CTO Assessment - European Commission

ÆRØ
a renewable
energy island
Contact: Per Thomas Jensen • VE-Organisation ÆRØ c/o ÆRØ Energi-org Miljikonto
Vestergade 64 • 5970 AerØkoebing • Denmark
Tel/Fax +45 6252 1587/2731o • E-mail ve-organisation@mail.dk
The Island of ÆRØ aims to meet its energy
demand 100% from renewable energy
sources. The island utilises solar energy
for district heating and so far there is
on average 3.7m 2 of solar panels per inhabitant;
26,800 m 2 in total. To reach the
goals many other projects are to being set
up.
Main aims and motivations
ÆRØ wishes to reduce CO 2
emissions and
become self sufficient. This would serve to
improve Island’s economy as the income
would stay on the Island. It is hoped that
the jobs created would help to counter the
current trend of people leaving the island
for work.
Other main aims are to maintain and increase
the energy efficiency of the local
business community and to ´green´ the
existing jobs within the energy supply sector.
There is also the aspiration to increase the
level of energy related tourism and to involve
the local population in the projects
and the overall campaign.
Project details
The solar energy is sourced from three district
heating plants.
Future projects include solar thermal and
woodfuelled domestic heating. A combined
ethanol and biogas plant is expected to
produce 20GWh netto annually of energy
and treat more than 50,000 tonnes of
waste. In addition to the normal farm
slurry, it is capable of treating manure and
green crop waste and household waste as
well. The produced ethanol will replace
20% of petrol consumed on the Island.
The Island aims to set up an isolated electricity
grid based only on renewables.
There will be 10 individual hydrogen household
units producing CHP using Hydrogen
sourced from RES.
ÆRØ has set the goal of reducing its electricity
demand by 20% up to 2006.
Overall evaluation
The current initiatives implemented are
successfully supplying RES to the residents,
which provides encouragement for
the new projects that are being developed.
There is planning underway to set up a
large biogas plant, which the farmers are
keen to get involved with.
Innovative Aspect
The wind turbines and some of the district
heating projects are funded by the sale of
shares directly to the island residents. This
serves to benefit the local economy and
ensure a high level of support for and interest
in the project as people are directly
involved.
Enabling factors
The projects have been co-financed by many
means, including public and ordinary
loans, registration fees from consumers,
private investments and the sale of shares.
Community’s involvement is important in
ensuring the success of the projects. There
are 500 community owners of the 3 major
windmills in Aerø.
Challenges
There is some local opposition to large wind
turbines due to the noise and periodical
shade they bring. In the past farmers had
a turbine on their own land and so they
alone received the impacts from them but
now they are built far away from the owner
and this gives the illusion to the community
that they were erected without prior
consent, which is not true. There were no
problems with the solar heating projects.
Replication Potential
The projects should be relatively easy to
replicate as they were carried out under
normal market conditions. Most of the
Aerø projects were original.
Perception of RES situation today compared
to 1999
There was overwhelming public support for
the islands strategy to become 100% RES
supplied. The participants in Denmark perceived
the EU support very positively.
A science center is currently in the planning
stages. This is hoped to increase and
consolidate awareness and the spread of
information.
Plant Solar thermal Wood pellet boiler Water Storage
Marstal plant
18,300 m 2 18.3 MW waste oil boiler to be
replaced with a wood pellet boiler
15,600 m 2
AerØkoebing
4,900 m 2
solar thermal
Wood pellet boiler 1 MW
Straw boiler 1.6 MW
1,400 m 3
Rise district
heating plant
3,600 m 2 800 kW
Three large wind energy turbines were erected each with a capacity of 2 MW which constitutes a combined
production of 20.5 GWh annually. This equates to 57% of the total energy consumption of ÆRØ
Five small wind turbines were erected each with a capacity of 1,135 MW
CTO - Showcase
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