professional and human competencies that are available for the island.