Category: News

Climate Day – Middelfart

On the 30th of August 2019, Co2mmunity partner members Kiel University and Riga Planning Region came together in Middelfart for their People’s Meeting on Climate of the Future.

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The Culture Island Square in the city center was filled with a variety of stalls where businesses, local institutions, and associations fill the space with the climate market and inspiration for how the close and local actions can and do make a global difference. In addition, there were talks and debates on climate regarding issues and solutions to today’s climate challenges.

Visitors and speakers included Connie Hedegaard the Climate Ambassador for Middelfart Municipality and former EU Commissioner and Minister in Denmark, Mogens Lykketoft the former Minister, President of Parliament and President of the UN General Assembly, Christian Ibsen the Director of CONCITO, Signe D. Frese the CSR Director for Coop, and Jacob Bjerregaard the chairman of the Kommunernes Landsforening’s Environment and Supply Committee had the opportunity to exchange their ideas and thoughts.

Cost for renewables around the globe

The new IRENA study provides a rassuring picture. Costs for RE around the globe are becoming more and more competitive with fossil fuel options. Find the full report here or go to the IRENA homepage directly. Now we must bring the energy to communities in the Baltic Sea Region.

The graph below is taken from the study and shows the levelised cost of electricity for different technologies and regions.

State minister of Justice and European Affairs in Schleswig-Holstein visits Sprakebüll

On Monday, the 5th August, Co2mmunity made a presentation to the State Minister for Justice, European Affairs, Consumer Protection and Equality of the federal state Schleswig-Holstein Mrs. Dr. Sabine Sütterlin-Waack. The presentation took place in the community of Sprakebüll and was about innovative community energy initiatives that are taking place in the area.

Sprakebüll is a pioneering energy community in North Frisia, Germany. The CEO of Solar Energy Andresen GmbH and the mayor of Sprakebüll, Mr. Nissen, discussed problems and benefits together with Co2mmunity lead partner CAU Kiel and project partner Heinrich Böll Foundation. Topics such as community renewable energy generation, community mobility, and governmental policies were discussed. This was a great opportunity for project partners to come together and see first hand the energy developments within the community and how they are positively impacting and enabling the community. More information regarding what was covered in the presentation can be found in the following factsheet.

 

Energy Cooperatives in Germany

You can find a lot of community energy projects in our database. In Germany the focus so far was on the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein. We are currently working on including projects from all over Germany as well. Thereby, cooperatives form a large share of the projects. During our research we found an excellent set of case studies that was bundled into a publication. It is relatively easy to organise a cooperative for realising a solar PV project for example, especially when the municipality provides a rooftop and leads the process. In the publication different modes of cooperation between municipality, citizens, users, capital providers, landlords, service providers and energy providers in different cooperatives for different types of projects are explained. The publication is only available in German though.

The EU’s Clean Energy Package explained

A new brochure was published by a coalition of stakeholders from Europe. It provides information on the impacts of the EU’s Clean Energy Package.  information on citizen rights to generate their own energy and the consequences for national support programmes for renewable energy. The brochure will provide you with a wideview of citizen energy in Europe. Maybe you want to share it at an event or otherwise?

Picture available on www.rescoop.eu

 

Ærø community energy is a textbook example

One of our project partners is Lund University which has contributed among other things with two case studies on the island of Ærø. This case study can be found on our CE Cases page. Now, this work also came to fruitition in an article in the Goegrafiska Orientering. The Geografiska Orientering is a journal for teachers in Sweden who can now inform themselves on the story of community energy on Ærø.

 

Call for Co2mmunity – Call for action

Climate and Energy experts came together Monday, 17th June with Middelfart Kommune and shared knowledge on how local communities can support the transition to Net-Zero emission society before 2050.

“In such a case it’s really a treat, especially because we are a part of www.co2mmunity.eu . A project where we support local renewable energy co-operatives and have the newest scientific and practical knowledge from our partners. So it was just a pleasure” Morten Westergaard, head of Climate and Energy at the municipality, explains.

The meeting was held with over 50 representatives from local communities. The meeting was contained “Work-Shop” tricks, that actually were duplicated from last partner meeting with Co2mmunity.

On this “Copy-paste” trick project coordinator Gerlind Wagner-Vogel says… “This is the whole idea, taking best practices and implementing them. This is the time for action”.

Contact us for more information:

Gerlind Wagner-Vogel: wagner-vogel@geographie.uni-kiel.de

Morten M. Westergaard: morten.westergaard@middelfart.dk

Føns Local Heating Plant, Denmark

The Co2mmunity partner Middelfart Municipality has published an article on the district heating project in its area. A small village is using local woodchips to fire a district heating, boldly supported by the municipality. Now people there have their heat supply in their own hands, save money and substantially reduced their emissions. Find the whole article here.