Digital Infra Network
Summary
“Nearly 100% of the electricity consumed by IT equipment is dissipated as waste heat”, says a new white paper published by the European Data Centre Association (EUDCA) Technical Committee. Whilst the quantity of that heat can vary according to the computational load and ambient conditions, it could prove to be a useful resource from both an economic, and energy and sustainability standpoint.
“An Introduction to Data Centre Heat Reuse,” says author Alessandro Zerbetto, “is written to provide a useful and accessible overview of what heat reuse is, some of its main applications, and how heat can be recovered from a data centre. It also provides an introduction to current legislative and regulatory initiatives that support or mandate exhaust heat recovery schemes.”
Making the point that generally, current data centre waste heat temperatures are not high enough for many use cases without the addition of systems to further elevate recovered heat temperature, a well-designed heat reuse system can not only improve the energy efficiency of a facility, but also reduce the overall energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions associated with traditional heating and cooling methods.
Quoting Euroheat and Power, the white paper states the EU’s total forecasted heat demand by 2025 will be 1850 TWh/ year. Waste heat from Europe’s data centres could make a major contribution to meeting this demand, providing 221 TWh/ year or 12 percent of the total requirement. According to the report there are 997 data centres in the EU-28 located within 2km of a district heating network and generating more than 75 TWh/ year of accessible excess heat.
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