Data center providing heat in Sweden

A data centre is to provide heating for up to 10,000 residential apartments in Sweden.

Digiplex announced a partnership with a heating and cooling supplier, Stockholm Exergi and the large-scale heat reuse agreement will see an already established data centre with an indirect air-to-air cooling solution retrofitted to recover excess heat for the local district heating system.

Digiplex CEO Gisle M. Eckhoff told DataCentre News, it’s a move that must be made given data centres are responsible for two percent of the world’s annual carbon dioxide emission and three percent of the power consumption.

“Every time we browse the Internet, stream a TV series or use the cloud, a process starts in a data centre. If that data centre is a power-hungry fossil fuel-fired one that releases excess heat into the atmosphere, we as individuals are contributing to climate change. At DigiPlex we are very proud to lead the industry by using the excess heat from our Stockholm data centre to heat thousands of households,” says Eckhoff. “Digitisation needs to support improved sustainability, and this partnership with Stockholm Exergi is a big leap forward, one that could enable residents’ digital activity to contribute to heating their own homes.”

Stockholm Exergi CEO Anders Egelrud says the agreement with DigiPlex is a strong validation of the company’s waste heat recovery program and Stockholm Data Parks. “The partnership with DigiPlex shows that heat recovery to district heating systems is also compatible with indirect air-to-air cooling technology. It represents a key step towards our vision of using data centre heat to contribute to a more sustainable society. As part of our drive to make Stockholm fossil fuel-free, our objective is that 10 percent of Stockholm’s heating needs shall be provided by recovered data centre waste heat.”

Given almost 90 percent of all buildings in Stockholm are connected to the district heating network, the Swedish capital is one of the few cities in the world where large scale heat reuse from data centres is actually possible.

Source: Energy Supply