Solnet – Solar power plants to companies in Europe
Solnet seeks to widen the use of solar energy and make the world more carbon neutral. The way Solnet delivers solar power plants to companies and organisations also gives them an inbuilt competitive advantage.
Why?
Solar energy is one of the most effective ways of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from energy production in the fight against climate change. Solar energy can also fill the energy deficit that Europe’s changing energy use is creating. International endeavours to mitigate climate warming; Europe’s goal of increasing its energy self-sufficiency; the EU’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, and companies’ desire to operate sustainably are all accelerating factors in the development of the energy market in Europe.
Solnet, hailing from Finland, aims to become Europe’s leader in supplying solar power plants to companies and organisations. The company’s goal is to accelerate the creation of an energy self-sufficient Europe and a carbon-neutral future.
What and how?
Solnet designs, tailors and supplies turnkey solar power plants to companies and organisations. Solnet’s customers feed the electricity produced by a solar power plant directly into the electricity consumption of their real estate. This replaces purchased electricity, so the customer reaps savings in electricity costs and transmission fees.
Solnet can deliver a solar power plant to anywhere in Europe and also manages the entire value chain, from consultancy to design and from delivery to servicing and maintenance of the solar power plant. Solnet has created a method with well-documented instructions for scaling solar power plant deliveries while adhering to the highest quality. Solnet also develops additional services, such as the participation of solar power plants in the electricity reserve market. This smooths out fluctuations in the price of electricity and ensures that the production and consumption of electricity are in balance.
Growth and internationalisation
Of the Finnish companies supplying renewable energy services, Solnet is the fastest growing on the European market. Currently, the company is also growing faster than the market average for solar electricity in Europe. Ever since it was established in 2014, Solnet has aimed to become an international growth company, operating mainly in Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Italy and Great Britain. Large multinational companies, such as IKEA, DHL and Lidl, are building solar power plants in all suitable sites in country after country in Europe.
Solnet aims at becoming a major player outside Europe as well, and it plans to achieve this through partnerships. The main market for the time being is still Europe.
The importance of venture capital
Solnet grew and internationalised fuelled by internal financing up until 2022, when the company raised EUR 15 million to accelerate its growth and internationalisation. Solnet needed the financing also for developing energy management and storage systems as well as its Solnet Manager platform. The round was led by Elite Alfred Berg Private Equity (EAB PE), and Tesi made its first investment in the company.
Tesi’s role as an investor is to help Finnish companies succeed and to promote sustainable and carbon-neutral growth. The clean transition is one area of growth where Tesi’s goal is to help build clusters of expertise in Finland that enable sustainable new growth.
General information
Established in Helsinki in 2014, Solnet is a supplier of smart solar power plants that also provides maintenance and servicing in the energy sector. The smartness of Solnet’s solar power plants is derived from sensors, protective layers and automatics as well as from optimisation, management and surveillance features provided as cloud services. Solnet employs roughly 100 people and supplies its power plants and services throughout Europe.
The company mainly focuses on supplying solar power plants to companies and organisations, but Solnet is also capable of supplying larger-scale solar power plants. By the summer 2024, the largest solar power plant delivered by Solnet was 5 MW, while the largest project on the drawing table is a 140 MW solar power plant. Solnet’s founding partners are Arttur Kulvik and Kaj Kangasmäki, who earned their spurs in the IT sector and continue now as the company’s largest owners.
