Kiinteistökohtainen aurinkosähkön tuotanto ei yksin pysäytä ilmastonmuutosta. Se voi olla osa ratkaisua, kun aurinkosähkön tuotannon arvioidaan lisääntyvän kiinteistöillä voimakkaasti lähivuosina ja 2020-luvulla.

Kiinteistöillä suuri rooli aurinkosähkön tuotannossa

Suomea velvoittavat EU:n tavoitteet uusiutuvan energian tuotannon lisäämisestä. Rakennusten katoilla on potentiaalia tuottaa aurinkosähköä eivätkä katot kilpaile maankäytöstä esimerkiksi ruoantuotannon kanssa. Voisiko kiinteistöillä siis olla merkittävä osuus ilmastotavoitteiden saavuttamisessa? Avainasemassa ovat luonnollisesti investointipäätöksiä tekevät kiinteistönomistajat.

Metropolia Ammattikorkeakoulun talotekniikan ylemmän ammattikorkeakoulututkinnon opinnoissani keskitytään pitkälti energiatehokkuuteen ja uusiutuvan energian tuotantoon. Selvitin opinnäytetyössäni kiinteistönomistajien suhtautumista aurinkosähkön tuotantoon ja arvioin kiinteistöjen aurinkosähköpotentiaaleja. Kiinteistöt olivat kaupallisessa käytössä eli esimerkiksi toimitiloja ja logistiikkarakennuksia. Mukana oli myös muutama institutionaalinen vuokra-asuntosijoittaja, muttei asunto-osakeyhtiöitä. Asunto-osakeyhtiöiden edustajien näkemyksiä on selvittänyt Kiinteistöliitto ja raportin voi lukea täältä.

Suomen rakennusten kattojen aurinkosähköpotentiaalista on tehty joitain karkeita arvioita. Defaix ym. (2012) arvioivat potentiaaliksi 7 prosenttia ja Pöyry Management Consulting (2017) 14 prosenttia Suomen vuotuisesta sähkönkulutuksesta vuonna 2030. Potentiaalin hyödyntämistä rajoittaa kuitenkin se, että suurilla kiinteistöillä, joilla on tuotantoon erinomaisesti soveltuvat katot, ei aina ole riittävää kulutusta sähkön hyödyntämiseksi kiinteistöllä. Suuren rakennuksen aurinkosähköpotentiaali voi olla lähemmäs gigawattitunnin vuodessa ja laitoksen nimellisteho megawatin luokkaa. Sähkön varastoiminen akkuun ja varsinkaan sähkön myyminen verkkoon taas eivät ole taloudellisesti kannattavia vaihtoehtoja.

Ympäristöystävällisyys houkuttaa aurinkosähkön tuottamiseen

Aurinkosähkön tuotanto kiinnostaa kiinteistönomistajia laajasti. Kyselyyni vastanneista kiinteistönomistajien edustajista 86 prosenttia on kiinnostunut aurinkosähköntuotannosta edustamillaan kiinteistöillä. Noin puolet olisi valmis tekemään investointipäätöksen tämän tai ensi vuoden aikana. Aurinkosähköstä on ilmeisen myönteisiä kokemuksia, sillä kaikki ne vastaajat, joiden kiinteistöllä on jo aurinkovoimala, ovat valmiita hankkimaan uudenkin voimalan lähivuosina.

Aurinkosähkön hinta laskee koko ajan eikä kalliimman sähkön maissa tarvita enää tukiaisia, jotta tuotanto olisi kannattavaa (Vimpari & Junnila 2017; Lang ym. 2016). Samaa tilannetta lähestytään Suomessa. Taloudellinen kannattavuus ei kuitenkaan ole ainoa syy investointipäätöksen tekemisessä. Kiinteistönomistajat mainitsivat muiksi syiksi yleisimmin tuotannon ympäristöystävällisyyden ja toisiksi yleisimmin kiinteistön vuokrattavuuden ja/tai imagon.

Vuokralaisilla on omia ympäristöohjelmia ja -tavoitteita, jotka vaikuttavat myös toimitilojen valintaan. Omistajat ovat huomanneet, että energiatehokkuus ja uusiutuvan energian tuottaminen parantavat kiinteistön vuokrattavuutta ja nostavat siten sen arvoa. Kolmannes niistäkin vastaajista, jotka pitivät aurinkosähkön tuotantoa kannattamattomana, voisi silti asennuttaa voimalan kiinteistölleen jo lähivuosina.

