How does a pioneer community energy project succeed in practice? The case of the Samsø Renewable Energy Island

Community energy projects have been one of the pillars of Denmark's remarkable renewable energy history. The island of Samsø has received worldwide attention as a model community in this regard, having been able to transform large parts of its energy system in a period of 10 years. Much of this attention is focused on the end-results of this transformation, on what Samsø has achieved to date, including the technical infrastructure and the fact that the local community participated actively. Little attention has so far been paid to how these results were achieved in practice. In this paper, we examine the concrete contextual conditions that made the success of the Samsø Renewable Energy Island project possible. As external contextual conditions, we identify guiding visions and plans, governmental technology support, governmental process support, and expert assistance. Internal contextual conditions include local traditions and history of cooperative projects, sense of locality and responsibility, community spirit, entrepreneurial individuals, networks, as well as guiding visions and plans. The results clearly show that the success of the REI project can be attributed to the combination of these varied contextual conditions, which in their entirety made the island's transformation possible. However, in order for these favourable contextual conditions to lead to a successful project, it required alignment through intermediaries between the external and internal context, as well as internally on Samsø. Most importantly this alignment entailed the integration of the Renewable Energy Island project into the structure and needs of the local community through intensive processes of sensing and priming linked to the local population.