By 2025, every person in the developed world will have at least one “interaction” with a data center every 18 seconds of their life. A WhatsApp, a play on Netflix, a 'like' on Instagram, a scroll on Tiktok or a click to read this news. All of this passes through a data center, connected 24 hours a day and 365 days a year so as not to miss anything on the Internet. The operation of the computers in these data centers constantly generates residual heat of around 20 and 35 degrees. which is dissipated by different systems and in other cases is expelled outside. However, starting in 2025, the owners of these facilities will have to pay more attention to the temperature generated in their buildings.
The new Energy Efficiency Directive in its article 26, which addresses the supply of heating and cooling, for example, highlights the need to maximize the use of the energy generated in these centers, emphasizing the use of residual heat. The Directive proposes the reuse of waste heat in data centers with an electrical power greater than 1 MW, unless its technical or economic viability is demonstrated. “We have everything ready to do it,” say sources from Digital Realty, which has several data centers in Madrid. “We only need the approval of the city council,” they add.
In just over a year, these facilities will have to review their plans, although in Finland and, now also, in London, the computers, which allow the 'cloud' to function without problems, heat the radiators of several homes. “It makes no sense to send it very far away, they have to be adjacent buildings,” these sources say.
To bring this 'heat' beyond the walls of the centers “it is necessary that the 'neighbors' have the necessary infrastructure to share this heat,” say the experts at Digital Realty. “It is as simple as exchanging plates so that they send us the cold water and we send the heat,” they explain.
In these rooms the average temperature is about 26 or 28 degrees and “this system is not the same in humid or cold climates,” these sources highlight. In Finland, state authorities have used Microsoft data centers to heat homes, businesses and offices in Helsinki. “The concept is unique because the location of the data center region was chosen specifically with waste heat recycling in mind,” Fortum noted last year. According to the Finnish company, the heat obtained from the Microsoft facilities will be distributed through a district heating structure, which consists of more than 900 kilometers of pipes.
In London, an 'environmental' network of plastic pipes will distribute waste heat to increase temperatures with heat pumps to supply “low temperature hot water” and then channel them through steel pipes to homes.
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