WIND AND WAVES

Denmark’s evergreen island

BY JESPER LØVENBALK HANSEN

Ten years ago, Samsø accepted a major challenge: CO₂ emissions had to be reduced to zero and all the island’s electricity should come from renewable energy. It took eight years to reach the objective, and today Samsø is exporting green energy to the rest of Denmark. Photo: Energiakademiet.dk

Wind turbines, straw and rapeseed oil – in less than ten years the residents of the small Danish island of Samsø have managed to reduce CO₂ emissions by 140 per cent. Today renewable energy is the traditional farming community’s largest export

Briefly stated, Samsø is a 114 square kilometre windswept island with a population of around 4,000 people. For centuries the island’s inhabitants and their ancestors have benefited from the sea’s moist breezes and the nutrient-rich soil, which together provide some of the best cultivation conditions in Denmark. This is where the year’s first potato harvest and the best strawberries come from. During the summer, people from all over Denmark flock to Samsø to enjoy the island’s landscapes, fishing hamlets and long beaches. And this is how Danes have known Samsø for generations. But ten years ago, a new chapter began, and today Samsø has a very different story to tell.

In 1997, the Danish Ministry of Environment and Energy arranged a competition for the most realistic and viable plan for a complete reorganisation of a local area’s energy supply to 100 per cent renewable energy. The reason was that in 1992 the Danish government had already set the target that 35 per cent of the country’s energy should come from renewable energy by 2030, and now the Ministry of Environ ment and Energy wanted to speed up a number of local initiatives to prove that the idea of renewable energy was not just hot air.

PlanEnergi, a small local consultancy firm, prepared a proposal for Samsø – which won the competition. Based on the island’s resources of wind, sun, straw and wood chips, the aim was to make Samsø self-sufficient with renewable energy and reduce CO₂ emissions to zero over a period of just ten years.

“Suddenly Samsø’s local politicians had won a very ambitious competition to become Denmark’s environmental island. I think it frightened them a bit because how would they now go about that task? But fortunately they took on the challenge,” says Jesper Kjems of Samsø Energy Academy.

POPULAR SUPPORT

But it was far from just Samsø’s local politicians who were unprepared for the task. The islands’ inhabitants, who value their quiet existence and possess a healthy scepticism for anything new from outside, seemed an almost insurmountable challenge.

“Many myths had to be dispelled at the beginning. Myths that it would cost us in lost tourism, that wind turbines would plaster the ground with dead birds and that kind of thing,” says Jesper Kjems.

Initially, 11 wind turbines were to be installed on land. They would collectively cover the island’s electricity needs. At the same time, four thermal plants powered by straw, wood chips and solar panels were planned. The investments had to be raised locally, so it was imperative that Samsø’s inhabitants supported the plans.

“Fortunately farmers are good at sums,” Jesper Kjems explains, “and we received 50 applications from private farmers who all wanted permission to install one of the 11 wind turbines.”

It’s one thing to have enterprising farmers, who are used to weighing up risks. They can see a good business opportunity when it presents itself. But the remaining inhabitants of school teachers, bakers and general wage-earners are another thing altogether. Their ability and desire to invest are more modest and to persuade them to join a common environmental project requires patience, a good strategy and a person who knows everything and everybody in the local community.

To take on that task, Samsø Municipality employed Søren Hermansen. As Samsø’s first energy guide he had to convince the islanders that the project would be to their own advantage, but that their participation was a requirement.

“The difficulty has been to turn the process from being a top-down managed project, where some politicians and experts have an idea, to a local project where the individual citizens of Samsø could see the opportunities,” says Søren Hermansen.

His first task was to identify a number of local entrepreneurs with the capacity and desire to invest. And then he had to find the key individuals to get the entire project moving.

“The straw, which the farmers previously just burnt on their land, has now become a thriving business. They sell their straw to heating plants and get the ashes back, which they spread on their land as fertiliser. In addition, waste wood is being used as fuel and solar thermal panels are used to heat water,” says Jesper Kjems of Samsø Energy Academy. Photo: Energiakademiet.dk

Since the offshore wind turbine park was completed in February 2003, Samsø municipality has earned around DKK 1 million annually from sales of electricity. The profit has been spent on building and operating the Energy Academy, which is Samsø’s laboratory for new environmental projects, teaching and information. Read more: http://www.energiakademiet.dk. Photo: Energiakademiet.dk

THE BLACKSMITH

Such a man is the blacksmith, Ole Hemmingsen. As director of the blacksmiths Brd. Stjerne, he has been responsible for many of the oil-burning furnaces that have been installed on Samsø, and which regularly need to be replaced. So he and the rest of the island’s blacksmiths were chosen to inform people about the opportunity to invest in sustainable heating.

