Largest solar thermal plant in Finland
Savosolar has been selected as general contractor to build the largest solar thermal system in Finland to date, on behalf of Etelä Savon Energia Oy for its district heating network, which supplies households with healthy heating. The plant operate as an additional peak load sources during summer season while the main boilers are out of service.
Løgumkloster Fjernvarme is a district heating company which annually supplies 35,000 MWh of heat to over 1,500 customers. Heat is produced with a hybrid heating system consisting of a 3 MW pellet boiler, a 1.3 MW hybrid heatpump, a 3 MW absorption heat pump and a solar collector field of 15,300 m2. Additionally, the plant has two gas engines which are capable of producing 7.6 MW of heat and 6 MW of electricity and a 10 MW gas boiler which acts as back-up.
In 2015, Savosolar delivered a 9,700 m2 solar thermal field to Løgumkloster. The second order of 5,600 m2 was delivered and commissioned in the beginning of 2016. The complete field consists of 1030 Savo 15 SG collectors and covers about 20% of the annual thermal energy need of the district heating network. The largest part of the heat demand is covered by the pellet boiler, but Løgumkloster Fjernvarme has plans to change this in the future by extending the solar field and building a large seasonal water storage.
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.
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.