DCD
Summary
Nordic utility provider Fortum is setting up a district heating system in Espoo, the second-largest city in Finland, and plans to connect data centers to provide heat which could make the system carbon neutral.
Working with the Espoo city authorities, Fortum plans to cease any coal burning in the city by 2025, to switch off two power plants and have 95 percent of district heating from renewable sources by 2029. In 2020, the city announced it had reserved a space for a data center close to the city's heating system. Reports this week say the utility is still looking to find a data center partner for that site.
Fortum plans to shut down two of the three combined heat and power (CHP) plants it operates in Espoo, one being a coal-burning steam turbine, the other being a combined cycle-gas turbine, weaning the city onto heat produced without burning fuel, so no more coal is burnt by 2025. The district heating system is planned to essentially go carbon neutral by 2029. In 2030, it hopes to expand its district heating to the Kirkokonummi and Kauniainen regions.
Fortum says a 100MW data center would provide enough heat for 35 percent of the demand in the Espoo district heating network. The original Hepokorvenkallio announcement in 2020 said a single data center could cover 1.7 percent of Finland's emissions reduction target for 2035, some 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions.
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