All the island’s blacksmiths were taught how to install solar panels and environmentally friendly wood-burning stoves, and with their solar certificates in their hands, they could sell green technology at competitive prices as an alternative to oil-burning furnaces. And then green technology suddenly became popular on Samsø.

“It has become prestigious to have solar panels, and people no longer ask so much about the economics of it. It has simply become smarter to have five solar panels on the roof than a Mercedes Benz in the garage,” says Ole Hemmingsen.

Today there are 300 private heating plants powered by solar panels and energy-saving wood-burning stoves. Together with the island’s four heating plants, they ensure that 70 per cent of all heating on Samsø is CO₂ neutral.

SLEEPLESS ON SAMSØ

As soon as you arrive on Samsø, you can see that something has happened to the island – that the islanders have been persuaded. Ten offshore wind turbines tower more than 300 feet into the sky. These turbines produce 80,000 MWh annually, sufficient to cover the electricity needs of 5,000 households.

Of the ten offshore wind turbines, three are owned by private investors and two were offered on a cooperative ownership basis, in which a total of 430 islanders have each bought a share. The five other offshore wind turbines are owned by the municipality, which initially gave Samsø’s mayor sleepless nights. He headed the Samsø municipality that invested DKK 125 million of the islanders’ money in wind turbines.

“In one night we indebted Samsø to the tune of almost 40,000 kroner per inhabitant. It was a move that gave me sleepless nights for weeks,” says Samsø’s Mayor, Carsten Bruun.

The same model applies to the wind turbines on land. Nine of the 11 are owned by private farmers. The other two are cooperatively owned with 450 individuals each holding shares.

A quarter of the residents on Samsø thus have a share in wind turbines. Virtually every family has invested in green heating of their homes. Farmers are experimenting with biodiesel made from rapeseed oil, and the municipality’s annual surplus of approx. DKK 1 million from sales of electricity from their five offshore wind turbines has been reinvested in Samsø Energy Academy, which again supports the development of new projects. And all the way through, the Samsø model has been used: local investments and local ownership.

“You might call it romanticism, but I think people like making some things together. It is not enough just to pay your taxes and let the public sector supply communal goods. At the same time, it gives us a really good feeling to be masters over what transpires here. It instils local pride and that is what we are building the projects on,” says Søren Hermansen.

Jesper Kjems agrees. He opines that is has been crucial that Samsø’s population realised early on that they would recover some of the life and vitality that many outlying areas of Denmark are slowly losing.

“Local embeddedness has been a vital factor. The project has branched out across the whole island, and everybody depends on it. And then it is unimportant whether people participate for the sake of money or for ideological reasons. As long as the end objective is the same. So our message is that people do not necessarily need to do this for the sake of polar bears. They can just do it for their own sakes.”

The farmer who’s laughing all the way to the bank

BY JESPER LØVENBALK HANSEN

Jørgen Tranberg was one of the first on Samsø to seriously engage in making the island CO₂-neutral. He has invested DKK 19 million in green energy and today is the owner of a land-based 1 MW wind turbine as well as the co-owner of one of Samsø’s ten 2.3 MW offshore wind turbines. Photo: Energiakademiet.dk

Farmer, money man and environmentalist. Jørgen Tranberg is all of these things. He has his farm, his land and his cows. And a 150 foot high wind turbine that spins gold

A journalist from The New Yorker has described Jørgen Tranberg as “a beefy man with a mop of brown hair and an unpredictable sense of humor.”

He thinks that is funny, just as he altogether finds most things funny.

“Well, it’s true enough. But when I first came to this island, I was also a precocious young man with new ideas.”

With his blue overalls, rumpled hair and creased T-shirt, Jørgen Tranberg unmistakeably resembles the farmer he is, and was in 1983 when he moved from west Jutland to Samsø as a young man to cultivate the good, cheap soil.

At that time, wind turbines and sustainable energy were still something mostly associated with ageing hippies and tree huggers. The residents of Samsø had no idea that wind turbines at some point would become the very symbol of the island.