Vuokralaisilla on mahdollisuus vaikuttaa aurinkosähkön tuotannon yleistymiseen muutenkin kuin valitsemalla kiinteistön, jolla jo on aurinkovoimala. Noin puolet kiinteistönomistajista suhtautuu vuokralaisen omaan tai vuokralaisen ja omistajan yhteiseen aurinkosähköhankkeeseen myönteisesti ja viidennes harkitsee asiaa tapauskohtaisesti. Kielteisen kannan heti kättelyssä ottavia on vain viidennes. Loput eivät osanneet tai halunneet kertoa kantaansa.

Essi Kuikka
Talotekniikan opiskelija, ylempi amk

Lähteet:

Defaix, P. R., van Sark, W. G. J. H. M., Worrel, E. ja de Wisser, E. 2012. Technical potential for photovoltaics on buildings in the EU-27. Solar Energy 86, s. 2644–2653

Hajautetun uusiutuvan energiantuotannon potentiaali, kannattavuus ja tulevaisuuden näkymät Suomessa 2017. Verkkoaineisto. Pöyry Management Consulting Oy. https://vnk.fi/documents/10616/3866814/5_2017_Hajautetun+uusiutuvan+energiantuotannon+potentiaali%2C+kannattavuus+ja+tulevaisuuden+n%C3%A4kym%C3%A4t+Suomessa/f7fa0126-2880-452d-954b-f52ea5f0a9a0?version=1.0. Luettu 10.10.2018.

Lang, T., Ammann, D. ja Girod, B. 2016. Profitability in absence of subsidies: A techno-economic analysis of rooftop photovoltaic self-consumption in residential and commercial buildings. Renewable Energy 87, s. 77–87.

Vimpari ja Junnila 2017. Evaluating decentralized energy investments: Spatial value of on-site PV electricity. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 70, s. 1217–1222.

I’m studying Master’s degree in Design at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. I am in the last stretch of my studies and in the spring I was missing just one last course when I saw an early introduction to the CERN Bootcamp  -study concept. I stopped looking for other courses, since I knew this was the one for me. I put the date in my calendar and waited for the application period to start.

CERN Bootcamp offered a perfect crash course for service design process, methods and tools. As a designer and design student concentrating in service design and design management, jumping in to the deep end felt easy. I would emphasize the easiness of the jumping with no fear. Swimming in the design current was as stormy and joyful ride as most design projects I have ever been involved in.

Solving Huge Challenges

The kick-off weekend in May showed us just how crazy this study period was to be. A crazy amount of work and a huge challenge. At the kick-off we the course students formed teams and chose the challenges to be solved during the Bootcamp.

My team’s challenge was to find a solution for how to make climate change effects visual to consumers in purchase decision situations. No more or less than to have positive influence on climate change. No more or less than to influence people’s behaviors. It seemed overwhelming at first, but fortunately my whole team had their brains set to design thinking mode and we were ready and happy to jump in with full of curiosity. We could not wait to start the work.

Different Expertise Was Our Strength

The big push for me to apply to the CERN Bootcamp was to test my understanding and implementing skills of service design and mostly to work with new people. How would I work with totally new people?

As I look back, throughout the whole experience, the greatest lessons I got out with was from the teamwork with my wonderful multidisciplinary team at CERN. My team worked really well together. We were students who all came from different fields and had different backgrounds and work experiences.

Everyone was one hundred percent committed to the task and everyone brought in all their different expertise to the table.  We worked really hard within an incredible workflow spiced with humor and good spirit.

In addition to becoming acquainted with all these wonderful people in my team, I also had an opportunity to meet with other great people that I would have never met otherwise. Such as a physicist at Cern, experts on climate issues, consumer behavior and activism, as well as all the customers at Cern-cafeteria. All random people who were interested in our project and would stay with us and stir our views.

And not the least the teachers and mentors without whom we would not have found the right tools and methods during the project and come up with a solution to the problem at the end. Having the chance to meet so many interesting people with fresh viewpoints and the opportunity to visit and stay at the incredible and almost surreal CERN made my CERN Bootcamp the most rewarding learning experience in my studies.

