The Energy Digital Year in Stories: April

December 24, 2024

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Vantaa Energy's Varanto is set to be the world's largest thermal energy storage facility

We look at the articles that made the news across the energy space 2024. Today, it is April's turn, featuring Vantaa Energy, Greensparc, Apple and F1

Inside the World’s Largest Thermal Energy Storage Facility

One of the main issues facing reliability of renewable energy sources is its variability.

The fluctuating nature of renewables like solar and wind — which depend on the availability of sun and optimum wind power — means it may not be available when needed, or that an excessive amount is available when demand is not high.

This is an increasing issue in geographies like the Nordics, where heat consumption varies significantly between seasons.

In a bid to tackle this issue, Vantaa Energy has announced it will build the world’s largest seasonal thermal energy storage facility.

Called Varanto — which translates as ‘vault’ or ‘reserve’ — the facility will store heat in underground caverns to then heat buildings via a district heating network whenever it is needed.

The idea for Varanto is borne of the possibility to store cheap and environmentally-friendly waste heat from the likes of data centres, cooling processes and waste-to-energy assets in underground caverns is a revolutionary innovation in terms of the energy transition.

As well as waste heat, the facility also enables the cost-effective storage of renewable energy, boasting the ability to store an amount of energy equivalent to 1.3 million EV batteries, enough to heat a medium-sized Finnish city all year round. The project is set to cost €200m (US$217.2m).

“The world is undergoing a huge energy transition. Wind and solar power have become vital technologies in the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy,” Vanta Energy CEO Jukka Toivonen says, acknowledging how Varanto will play a major role in overcoming the challenge of storing intermittent energy forms for use at a later date.

How Greensparc is Bringing Renewable Energy to Rural Areas

Connectivity is something that so many of us take for granted, yet remote and rural communities experience regular disruptions due to infrastructure hundreds of miles away. Data centres are crucial in bringing service to areas falling to the other side of a rapidly accelerating digital divide.

That is where Greensparc comes in.

Greensparc is delivering ESG-optimised edge infrastructure and powerful computing capacity to underserved and unserved markets. The company’s modular, scalable edge data centre and cloud solutions are optimised for sustainability, rapid deployment and resilience in the toughest conditions whilst providing the necessary infrastructure for utility companies, government entities and cloud service providers.

Greensparc has teamed up with technology specialist Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to provide the rural community in Cordova, Alaska, with a data centre powered by 100% renewable energy from the local hydro plant. The data centre is more sustainable than traditional data centres and delivers an average of 30-40% TCO savings and up to 80% operating expense savings, all while maintaining computing capacity.

“HPE values Greensparc’s commitment to bridging the digital divide for difficult-to-reach communities,” said Ulrich Seibold, WW VP of HPE GreenLake partner and service provider sales, HPE.

“HPE GreenLake’s comprehensive portfolio of solutions is perfectly suited for Greensparc’s delivery of computing infrastructure and cloud capabilities to communities in the toughest conditions and in any environment.”