“When I arrived, I quickly noticed that it always blows like crazy here. So I joined an investment company in Kolby Kås ferry town, where we installed the island’s first wind turbine. That was when things actually started.”

IDEALISM WITH COMMON SENSE

The first wind turbine has long since delivered its return on investment, and now simply stands as a symbol of a bygone age, where attitudes to wind turbines went from prejudice and scepticism to a good business proposition.

Jørgen Tranberg has also advanced a lot further in the 25 years he has spent on Samsø. After the first investment, he was one of the first and most pertinacious advocates of making Samsø a green energy island. And although people on the island would not describe Jørgen Tranberg as a dyed-in-the-wool idealist – he explains that it is also serious.

“You don’t invest 19 million kroner purely for its own sake. I put everything on the line – my farm, my land, even my dog – everything. It would be too easy to say that it was for the sake of the environment alone.”

Jørgen Tranberg does however reveal that his total investments are repaying him well. He owns one of Samsø’s 11 wind turbines on land, and half of one of the ten giant offshore wind turbines. And as with any other good farmer, the idea of independence is always a crucial argument.

“We simply cannot risk dependency on oil from the Middle East or other places. So my view is that we had better get some wind turbines installed.”

That is Jørgen Tranberg’s philosophy. And his strategy is equally simple:

“You take an estate owner, a mayor and a bunch of farmers. Together we know what common sense is. We’re no dummies.”

TIME Magazine acclaims environmental hero from Samsø

BY JESPER LØVENBALK HANSEN

Søren Hermansen has become a celebrity on TIME Magazine’s current list of the ten greatest environmental heroes in the world. The same list includes California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Chinese journalist and environmental activist Wang Yongchen, and the green venture capitalist John Doerr. Photo: Energiakademiet.dk

Former school teacher Søren Hermansen has fought to make Samsø Denmark’s sustainable island for the last ten years. Now he is ranked on TIME Magazine’s list of the world’s ten greatest environmental heroes

Like a missionary he has knocked on doors across the island. He has held countless presentations in local village halls. He has drawn, he has talked, and he has convinced the Samsø islanders that it is their island which should be Denmark’s finest renewable energy showcase. And although he has been far from alone in carrying out the work, it is Søren Hermansen to whom a significant part of the credit is ascribed for Samsø today being 100% self-sufficient with CO₂-free, sustainable energy.

So who is Søren Hermansen. An idealist? Yes, absolutely. Before Søren Hermansen took on the position as Samsø’s leading environmentalist, he was an environmental instructor at one of the island’s schools where he taught the pupils sustainable ways of living.

But Søren Hermansen is also a realist, who understood back in 1997 that it was neither idealism nor doomsday speeches about environmental catastrophes, global warming and rising sea levels which would convince Samsø’s 4,000 inhabitants to invest their time and resources in what has become one of the most efficiently conducted green revolutions.

“We held a lot of meetings in village halls and inns, and that took a couple of years. Many people were initially sitting on their hands, doubting whether it would be possible. But there were some who could see the development opportunities and the benefits to themselves in the idea. It was not about idealism and environmentalism, but about creating new products and business opportunities as well as bread on the table,” Søren Hermansen has told Danish newspaper Dagbladet Information.

Today, ten years after Søren Hermansen started his mission, the results can be read in Samsø’s energy and CO₂ accounts. Previously, Samsø depended on oil and diesel that were shipped to the island, and on electricity produced by coal-fired power stations which was supplied via an under-sea cable from the mainland. Today, the power flows in the opposite direction; electricity produced from renewable energy has become the island’s largest export. It means that whereas in 1997 Samsø’s annual CO₂ emissions were 45,000 tons, the figure today is –15,000 tons: a negative number because the islanders now produce so much renewable energy that they can export clean environment.

GREEN ORACLE

Now that the big wide world has become aware of Samsø, Søren Hermansen has become a man to whom everyone looks for answers. As TIME Magazine writes in its reason for adding his name to the Heroes of the Environment 2008 list of the world’s currently most important environmental heroes: “Hermansen has become a green oracle, travelling from country to country telling the story of Samso’s success when he’s not at home running the Energy Academy, a research center for clean power.”

When anyone asks, they are given the answer that the story of Samsø goes from the bottom upwards. “The crucial point is that we have shown that if you want to change how you generate energy, you have to start at the community level,” says Søren Hermansen.

The car that likes a headwind

BY INGE KJÆRGAARD

DTU’s wind turbine car with Robert Mikkelsen at the wheel during the Aeolus Matchrace in the Netherlands.