Heidi Mäkelä

By Mikael Kämpe & Zinaida Grabovskaia

Sharing economy gets more and more popular today. Sharing of assets safes money and frees the capital to concentrate on core competences of businesses and people. RAMIRENT is one of biggest and oldest Finnish companies that focuses on machinery and equipment, and rental of professional equipment. Nowadays, Ramirent is also famous for multiple services related to construction, industry and even to big events!

Mikael Kämpe, Executive Vice-President of Ramirent Finland, visited the Industrial Management Master’s program and talked to students about the art and craft of providing services.

Our business is making a safe construction place

Ramirent, a leading Finnish company that is now also very visible in Europe, was established in 1955. In 2017, annual net sales reached 191,5 MEUR in Finland (Group 724M€). Ramirent is a market leader in Finland, Baltics, Norway, Poland, Czech and Slovakia, except in Sweden and Denmark. The main customer of the company is construction business, as well as the companies and sites that resemble construction, for example, shipyards and big events. Our main business is to make a safe construction place. But we are not a building company. We provide equipment, know-how, services, and customized services for construction sites.

In services, our core focus is on a wide range of equipment rentals. In Finland, appr. 40% of our business relate to services, and we tend to focus more on services combined with our equipments.

We have developed a ‘One-stop-shop’ offering for machines and equipment. This includes renting the light machinery, heavy machinery, and also more complicated rental services – safety equipment, scaffolding, tower cranes (here, we are second in Finland), hoists, power and heating, lifts, renting modules for construction workers, etc. In addition, our services include planning for temporary sites, site services, training, logistics, and fuel services. These services make appr. 40% of our business in Finland.

One example of Ramirent’s recent projects is Tripla in Pasila. We are a ‘one-stop-shop’ supplier and partly run the site logistics for this project. We also provide a lot of temporary solutions, such as scaffolding and weather protection services (heating, moisture protection, etc), since we have very challenging weather in Finland. Under our scaffolding system that covers the building, the workers can do their work even in rain and snow.

Currently, construction is booming. The growth is visible especially in the capitals and big university cities. There is also a rising number of small construction companies. As a result, the competition is getting tighter. Also, the demand for equipment is changing quite fast. European regulations always tighten the level of safety and emissions and thus tell us what equipment to use. As a result, construction sites become more and more complex, especially for big companies.

Focus on people as the biggest asset

To help our customers to run a construction site, we start with (a) the needs analysis and planning, continue to (b) delivery and support, and end with (c) evaluation when the equipment comes back. Upon the machinery return, we check, refill, clean it, and also fix it, if necessary. For fixing, we send the equipment to specialized hubs. We have currently 58 customer centers across Finland and specializing hubs for different types of equipment. Based on our experience, it helps if maintenance is centralized. Another reason for the hub structure is the logistics of spare parts, and having all similar equipment in one place.

Whatever we do, we always focus on people as the biggest asset. And the general trend is that we take better and better care of people. Interestingly, equipment rental business is a unique area where Finnish companies are the biggest in Europe.

In addition to rental services, we also developed a digital platform RAMISMART. Länsimetro, for example, uses this system. One part of it is ‘Time and Attendance’ which tell how many people are on the site, and to the tax office which workers and companies are working. After having this system for a couple of years, we started thinking what else we can do with it and launched ‘RAMISMART Machine Control’. With this system, we can follow who is using the machine and authorize the access to it. The big data is not yet utilized, equipment is not yet speaking with each other, but this is definitely the future.

Big events as a new service area

Finally, big events has recently become a customer for our services. As big events require temporary infrastructure – quite like a big construction site – we started providing rental services for big events. For example, we built the infrastructure, temporary stores and shops, change rooms, fences, scaffolding, etc. for such events as Flow Festival, Tall Ships Race and Helsinki Ice Challenge in Kaisaniemi.

In 2018, appr. 150 events have been conducted this year only. This service started as a marginal activity but now has grown into a larger business. Thus, do not be surprised seeing Ramirent when going to a festival. This is not a coincidence but a new service area for a company that has know-how and competences in managing equipment, logistics and services for big sites.

The text is based on Mikael Kämpe’s presentation materials written by Zinaida Grabovskaia.

Mikael Kämpe
Executive Vice-President of RAMIRENT Finland Oy and a guest speaker on developing service business in Industrial Management Master’s studies

Zinaida Grabovskaia
Senior lecture, Head of Master’s program in Industrial Management, Metropolia. The program specializes in service business especially for big industrial players.