At our project meeting at Da Vinci College in March 2022, we had a special guest. Marcel Meijer – the Mayor of the Danish island Samsø – talked about what had been done to reduce the energy consumption and use renewable energy sources in Samsø.
In 1997 Samsø Municipality took the political decision to become Denmark’s renewable island in 10-year time. Since then, Samsø has completely transformed its energy system from fossil fuels to renewable energy, becoming the world’s first renewable energy island. Key results that have been achieved include: becoming carbon negative; 100% local ownership of renewable energy investments, and significant socio-economic benefits from the energy transition.
Samsø has now renewed its ambitions and aims to become completely carbon-free by 2030. This means that no fossil fuels will be used, and all the energy needs will be covered by renewable energy. Samsø realized that it is not alone in this transition and that many other communities would be interested in learning from this experience. This led to the establishment of the Samsø Energy Academy with a mandate of the municipality. You can get more information about that at https://energiakademiet.dk/en/