Its name is winDTUrbine racer – the wind turbine car that a team of students and researchers from the Technical University of Denmark have developed

Most of the time it’s preferable to have a tailwind – especially if you need the wind to move forwards. But at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) a competition car has been developed which gets its means of forward movement from a headwind.

In January 2008 a team at DTU started planning the wind-driven car, and senior researcher Robert Mikkelsen became the project manager.

“We made some initial analyses to find out whether it was at all possible to drive directly against the wind. It was, and we actually discovered that in principle you can drive infinitely fast, but there are natural factors like friction which prevent you from achieving it,” he explains.

Over the summer, the car was built with the aim of competing in the Aeolus Matchrace in the Netherlands. The car is two metres wide, three and a half metres long, and the wind turbine which powers the car is located about two metres up in the air behind the driver. The wind turbine channels the energy of the wind to the rear wheel drive – the wheels turn and the car moves forward against the wind.

The highest speeds recorded so far are 23-25 kilometres per hour, depending on the strength of the headwind.

“There are still some unknown factors, and there are several things that need to be improved – we need to minimise transmission losses, improve the aerodynamics and develop a new rotor especially optimised for the wind turbine car. Our first objective was a functional car – in the next project we will make detailed measurements and get a better picture of the connection between theory and actual performance,” explains Robert Mikkelsen.

But what can it actually be used for – will the ordinary motorist drive around with a turbine on the roof?

“It’s difficult to say how the future will look. The project demonstrates that wind energy can be used for transportation in a direct headwind. And in the future, wind energy will contribute significantly more to transport than is the case today. That is what this project is contributing to,” says Robert Mikkelsen, who conducts research into wind turbines and can transfer his knowledge to the wind turbine car project, and vice versa.

“From a larger perspective, it expands our knowledge of rotor aerodynamics. In the long term, the question is whether the wind turbine car will find application in a way where it gains a broad influence in relation to transport and wind energy, or whether it will be at a level where it is generally considered a gimmick. It is difficult to foresee,” he says.

In addition to the car being used for research, the project has considerable value for teaching.

“For the students, it is a really good project – we have developed some mechanical equations that are very useful from the teaching perspective,” he says.

“We have calculated that you should be able to drive at 100-140% of the wind speed, so quite a lot is still missing, and we are working on eliminating the reasons why the car loses speed. We have discovered that textbook theories and data were insufficient. We need to measure several things to become more knowledgeable about the mechanics, so that we can increase the speed of the car,” says Robert Mikkelsen.

Riding a wave of potential

BY NADIA LOUISE KRISTENSEN

The Wave Dragon prototype in a real sea test. © Wave Dragon.

The potential is enormous and far from exploited. 70 per cent of the earth’s surface is covered by water – water that moves. And in that movement lies an inexhaustible energy resource.

The UK’s Carbon Trust estimates that the potential for wave energy is between 2,000 and 4,000 TWh per year. In comparison, the world’s total electricity production in 2003 was just under 15,000 TWh. In other words up to a third of the world’s electricity can be generated from wave energy, which could see it overtake wind energy.

“The energy density in water is 800 to 1,000 times greater than in air. That is why you can obtain more energy per unit area of sea by using wave energy rather than exploiting the water surface to build offshore wind turbines. And if you combine water and wind energy there is a lot of energy to get,” says Peter Frigaard, who is a senior lecturer specialising in wave energy at Aalborg University in Denmark.

For nearly a century, environmental enthusiasts and technical wizards have toyed with the idea of extracting energy from waves. The oil crises in the 1970s gave a tailwind to environmental enthusiasts – governments and corporations in the western world became aware that it could be a good idea to disengage from the alarming uncertainty of oil prices. Investments were made in development of wind turbines and wave energy plants.

“There was rapid development at the time, but after some years the energy crisis ended, and alternative energies were no longer quite so interesting,” says Kim Nielsen of the Danish engineering and consultancy company Rambøll. He has been involved in wave energy for 30 years.

CUTTING CORNERS

Wind turbines continued to ride the wave of success that the energy crises propelled, while interest in wave energy plants was again consigned to the backwaters.

