• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager
• BL Club
• Smartbuy
• Books

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

— N. Ramakrishnan

The Samso Energy Academy building in Samso, Denmark. The building itself is ecologically designed, with natural ventilation. Its walls and windows are highly insulated to minimise energy consumption.

N. Ramakrishnan

Chennai, Dec. 20 Everything happens like clockwork in Denmark. Or, rather you can set your watch by what happens. At least that is what we learnt and experienced during a recent four-day trip to this windy Scandinavian country.

On a bleak morning, after an early breakfast, we found that our taxi was waiting for us, for a nearly two-hour drive from Ringkobing to Hov, where we – three Indian journalists on a visit to Denmark sponsored by the wind turbine manufacturer Vestas, and a representative from Vestas India – were to board a ferry to Samso, an island in the Kattegat.

After disgorging its passengers and vehicles and taking in a fresh batch, the ferry leaves at the scheduled time — 11 a.m. sharp — to reach the Kolby Kas dock in Samso 75 minutes later.

During the taxi ride to our meeting venue, the Samso Energy Academy, the driver tells us that there are just three taxis on the island. During summer when there are a lot of tourists, there are five taxis, he adds.

Farming and tourism are the main economic activities here. But, that is not the speciality of the island nor is it the reason we are on it. Samso’s claim to fame is that it is almost entirely powered by renewable energy sources – the residents get their electricity from wind mills, which when generating to full capacity even export power to the mainland, while their heating comes from district heating systems that fire on either straw or wood chips.

Samsingers, as the inhabitants of the island are referred to, have invested in offshore wind turbines to offset the energy consumed by the transportation sector.

Samso – spread over 112 sq km with a population of around 4,100 – decided to go Green when the Danish Ministry of Energy announced a competition in 1997 as to which local area or island could come up with a plan for a 100 per cent transition to self-sufficiency with renewable energy. Four islands and a peninsula participated in the competition with Samso’s plan being selected the winner.

Jesper Kjems, in his 30s, a former Copenhagen-based freelance journalist and now the Samso Energy Academy’s communications officer, tells us that Samso’s quality of life appealed to him and so he and his wife have settled down on the island with their two children, aged five and one. He takes us through a presentation of Samso’s Green initiatives and drives us in a hybrid car to one of the district heating systems.

The academy’s building itself has been designed to take maximum advantage of natural light and the walls and windows have been heavily insulated to minimise electricity consumption. The building uses minimal drinking water and uses rainwater to flush the toilets. It is connected to the district straw-based heating system, while a solar thermal system delivers hot water.

An interesting aspect of this whole shift to renewable energy sources at Samso is the local participation and the employment it has generated. Apart from bank funding, individual residents have invested in the wind turbines, the 11 1-MW onshore and 10 2.3-MW offshore turbines.

Although the onshore wind turbines would have met the island’s electricity needs, Samso decided to go in for offshore turbines to compensate for the energy used in the transport sector. The idea being to produce an equivalent amount of CO{-2} free energy.

According to the Samso Energy Academy, the island has achieved remarkable results, which include substantially reducing its energy import from the mainland.

When the turbines are working at peak capacity, the island exports power to the mainland. The project “must be deemed almost completely successful”, says an evaluation done in 2007.

The report says that a direct transfer of Samso’s results to the whole of Denmark would require huge sums of money, but the benefits would be immense and the savings even larger.

More Stories on : Non-conventional Energy

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line