FolkeNews April-May 2023

• Folkecenter’s General Assembly
• Folkecenter Turns 40!
• A greener shade of grey – New Project for Folkecenter
• Project 7-9-13 – Let’s Hope it goes well!
• The Project is over…Its Impact Not!
• By Bike to Talk about Sustainability
• Meet the Trainee: Karla Fernanda Arias Muñoz

• Current Trainees at Folkecenter
• PV Panels in Folkecenter
  • PV Test Station
  • Sebastian’s PV System
• E-mobility in Folkecenter
• Upcoming Events
• Folkecenter’s Support Group

Folkecenter’s General Assembly

Folkecenter’s yearly General Assembly will take place on Sunday 25 June 2023 at 15:00 at the Nordic Folkecenter for Renewable Energy (Kammersgårdsvej 16, Sdr. Ydby, 7760 Hurup Thy – Denmark, in the Skibstedfjord conference room).

For those who wish it, it will also be possible to participate online, via Zoom. If you prefer that option, please register here by Saturday 24 June latest.

Please note that only members of the Folkecenter Støttekreds (support group) who have paid the yearly membership are allowed to attend the meeting. If you are not a member and you would like to be, please visit our dedicated page.

Yearly membership fee:

• 100 DKK for individuals;
• 200 DKK for household;
• 1000 DKK for companies, associations, organizations and educational institutions.

Payments can be done via:

Folkecenter Turns 40!

Folkecenter’s work started back in 1983, when renewables where still a topic for visionaries. Since then, many years have passed, but the role of Folkecenter remains very important.

This year, Folkecenter reaches the remarkable goal of 40 years of activity and we will organize an international conference to celebrate that. The event will take place on 21-25 June and will include a number of presentations from local and international actors, networking and other interesting activities, like the presentation of the book which was prepared for this occasion.

Participation to the conference is free of charge, but we kindly ask you to register, so that we can properly organize the logistics.

Program and registration form are available here.

We hope to see many of you!

A greener shade of grey – New Project for Folkecenter

Concrete is one of the most widely used construction materials in the world, but its production is also one of the main sources of CO₂ emissions.

Randal Beton, a specialized foundry company from Fredericia, is not directly involved in the production or mixing of concrete, but, since it operates in the business, it still feels it has a responsibility towards the society. To try to balance its impact on the environment, its director, Jan Riisager, got in contact with Folkecenter, so that a plan of action could be developed.

The director, who has recently celebrated his 30 years’ anniversary in the company (see the press release here) has already taken some actions to mitigate the company’s impact, but would like to go further and to try other solutions which can increase the sustainability of its work. As Folkecenter, we are happy to be part of this process and we hope that the voice will spread, so that other SMEs and entrepreneurs could contact us for improving their sustainability profile.

The updates of the project can be found on the dedicated page.

Project 7-9-13 – Let’s Hope it goes well!

Young generations are now much more aware about the importance of renewable energies and the challenges of climate change…but how do we make sure that this awareness does not only remain something theoretical, but it also turns into action?

Well, that is the scope of Project 7-9-13: to motivate young Danish (and not only!) students to select careers within the fields of renewable energy and sustainability; to facilitate that, we will collect a number of experiences from our current and former trainees, who will explain their development journey in Folkecenter and their experience with renewable energy.

The material will be collected and distributed to schools and to young students and we hope that this will act as additional motivation for them to take action towards sustainability.

A small note: the name of the project is not casual; on one side, it represents the Sustainable Development Goals covered, on the other, 7-9-13 is a way of saying in Danish when you hope that things will not go so wrong. If many young people choose to work with climate-related topics, things will hopefully work out in the right way!

The updates of the project can be found on the dedicated page.

The Project is over…Its Impact Not!

Those of you who follow us since some time would know that in the past years, despite COVID, we managed to run the EASE-CA project, the aim of which was to develop a catalogue of local sustainable solutions for East-African Countries.

The project is now officially ended, but not because of that its impact has it: the catalogue, which has been published in two editions, remains available online, both in forms of PDF and as a digital database. We hope that we can keep on enriching it with even more cases, so that its use can continue, but already as it is it have given access to a range of sustainable solutions for a wide public.

Just before the project ended, we managed also to develop some small brochures, which summarize the catalogue and some of the cases. The brochure is available both in English and in four African languages, so that its spread can be facilitated also among the local populations.

We would like to take the occasion for thanking all the partners and the actors of the project for all the work done, as well as CISU, for financing the project.

All the material is available on the project page. The catalogue can also be found on localsolutions.inforse.org.

By Bike to Talk about Sustainability

On Sunday 13 of May we received a visit from Toke Haunstrup, researcher on sustainability in everyday life. Toke is on a bike tour around Denmark to discuss with people about sustainability and sufficiency and he took the chance that the starting point of his journey was Hurup Thy, to stop in Folkecenter and to have a talk with Jane Kruse, our director, and with our trainees.

You can find his article here.

Meet the Trainee: Karla Fernanda Arias Muñoz

In the last years we have had several trainees from Colombia and Karla is one of them; as she recently left Folkecenter, we thought it was a good time to tell about her story.

Karla, 21 years old, is a Chemical Engineer who recently graduated from the Universidad de la Sabana, so her stay in Folkecenter was not part of her education, like for many of the other trainees. Instead, she joined us as part of a “self-development program”: after graduating, she was not sure what to do and how to continue her career, so she decided to take a break and explore the world; as part of this exploration was the trainee program, which caught her attention and which gave her the option to answer to the question she had in mind: “Is renewable energy something I want to work with?”. So, she decided to join us and to stay in Folkecenter approximately three months (January-April).

From the beginning of her internship it was clear what she wanted to focus on: biogas, which is also logic, given her background; more in detail, she investigated how to work with biogas in cold temperatures. Furthermore, as we always encourage students to try also things practically, she also built a small prototype of a biogas installation.

21-25 JUNE 2023

40 Years’ Anniversary Conference

This year Folkecenter will have the 40th year anniversary. To celebrate the occasion, we are organizing an international conference which will be take place in Folkecenter on 21-25 June 2023. Participation to the event is free, but registration is required.

8th International Conference on Small & Medium Wind Energy

The 8th edition of the Small wind conference will take place on 20-21 September 2023) and again it will be in a blended format, both online and in presence. You can already register your interest on folkecenterevents.net.
If you would like to be a speaker, please send your proposal by June 2nd, 2023.
In case you are interested in sponsoring the event, please get in contact with Daniele Pagani (dp@folkecenter.dk).

If you want to contribute with more than a click, then become part of the Support Group (Støttekreds). For a small annual fee, you can contribute to activities at Folkecenter – this includes, among other things, valuable field trips for our trainees as well as support for development projects in Africa. As a member of the Support Group, you will be invited to events at the Folkecenteret, including the annual Christmas lunch, as well as the General Assembly, where the Support Group has the opportunity to elect six out of the 11 members on the board.

Read more here.