“There is only one wind – that is why it is easier and cheaper to test wind turbines. And in principle you can install a wind turbine in your back garden. Wave energy machines need to be adjusted to the size of the waves – so you cannot put a small machine out in a large ocean. And even if you find a place with small waves, small wave energy machines are still expensive to test,” says Hans Christian Sørensen, who is chairman of the European industry association for wave energy, and also chairs the board of Danish wave energy concept firm Wave Dragon.

In the 1980s and 1990s, sea tests were made with wave energy machines – but they couldn’t withstand the temper of the waves.

“There were some who tried to cut corners with wave energy machines which had not been tested on a smaller scale first. It didn’t work,” says Hans Christian Sørensen.

And it remains a challenge today. The cruel sea and the instincts of investors will decide wave energy’s future.

WIND TURBINES PAVE THE WAY

But the future looks brighter for wave energy. The western world is again threatened with expensive oil, which under all circumstances has an expiry date. Because oil is a scarce resource – in contrast to wind and waves, which can never run out. That is why interest in renewable energy has appeared on the political world agenda, and why wave energy has crawled up the interest ladder. And climate change has also made the interest in renewable energy even more widespread.

The first completed plants have been inaugurated in Portugal, and several more are on their way. There are more than 200 wave power concepts and more than 1,000 patents taken out worldwide, reflecting big differences in the principles on which they are based. Some are submerged while others sit on the surface. Some are so far away from land that they cause no disturbance to expensively bought sea views, while others lie close to the shore.

In Denmark, several wave energy machines are under development. A Danish pilot plant from Wave Dragon was the first offshore plant in the world to supply power to the grid in 2003.

The full-scale version of Wave Dragon is also set to be the world’s biggest, producing twice as much power as the largest wind turbine. One plant can produce enough power for 7,000 households, and next year British and Portuguese homes are set to benefit from clean wave energy.

“If everything goes well, after installing the first plant in Wales by the end of 2009, we can install 10 plants in Portugal and 10 plants in England from 2010/2011. Because in those countries we can get threefold better price for the electricity than in for example Denmark,” says Hans Christian Sørensen.

The price of one plant is approx. DKK 75 million. With 10 plants, Wave Dragon can cover the electricity demand of 50,000-70,000 households.

In many ways, the wind turbine industry has paved the way for wave energy in Denmark.

In addition to being renewable energy, wave energy and wind energy employ similar technologies, so Danish wave energy companies have a well-developed network of sub-suppliers available.

“We have a long tradition from biomass and wind turbines. A lot of the technology we use in our control systems has been developed for the wind turbine industry. We have the entire network of companies to draw on,” says Hans Christian Sørensen.

The Wave Star machine does not form a barrier against the waves, but cuts in at right angles to the direction of the wave. In this way the waves run through the length of the machine, and their energy is exploited in a continuous process. Photo: Wave Star

A model of a new Wave Star test station off the Danish west coast. The station will be ready for visits during COP15 – the 2009 UN Climate Conference which takes place in Denmark. Photo: Wave Star

CLOSE TO THE HEARTS OF DANES

Renewable energy has been close to the hearts of Danes for decades – and that has powered many wave energy projects.

“You could say that it lies in the soul of the people to explore renewable energy. There is a lot of interest and attention. But the important thing is to raise it from the hobby level. And wave energy requires a lot of money. You cannot just be a capable inventor who starts something up in a garage. It needs more than that,” explains Per Steenstrup, one of the owners of Wave Star Energy. Many Danish companies have realistic ideas about how to build plants that last. The next big challenge will be to make wave energy machines cheap enough to be worth one’s while.

“It is a myth that you cannot make something that lasts. Of course you can. It is no different to making an oil rig. There have just not been sufficient resources put into making these designs. The problem is really to produce the energy at a price that is competitive,” says Peter Frigaard.

But Danish manufacturers are optimistic. They have learned from dealing carelessly with the power of the sea back in the 1980s. The plants are tested again and again – initially in more quiet waters and on a smaller scale. It is a laborious work to adjust the machinery to the waves. Many of the parts need to move – but must not buckle in a storm.

“As an engineer you can calculate all sorts of things – but in real life, all sorts of other things can happen besides those you have worked out. So you have to make tests,” explains Per Steenstrup .

When first the plants are mass-produced, the manufacturers will be certain that wave energy can compete with wind energy.

“To be competitive with wind turbines, the Wave Star plant must reduce its price per kilowatt hour by four to six times. In comparison, the wind turbine industry had to reduce its prices sevenfold to reach the price level of wind turbine energy today,” says Per Steenstrup.