It's a lovely place to live.
It's a little island in the southern part of Denmark.
We are about 6,000
living here on the island.
The vibe of the island, I think
it's very laid back.
We don't have any traffic lights,
I think that's one of things people notice. It feels very free.
Already, back in the 80s, people started experimenting
with green energy here.
Today, we supply between 125-140%
of the island's electricity use
with our six turbines.
The reason Ærø got involved in building wind turbines... there was the energy
crisis in the 70s, where people wanted to be independent from that,
but also, there was a large movement against nuclear
power in Denmark in the 80s. We don't have nuclear power.
The power comes from windmills on the island Ærø.
You have already felt how much wind
there is on the island, so there's no
problem to get any green electricity,
so therefore, it's as green as it can be.
We have about 55 tonnes of batteries down there,
and when you have this amount of power, you can put it everywhere.
If there is an interest in it, you can do everything now.
It shows that there is almost no limit in this electric power technology.
You can put it in trains, you can put it in ferries,
you can put it in cars, you can put it everywhere.
I will say, we have a beautiful ferry here. We're very proud of it.
And the ferry is 100% electric.
The Ellen project is a prototype project,
where we wanted to prove
that going full electric, instead of only hybrid
electric, is already possible with the present technology of batteries.
And right now we are sailing 22 nautical miles (40.7km) between charges.
That's seven times longer than the existing battery ferries in
Norway and other places in Denmark.
This is still a world record, even though we started in 2013,
this is still a world record for how far can you go on batteries alone.
Most of the houses over here have district heating,
and the district heating get their energy from the solar.
Most of the energy is from the solar [panels], and the rest of it's from biomass.
So, every household who has district heating is also the owner of the panels.
So, we have to look at the wind turbines, or we have to look at the
solar panels. But when you own it, it looks much better,
and you get some benefits out of it, so the benefits stay on the island.
The maritime history of Ærø is that there was over 300 merchant
vessels from a small island with 6,000 inhabitants, so in the era of
sailing vessels, this was one of the biggest merchant fleets in Denmark.
From the maritime business, there's been a tradition to go together and
finance a ship, and you can do the same with a wind turbine, you can go
together in a collective financing [for] a wind turbine or the district heating system.
So, I think actually that the maritime heritage has helped us
to also engage in sustainability projects that also are quite costly.
I believe that the reason why Ærø has all these fantastic projects is because...
perhaps because we are an island, because we can't rely on
everybody else. So I think the mindset is already there that
if we want to do something, we have to do it ourselves.
I think being on an island with water all around, having a small society,
that is somehow isolated from the rest of the world is a
good picture on what can be done in a bigger society.