Non-participants

Samsø’s green energy project doesn’t involve everyone

By Andrea Moran and Elke Willemsen

Samsø is famed worldwide for its energy self-sufficiency and community participation in green technology.  But there’s more to the island than potato farms and wind turbines.  Hidden from the media spotlight is a community who doesn’t reap the financial benefits from its renewable technology.

In 1997, the island of over 4,100 inhabitants took on the goal of becoming energy independent within 10 years. Now the island gets all of its energy from its 21 wind turbines. Some local farmers have invested money in these turbines, and are now starting to see a financial return.

However, farmers and energy investors aren’t the majority of Samsø’s population.

Lasse Weimann, 65, and Grethe Henriksen, 66, are two artists who’ve witnessed Samsø’s development after it was named “Denmark’s Renewable Energy Island” a decade ago. After moving from Copenhagen to Permelille, a town in central Samsø, 20 years ago, the couple noticed an increase of visitors to the island.

“Many tourists started coming to the island and more artists found their way because of the cheap houses, space, peace and nature”, Henriksen said.

When the couple first arrived on Samsø, there were three art galleries, and within ten years the amount tripeled.  The island also established the Art and Culture Association, known as KOKS, its Danish acyronym.  The purpose of the group is for artists to network and promote their businesses on the island.

But despite the increase of international visitors, the couple’s art sales have remained the same.

Henriksen has no investment in renewable energy. Her business is selling around 30 paintings a year.

“Visitors are more interested in the energy than in paintings,” Henriksen said. “We sell enough to keep doing what we do, it is business,” she adds. In total, the couple sells around 30 paintings a year.

“If we didn’t sell, we wouldn’t be able to live here anymore,” Weimann adds.

Their main observation since Samsø became 100 percent energy independent is  the rise in their utility bills.

“Gradually the prices and taxes of electricity and water have gone up over the past years. Where we used to pay 300 krones for water, we now have to pay 6,000 krones a year”, Henriksen explains.

The general energy tax raises throughout Denmark is one reason for the price increase. Another is that wind energy is more expensive than ‘normal’ energy.

“We didn’t invest in the turbines and panels because it would have taken too long for us to actually feel and get the benefits”, Weimann says. “ And we didn’t have the capacity to do so”, he adds.

About half of the people on the island have directly invested in the green technology. Twelve of the island’s twenty-one wind turbines are privately owned by farmers.

“Now the ones benefiting from the wind turbines are only the shareholders, because they sell their sustainable energy surpluses for a cheap price to energy companies”, Weimann says. He adds that in return, the energy companies sell that surplus energy back to Samsø’s inhabitants who aren’t able to provide themselves with their own energy sources.

Despite this, the couple says that there are no rivalries between the farmers and the rest of the community.

“Only if the farmers come with bigger wind turbines”, Weimann said, because bigger means more noise she said.

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While Samsø is self-sufficient with green energy, it is not everyone who benefit from CO2 free way of thinking. Islanders who don’t have shares in windmills or heating plants pay a lot more to keep their neighbours in business. The avereage islanders are paying more for energy now than before the island went green.

Power in Samsø is more expensive than in most of the other places in Denmark.