Veolia, a global corporation with focus on transport, waste, water and energy built and operate a new district heating network for the city of Voreppe, France.
For this solar installation, the space available for collectors was limited to a structure in midair between two buildings. Having a high solar yield was important criteria. Consequently, Veolia chose the well-designed Savosolar solution and its Savo 15 DG flat plate collectors being the most efficient in the market.
This installation in Voreppe was Savosolar’s first turn-key delivery for district heating in France. It raised interest among the district heating sector showing the potential of solar thermal as a clean heat production.
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.
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.
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.
