District heating

Bad Rappenau

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Bad Rappenau, Germany (largest flat plate collector plant in Germany)

Summa Energy has been selected as general contractor to build a +20 MW solar thermal system on behalf of Bauer Holzenergie GmbH for its district heating network, which supplies households and an industrial process for drying fruits with healthy heating. Only about 1,800 pieces of Savo 16S large scale high performance flat plate collectors are sufficient to getting combined with an 8,000 m³ heat storage tank and
provide carbon free heat for the needs of all connected consumers.
Additionally, a PV system will be built on site to generate the electricity consumed by the solar pumps, thus
unburdening the local power grid.

Location

Germany

Construction status

Finished

Installation year

2024

Solution type

District heating

Number of collectors

1809

Collector Area

26827 m2
, gross

Collector Type

Savo 16 S

Power

20400 kW

Energy production

13000
MWh/a

Voutilakeskus

A Finnish district heating company Elenia Lämpö Oy invested in Savosolar solar thermal system to produce CO2-free energy for their customer, which in this case is a nursing home located in Hämeenlinna. The heat is used for domestic hot water and pool heating.

The installation is the biggest operational solar thermal system in Finland.

Consti Talotekniikka

Swimming halls are very well suited for solar thermal production. Typically, their heat consumption is big and the required temperature level tends to be relatively low. In such cases solar thermal collectors are operating with a very high efficiency.

However, quite often swimming halls are closed some time of the year and summertime closure may mean extra challenges for solar heat supply.

For Hämeenlinna swimming hall Savosolar solved this issue by feeding surplus solar energy in summer to the nearby district heating network. Thus, the solar system is producing heat all days and depending on the swimming hall’s actual heat demand, the facility is either a district heating provider or a consumer.

FORS A/S

FORS A/S is an energy company owned by three Danish municipalities. Their district heating plant in Jyderup has about 900 customers and produces about 5000 MWh solar thermal energy per year. For the rest of its energy production, the plant uses two gas boilers with 7 MW thermal capacity and two gas engines with 6 MW electrical capacity.

In Jyderup, the collector field is a so-called hybrid field, with both single and double glazed collectors. The single glazed collectors are in the cold end of the collector rows and increase the low temperature as rapidly as possible, while the double glazed collectors are located in the warm side of the collector rows where it is more important to reduce the heat losses. The collector field also has double stanchions which allows for two collector rows to connect to one and the same pipe and thereby save costs and thermal losses.