Absolicon is part of a winning consortium developing intelligent control of high temperature heat storage. The Sun For the Winter (SFW) project, with a total budget of about SEK 11.2 million (1 MEUR), brings together six leading companies and research institutions from Sweden, Denmark and Turkey in a broad research collaboration

Absolicon has been granted funding from the Swedish Energy Agency within the CETPartnership research programme to take part in the European development project Sun For the Winter, which will make seasonal borehole storage of solar heat cost effective, intelligent and reliable. The project strengthens Europe’s energy transition by delivering climate neutral heating in cold climates without fossil fuels.

SFW is coordinated by MG Sustainable Engineering AB in Sweden and brings together six partners: MG Sustainable Engineering, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU), Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Absolicon Solar Collector AB, Uppsala University and Sustainability InnoCenter. Absolicon is the Swedish industrial partner and is responsible for delivering 12 concentrating solar collectors to the project’s field laboratory in Uppsala, supporting system integration and leading the business development work for scale up.

The entire project has a total budget of EUR 1,014,022 (about SEK 11.2 million). Absolicon’s share amounts to EUR 101,840 (about SEK 1.1 million), of which 70 percent, or EUR 71,288 (about SEK 786,000), is financed by the Swedish Energy Agency through CETPartnership. SFW runs for three years, from September 2026 to September 2029.

SFW builds on the Eureka project VHT-STORAGE, which starts in April 2026 and establishes a field laboratory in Uppsala with high temperature boreholes and Absolicon solar collectors. The borehole storage will be charged with solar heat at 100°C to 140°C, enabling low cost district heating during winter without a heat pump.

The project’s goal is to make the borehole storage intelligent. A calibrated digital twin is developed and used together with an AI based Energy Management System to optimize charging and discharging of the heat store.

SFW is expected to deliver important market effects: lower heat production cost, higher system reliability, reduced auxiliary power use and clearer investment cases for the district heating and property markets.

With Sun For the Winter, Absolicon takes another step toward making large scale seasonal storage of solar heat more efficient, more cost effective and easier to implement in Europe’s energy transition.

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