Soren Hermansen, of Denmark, may be an international expert on renewable energy, who travels the world to talk about wind, solar and biomass power.
But his instant connection with the 30 residents of Chebeague Island whom he spoke to at the Chebeague Island Boatyard on Nov. 6, emphasized that Hermansen, despite his international fame, remains an islander at heart.
“We are from an island and we know how it is to be an island, so we’re feeling that we are back home now,” Hermansen said. Hermansen is from the Danish island of Samso. The island is 19 miles long, five miles wide with 4,000 year-round inhabitants. He is the director of the of the Samso Energy Academy in Denmark.
During his Chebeague visit, Hermansen and his wife, Malene Lunden, a photographer and facilotor, also spoke to the island school children. The Island Institute sponsored his visit to Chebeague, with lunch paid for by the Chebeague Island Community Association. Jen Belesca and Vicky Todd, who run The Niblic, prepared lunch and boatyard co-owner Paul Belesca donated the use of the boatyard’s function room.
Samso has become celebrated for its switch to renewable energy. Before 1997, the island paid $10 million annually to import all its energy from the mainland. Then the island won a competition held by the Danish government for its plan to cut carbon output and use renewable energy. Islanders were disappointed to find the prize came with no money. They pursued the goal anyway, with Hermansen as the project’s first staff member.
Within 10 years, Samso built 11 wind turbines on the islands and 10 wind turbines 3.5 kilometers offshore. It now produces 100 percent of its electricity and 75 percent of its heating needs on the island. The offshore turbines offset the carbon output of the gas and diesel fuel islanders still use for cars trucks and ferries. In fact, Samso exports power to the mainland.
Samso, as Hermansen describes it, was not a land of “environmental hippies.” Islanders tend to be either farmers or fishermen and, like most islanders, skeptical of new projects. In other words, it was a regular island. “It was basically the situation you are in here,” he said. “We didn’t know how to do it or where to get the information to get it running.”
As he told stories about Samso’s efforts, Chebeague residents nodded their heads or laughed as they identified with what Hermansen said. He described Samso as “conservative” but not in a political sense. “If somebody is making a real different move somewhere, everybody will kind of look over and say, ‘What’s this guy doing.’ Let’s just wait and see if it is successful. If it’s a failure, we’ll say, ‘Yeah that’s what said. We knew. We knew that was going to be a failure.’ And if it is successful, then we’ll say, “Oh, we might just look into that.'”
Hermansen got his biggest laughes when he described what happens when an expert from the mainland comes over to advise Samso Island. “And then we say, “Hey come on, you smart guy. Either you keep a low profile, or we’ll just kick you off the island.'”
The key to any renewable energy project is local participation and local ownership, Hermansen said. On Samso, local farmers owned some of the wind turbines. Every time a farmer got a turbine permit, he was asked to allow a second turbine on his land that could be cooperatively owned. “We wanted to out to tell the entire population of Samso that they could buy a share in these wind turbines, so they could be a part of it,” he said. “We sold 450 shares in the land-based turbines,” he said (one share cost $600).
“We like to say that if you own a share in a wind turbines, then the wind turbine suddenly looks much better,” Hermansen said.
Islanders in Maine should look at wind as a product to be exported, like lobsters or tourists. “You also export tourists, because they come over here and you send them away again,” he said, as Chebeaguers laughed. “You certainly don’t’ want them to stay here all year-round. A kilowatt hour is a product. And you have the resource-you live out here in a windy area and you can send the green energy to the mainland.”
Chebeague Island is in the preliminary stages of looking into renewable energy, said Leila Bisharat, a Trustee of the Island Institute, who coordinated Hermasen and Lunden’s visit.
Islanders have been talking about renewable energy for about nine months, Bisharat said. But data needs to be collected and research done. In early December, a small group of about six-to-twelve people will get together to talk about wind power, she said.
“We want to look at the whole picture, not just little pieces,” Bisharat said. “One of the big lessons from Samso is that you want to come up with community solutions-it’s not just every man for himself.”
The Island Institute sponsored Hermansen’s lecture in Portland and trips Hermansen and Lunden took to Long Island, North Haven and Vinalhaven. Hermansen and Lunden also took part in the Island Institute’s Sustainable Island Living Conference, held in Belfast on Nov. 11
To see a video of Hermansen’s speech in Belfast and more videos and recordings about the conference, go to http://www.islandinstitute.org/silconf2008.php