American Planning Association
Summary
The recent surge in artificial intelligence (AI) use has driven a similar increase in data center development. In most cases, data centers are resource drains that negatively impact neighboring communities. An average data center uses between four and five times the energy of a similar-sized office building, and its servers generate so much heat that they need year-round, constant cooling. This waste heat can become a valuable resource, however, when it is used instead of fossil fuels to heat nearby buildings. A growing number of projects in the U.S. and around the world are now using data centers as heat sources for nearby buildings.
In a data center waste heat recovery system, heat from the data center is captured from the air or water used to cool its servers, either through a heat recovery chiller or heat exchangers, and sent to a nearby heat load (user of heat) through connecting infrastructure, such as a district energy system. In the U.S., such systems are usually found on institutional campuses and in the downtown districts of legacy cities.
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