At Fejø island we have a dream...a dream of transitioning to 100% renewable energy for all of our community's electricity consumption. Not only because this is the right thing to do for our planet and the green national transition in Denmark and Europe. But because fulfilling our dream would provide our community and citizens with many benefits and make Fejø an attractive place to live for existing and potential new families.
Fejø is a small Danish island in the southern part of Denmark. We are 430 permanent citizens and approximately double during tourist season. The climate is ideal for growing apples, pears and plums, and our small island has many hundreds of thousands of fruit trees and “Apples from Fejø” is a known brand all over Denmark.
The dream of transitioning to 100% renewable energy started with the Clean energy for EU islands secretariat's 30 for 2030 program about three years ago. Our local transition team has worked hard since then, together with the secretariat and the regional partner, Samsø Energi Akademi. We have investigated technical options, and we have involved our local community with 10 community meetings.
The dream was to replace two small, old wind turbines with one new, big 2MW wind turbine owned as much as possible by the local community as a cooperative. With this size we would be able to not only to supply our own consumption, but to create a surplus by selling this to the mainland, so we would be able to create a green fund, and with that enable energy renovation of private homes, switching oil heating to electrical heating pumps, public electrical car chargers...and maybe even over time buy up conventional agriculture land and turn into real wild nature.
The last element about wild nature is relevant, because the only location on the island, which would be acceptable in the eyes of the local citizens, happens to be a peninsula, which is Natura2000. The peninsula is covered by conventional agriculture, but is still certified as Natura2000. Thus, the hope is to create a true wild nature area instead.
Dreams don’t always come true...at least not in their full. Our dream has had to diminish somewhat due to the fact that our electricity grid cannot connect to the larger wind turbine. Now we are moving forward with a smaller wind turbine, however that will eliminate our dream of the green fund from the wind turbine surplus. But a smaller wind turbine will still enable us to become 100% renewable, together with existing solar panels on rooftops.
The next phase is to make the planning become live. We are starting: “Fejø Energy Community”. With this, we will share existing renewable energy, and once/if we get our new wind turbine, the production from this will go into this energy community as well. Hopefully, soon we will be able to start a more formal municipality process for the new wind turbine. This we know will be a long process with many potential blockers on the road...municipality planning process, coastal line protection, Natura2000....etc
But we hope for this dream – even though smaller scale than hoped – will come true, and we will work hard over the coming years to make it happen. Fejø has a proven record of community power: when we set our minds on something and gather all our local community heroes...it often works our way.
- Christa Kloch, Fejø Clean Energy Transition Team