Denmark’s First Publicly Owned Smartflower Blooms on 100% Renewable Samsø Island

Denmark’s first publicly owned Smartflower was installed on Samsø Island earlier this year in May and has been blooming ever since. The Smartflower was installed right in front of the office of the Mayor of Samsø Island, Marcel Meijer, and provides power to the island. Given Samsø Island’s reputation as a model renewable energy island, Smartflower is proud to help the island in achieving its goal of creating a greater sustainable future for its inhabitants.

A local innovative electrician was the one who introduced the Smartflower to Samsø Island. It was a great hit with the Samsø Municipality, who wanted to experiment with implementing tracking solar panels in an area with plenty of space on their island. Given the Smartflower’s dual-axis tracking capabilities, as well as its aesthetic appeal as a work of solar art, it is no wonder that the project was a success!

While Samsø Island used to be entirely dependent on oil, everything changed when it won a government competition in 1997 to become a model renewable energy community. The island became 100% powered by renewable energy ten years later in 2007 and has now set its sights on becoming 100% fossil fuel-free by 2030. The Smartflower is but one piece of a bigger puzzle to make sure that the island achieves its goal. “The municipality has an obligation to ‘walk the talk’ and demonstrate sustainable transition in action,” said Mayor Marcel Meijer when asked why they chose Smartflower. Wind turbines and solar panels aside, the island has also implemented other initiatives such as energy-optimized lighting, electric vehicle charging stations, sustainable golf courses, and even hosts an annual sustainability festival (which has unfortunately been canceled this year).

While not many have had a chance to spot the Smartflower at Samsø Island due to the current pandemic, we expect that the solar flower will be received positively by the Samsø community as they have been at other Smartflower installations. We look forward to watching the island expand its sustainable initiatives and wish them the best of luck with becoming completely fossil-fuel free by 2030.

Learn more about Samsø Island at www.visitsamsoe.dk/en/.

Interested in learning more about other Smartflower installations? Click here.