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Microsoft announces new Finland cloud region - with district heating by Fortum

By District Energy posted 03-21-2022 09:11

  

Data Center Dynamics

Summary

Microsoft is building a new data center region in Finland, joining a project started by local utility Fortum to deliver its heat output to homes and businesses in the Helsinki metropolitan area

The new facility will allow Finnish organizations to store their data in Finland, with a very low response time, while also providing zero-carbon heat to Fortum customers in Espoo, Kauniainen and Kirkkonummi, West of Helsinki.

The partners say this is the world's largest data center heat recovery project, and Finland's largest single ICT investment ever

Data center heat is potentially a useful resource, as nations want to decarbonize their heating systems to reduce emissions. They can use waste heat generated while servers do useful work - and in this case, the electricity fed to those servers will be from renewable sources in the first place.

Using the heat has been a struggle however, because data center heat is low quality, and data centers are rarely located close to district heating systems that can use their output. Because data center heat is usually offered for free, with no guarantees, connection is often not financially viable.

Fortum began looking for a partner four years ago, aiming to find a data center partner whose waste heat could displace other energy sources, enabling Fortum to switch off coal fired plants currently feeding the district heating system.

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