Energy Ecosystem Map Highlights the Story of the Danish Green Transition

The cursor moves across the screen and clicks on Denmark in a drop down menu, and suddenly the map of Denmark appears with colour-coded marks throughout the country – red for accelerators and incubators, turquoise for academia and research, green for energy efficiency and many more. The screen shows the new energy ecosystem map of Denmark, which was launched on July 9 at the 11th annual “SISE Conference: Systems Rethinking” hosted by the American Energy Society (AES) in partnership with the University of Illinois, Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory. Thought leaders from every energy subsector attended the three-day conference, where they discussed some of the greatest challenges in the energy sector today, exploring key issues in the built environment, transportation, industry, manufacturing, agriculture and water.

On July 9, AES hosted a virtual session in collaboration with Innovation Centre Denmark Silicon Valley (ICDK) and State of Green discussing Denmark’s new and rapidly expanding energy ecosystem, while also revealing the energy ecosystem map of Denmark. As the first location outside the US Denmark was added to the Energy Ecosystem map community following close dialogue between AES and Innovation Centre Denmark in Silicon Valley . Other locations include Chicago, Minneapolis/St.Paul and Silicon Valley.

A network that is diverse, dispersed and dense

The interactive map will serve as a tool to improve network, interdependency and collaboration between actors in the energy ecosystem not only in Denmark, but also between Denmark and the US. Eric Vettel, President of The American Energy Society, expressed his view of the potential of the map during the session:

“The greatest value of the map is that it offers in visual form, best practices that the world can emulate. I other words, this is what a transition to a new energy economy looks like: diverse, dispersed, and dense,” he said.

Read our interview with Eric Vettel here.

The panel discussion was moderated by Charlotte Gjedde, Head of Partnerships at State of Green with panel participants Bo Riisgaard Pedersen, Energy Attaché at the Consulate General in Silicon Valley (Danish Energy Agency), and Øyvind Vessia, Head of Regulatory Affairs, Market Development in Continental Europe at Ørsted.

The panel agreed that mapping out the vast number of energy actors in the ecosystem is a helpful tool to bring together actors across the market in public as well as private fora. The map displays the strong energy community in Denmark and has the potential to inspire others to include Danish stakeholders in their decarbonization efforts.

A holistic approach to the energy transition

A comprehensive approach is necessary if the world is to successfully transition into a new energy economy. Bo Riisgaard Pedersen emphasized this by highlighting that aligned of politicians, market actors, and public support is keyfor this transition to happen:

“We need support from the general public; If we have that, politicians put up ambitious goals and visions. The last element is then for innovative entrepreneurs and businesses to take on the challenge and charge ahead. In general, politicians are good at setting up visions and ambitions – and businesses are good at getting things done,” he stated.

Øyvind Vessia from Ørsted added that the right regulative framework in combination with a proactive business community has contributed to the success of technologies like offshore wind. This has made it possible for companies like Ørsted to provide offshore wind solutions that are now undercutting fossil energy technologies even though this technology was not cost effective in the past:

“What this [Danish public-private] partnership model that Bo is referring to has achieved is to really bring down the cost of offshore wind and other renewable technologies, and that is why we can now make this huge transformation and produce energy with renewable sources at a much lower low cost,” he explained.

The energy map visualizes exactly this. For instance, the Danish town of Esbjerg is very visible on the map. Esbjerg was previously a hub for the import of oil and gas to Denmark, but has now transitioned to being the wind energy hub of Denmark.