Savosolar delivered -once again- the largest solar thermal installation in Finland. This system is located way North in Tupos, Liminka - less than 200 km from the Arctic Circle.
The heating load of Tupos district heating is usually covered by wood pellets. Yet during summer time, the load is often so low, that the substantial wood pellet burner cannot be properly used and an oil burner got used, instead. The special challenge here has been to design a very efficient solar thermal system that could replace the oil consumption in summer to run the district heating network almost completely fossil-free.
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.
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 has been selected as general contractor to build the largest solar thermal system in Finland to date, on behalf of Suur-Savon Sähkö Oy for its district heating network in Puumala, which supplies households with healthy heating. In this hybrid installation the solar thermal system is producing both, high-temperature heat to district heating supply pipe and also low-temperature heat to improve heat pump plant COP.
