P28
GENTOFTE DISTRICT HEATING COMPANY
MEMB E R COMP ANY P RO F I L E EUROPEAN ENERGY
European Energy builds solutions to climate change - constructing wind and solar farms as well as large-scale green energy storage solutions. Knud-Erik Andersen is the CEO of the company, which initiated in 2004, and is today operating in most European countries. European Energy develops its projects with different suppliers and then take on partners, after which the company oversees the operating phase, which typically runs for 25 years. The company has its head office is in Søborg, Denmark. European Energy is reaching the goals together with their customers, large corporations sourcing renewable energy and utilities looking to provide consumers with green power or district heating. The company constructs the parks in close cooperation with visionary institutional investors, i.e. pension funds, which are looking for low risk, long term investments contributing to a better future. The investors typically share European Energy’s belief that it is the market, not the taxpayers, that holds the solution to climate change. The company is currently developing and constructing parks in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Brazil and in Mexico. In the last years, the company has also been entering the Latin American market, and is now also looking to the Australian market. European Energy develops and builds wind and solar farms as well as energy storage solutions, and has, across Europe and several emerging markets across the globe, developed 65 wind farms and 29 solar farms, corresponding to a total capacity of more than 900MW. Last year European Energy had a turnover of DKK 1.4 billion and a Net profit before tax of DKK 192 million. EE GigaStorage In addition to developing wind and solar farms European Energy has developed EE GigaStorage, a cost efficient, seasonal energy storage solution, invented to supplement the district heating and cooling industry. EE GigaStorage stores excess wind and solar energy as well as surplus heat from industries and waste incineration in water, typically in large near-shore basins. As heat loss is always kept well below 20 percent during an entire season, and energy is sourced and stored when prices are low, it means that EE GigaStorage is not only climate friendly but also an economically attractive solution
Knud Erik Andersen, CEO at European Energy, aims at using cheap green electricity in the heating sector.
According to Knud-Erik Andersen, it was only about two years ago that the company started considering how excess electricity could be used efficiently within the heating sector. And this is how their concept EE GigaStorage was born. In short, it means that instead of using heat created from fossil power plants, it comes from the excess wind and the sun electricity production – the investments are limited since the existing infrastructure is utilised. Besides the environmental benefit from this, it is also cheaper. According to Knud-Erik Andersen, this is an important balancing instrument for the highly volatile energy production fromwind and solar production. Using large heat pumps, EE GigaStorage boosts and stores the energy in water ponds. The energy can be stored for an entire season and released when demand for district heating rises, i.e. the heat can be produced in summer and saved to be used in winter with limited energy loss. The concept developed by European Energy secures that the energy loss is never above 20 percent and that the investment costs are low compared to other storage technologies. The cost of establishing a Gigastorage is very low compared to batteries and other storage solutions. That is why EE GigaStorage is able to contribute to offer district heating at competitive prices and run the entire district heating production systemmore optimal due to balancing our consumption and production across an entire year.
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