Staff from the EU Commission attended a two-day workshop on Samso in early October 2019. The topic was clean energy on European islands. In particular, Samso as an island of innovation.
Islands of Innovation, Samsø, presented the island’s CO2 emissions owing to energy. The company Planenergi presented plans for a new CO2 accounting tool, which calculates the greenhouse gas emissions from not only energy, but also from agriculture and waste.
"That is very nice! You are most welcome to come to Brussels to tell about it, said Brendan Devlin from EU’s Directorate-General for Energy to Planenergi."
The idea for such a tool came from the stakeholder group in Islands of Innovation. The company Planenergi then started a software development project with Samso as a pilot municipality. The tool shows the impact of climate policy changes in a municipality.
Greenhouse gas emissions depend on land use. For example, if the municipality decides to double the amount of forest on the island, the tool will show the impact on CO2. That is why Islands of Innovation proposed to focus on land use in the policy instrument called Municipal Plan.
The European Commission (4), the European Islands Secretariat (5), Planenergi (1), Central Denmark Region (2), Samso Municipality (2), and Samso Energy Academy (5) participated in the workshop. Several parts of the workshop made use of the good practice The Circle.
Mr. Jantzen (jj @ energiakademiet.dk) and Mr. Kristensen of Samsø Energy Academy
