This solar thermal plant, the largest in Europe for industrial process, will deliver on average 4,000 MWh/year of heat. It will cover nearly 32% of the heated water need for the steam generation in the local paper mill. With the very high solar yield – more than 1,000 kWh/m2 – this solar thermal field is the first of its kind in the world due to Savosolar high efficiency solar collectors installed on a single-axis tracking system, manufactured and installed for Savosolar by Arcelormittal, Project Exosun. 66 tilting structures, each carrying four 16 m2 collectors, follow the sun from morning to evening and maximize the heat production.
The project was developed and financed by NewHeat and Savosolar acted as the EPC contractor. Meaning, Savosolar designed the whole system, delivered the solar collectors, and realized the installation with local French companies. This installation will be a reference for the huge growing market of heat-as-a-service for industrial clients in France and world-wide.
Ystad Arena is located in the southern Swedish city of Ystad, and is the home arena of Ystad IF HF which is one of the country’s top handball teams. On its roof, 36 collectors from Savosolar were mounted during spring 2017. The system is owned and maintained by the municipality owned energy company Ystad Energi AB, and feeds its district heating network with clean thermal energy. Ystad Energi AB is working towards the goal of becoming fossil fuel free by 2020 and currently produces ca. 160,000 MWh of thermal energy annually, of which 97-99% are based on bio-fuels.
As much as 89% of the thermal energy for the district heating network is produced by four wood chip burners between 3 and 10 MW capacity and the rest is produced from straw, rapeseed, gas and oil. Ystad Energi AB has ca. 1,850 customers, of which ca. 1,300 are single family homes.
Savosolar’s first commercial solar cooling system was delivered to a school in Ukraine. The entire school was pre-fabricated in Finland and delivered to Ukraine by Elemenco Oy.
Outside of the cooling period, the solar thermal system produces energy for domestic hot water and space heating needs. During the hot summer time, three adsorption chillers cool the building via the air handling unit. The adsorption chillers, which were delivered by Savosolar, are driven by the solar thermal system.
Lolland forsyning’s district heating plant in Søllested is located on the island of Lolland and was the first installation, where Savosolar’s double glazed collectors were used. The double glazing reduces heat losses through the glass side of collector and offers a higher efficiency, especially at higher operation temperature levels and during the darker months of the year. Søllested district heating plant has ca. 500 customers and also uses a 5 MW straw boiler and an oil burner to produce its heat.
The collector field in Søllested has 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.
In Søllested, Savosolar was faced with a special challenge since the customer’s land has a sewerage pipe running through it. Since the owner of the sewer pipe needs to be able to access it in case of maintenance, Savosolar supplied a collector field which both optimised the use of the available land, while still providing access to the sewer pipe
