With a size over 13,000 m2, this system is the second largest solar heating system in France and the second largest solar thermal system for industrial process heating in Europe. Savosolar has delivered the largest part of the whole solar thermal plant including the solar collector field, civil work, piping and design and delivery of heat exchange station.
Kyotherm and its affiliate Kyotherm Solar are investment companies which specialize in the third-party financing of renewable heat and energy efficiency projects. Kyotherm Solar is selling heat from this system to a malt drying factory, which is operated by Malteries Franco-Suisses.
Onnelanpolku nursing home, which was built in 2013, is a so-called near zero energy building. To achieve this classification, the building needs to be well insulated and some of the consumed energy needs to be produced locally. A hybrid heating system for DHW and space heating was realized with the combination of solar thermal collectors and district heating.
Savosolar delivered 240 m² of collector area, which is used to cover 20–30% of the total thermal energy need of the building.
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
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.