The solar thermal plant of Verdun will supply 8 GWh of decarbonized heat for the Lacto Serum factory nearby. With an area close to 15,000 m2, it became the largest solar thermal installation for industrial process heat in Europe, exceeding Issoudun’s plant, commissioned in 2021 by Savosolar, with a few hundreds m2.
This plant is the property of Newheat and Savosolar has been chosen to realize the solar thermal field as a turnkey project.
Jelling Varmeværk is a Danish district heating plant in the historical village of Jelling, which is the former home of the Viking Chief Harald Bluetooth. Apart from the 20,125 m² collector field, Jelling Varmeværk produces its energy from a 1 MW wood chip boiler, a 1.5 MW absorption heat pump and 2 gas CHP engines with a total capacity of 8 MW heat and 6 MW electricity.
The first solar system was commissioned in summer 2016 and during its first week of operation, the collector field set a new Danish record by producing nearly 5 kWh/m² in a day.
The collector field in Jelling has double stanchions which allows for two collector rows to connect to one and the same pipe and thereby save costs and thermal losses. The annual solar thermal production is about 11,200 MWh, which covers over 25% of the town’s energy need for heating.
In 2018, Jelling Varmeværk placed a second order with Savosolar for the 4,836 m² extension of the successfully running existing collector field. The extension will be installed in first half of 2019 and it will further grow the fraction of district heating produced with solar energy.
“We chose Savosolar as our collector supplier due to their high efficiency in combination with their innovative solutions. They enable us to have an environmentally friendly, stable and low price for heating over the next 20 years. Collectors have integrated hose connections which means that they disturb the landscape as little as possible in an historic village of Jelling. The collectors can also follow the curvature of the landscape which means that we didn’t have to level out the ground of the field.”
Under construction
Lübeck, Germany (largest solar thermal plant in Schleswig-Holstein federal state)
Summa Energy has been selected as general contractor to build a 9 MW solar thermal system on behalf of Stadtwerke Lübeck Energie GmbH for its district heating network, which supplies households in the Moisling city district with healthy heating. Only 788 pieces of Savo 16S large scale high performance flat plate collectors are sufficient to getting combined with an 3,000 m³ heat storage tank and produce 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.
The scope of supply includes also all the land works, the construction of a technical building and the supervision system to operate the plant in automatic mode.
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.
