Growing market
The demand for renewable energy, and for genuinely clean, emission-free energy, continues its strong growth when the actions to curb climate change increase. The European Commission’s proposal for a directive on renewable energy sources of July 2021 (Fit for 55) imposes a stricter target for the reduction of emissions: greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced by at least 55% from the 1990 level by 2030. The EU’s carbon neutrality target had been set for 2050. The attainment of the targets is supported by, e.g., the EU Taxonomy Regulation that links financing with companies’ actions to achieve the environmental targets. Emission reduction and carbon neutrality targets have been widely set in other parts of the world as well.
Alongside emission reductions, the intensification of consumption peaks and extreme weather phenomena pose additional challenges to energy production. The flexibility of energy systems, the optimisation of the use of different energy sources and the possibilities for energy storage will grow in significance. Solar heat is well suited for such hybrid energy systems, being a fully emission-free source of energy that is utilised in district heating, industrial processes and, to a lesser extent, the heating of domestic water. Heat can also be stored cost-effectively.
The market for large solar thermal systems with a temperature of less than one hundred degrees has a limited number of skilled turnkey suppliers that operate globally. Savosolar is the technology and quality leader in this segment.
The use of large-scale solar thermal systems is increasing globally both in district heating and cooling and in industrial process heat generation. In many countries, the utilisation of clean renewable energy is driven by taxation and the sanctions imposed on emissions, but solar heat is often already competitive without any subsidies. The EU Green Deal programme is expected to increase interest towards solar heat as part of district heating in particular.
The demand for renewable energy is yet growing as the European countries want to reduce their dependence on Russian natural gas and oil. In a short term, part of the fossil fuels imported from Russia will likely to be replaced with carbon or other fossil fuels that can be put in use relatively easily. However, in the discussions taken place on EU-level there has been a clear aim to further accelerate the green transition.