Does Solein production consume a lot of energy?

Solein’s biggest ecological footprint comes from the electricity used in its production.

Electricity is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is used as the energy source of Solein’s bioprocess; some of the oxygen is also used, while some of it is released into the atmosphere . The electricity used for Solein production must be from a source that does not involve the burning of fossil fuels. Globally, these sources are solar, wind, hydro or nuclear power. At our first commercial factory, Factory 01, we have committed to the use of wind power sourced from the Nordic electricity market.

With current technologies the efficiency of converting electricity to calories is about 20%. Compared to plants, by hectare, the yield in Solein is 10 times more than photosynthetic plants. This holds true even if the electricity for Solein production came from solar panels (which require a sizeable amount of land area).

Theoretically speaking, looking at our home country of Finland, if all the calories consumed by Finns came from Solein, the entire food production of the nation would require 10% of the primary energy use of Finland and one-third of the electricity consumed today.