Blogs

Duke starts construction on data center near Central Campus

By District Energy posted an hour ago
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The Chronicle Summary Duke recently began construction on a small graphics processing unit data center, adjacent to Central Campus, that top administrators say will boost the University’s computing capacity while adhering to its Climate Commitment. The center — which is expected to open by the 2027-28 academic year — will be around 13,000 square feet and two stories tall. Located on the east side of Anderson Street, it will connect to one of the University’s three chilled water plants. Continue Reading #MemberNewsIDEA #DukeUniversity #DataCenter
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U.S. House approves bill to increase geothermal leasing

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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Idaho Capital Sun Summary The U.S. House approved a bill brought by Idaho Republican Rep. Russ Fulcher to increase geothermal energy leasing on public lands. Boise is home to the nation’s first geothermal district heating system, established in 1892. Idaho’s Capitol is the only geothermally heated capitol building in the U.S., according to the press release from Fulcher. The Raft River Geothermal Power Plant in Cassia County produces 10 megawatts of electricity, according to the director of the University of Idaho’s Energy Institute, John Kumm. Continue Reading #News #GeothermalandGeo-Exchange #DistrictHeating
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Helen presents nuclear energy project to EU Commissioner Dan Jørgensen

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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Helen Summary Helsinki has around 700,000 inhabitants, and nearly 90 percent of its building stock is connected to district heating. This makes the city particularly well suited for large-scale, combustion-free heating solutions based on nuclear energy. “With nuclear energy, we could secure the energy needs of a growing city while simultaneously reducing emissions and helping to contain rising energy costs,” says Pekka Tolonen, CEO of Helen Nuclear Ltd. Continue Reading #News #Nuclear #DistrictHeating
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Geothermal energy in Pakistan: an untapped strategic resource

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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Business Recorder Summary As the world accelerates toward cleaner and more reliable energy systems, geothermal energy is rapidly emerging as one of the most promising renewable resources of the future. In colder northern regions, geothermal energy could support district heating systems, greenhouse agriculture, tourism infrastructure, and small-scale industries while reducing dependence on imported fuels and diesel generators. Continue Reading #News #GeothermalandGeo-Exchange #DistrictHeating
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Microsoft targets western Finland for new datacentre project

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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Helsinki Times Summary Microsoft has signed a preliminary agreement to acquire about 190 hectares of land in western Finland for a potential new datacentre development, extending the company's expansion in a country that has become a growing destination for cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure. The southern Finland development is being built in stages across three campuses. According to Microsoft, more than 3,500 people are currently employed on construction work, with the workforce expected to reach around 4,500 this summer and peak at roughly 7,500 workers during the project. The company has also linked the project to Finland's energy ...
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Energy companies and environmental groups join forces against Germany's “green gas quota” for heating

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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Clean Energy Wire Summary Germany should drop plans to increase the share of green gases in heating networks as part of a law reform to clean the sector , an alliance including energy companies E.ON and EWE as well as environmental organisations BUND and DUH said. A blanket green gas quota in the buildings sector should be avoided, the group stated in an open letter seen by Tagesspiegel Background. The unusual alliance argued that the buildings sector should primarily achieve its decarbonisation targets through electrification, district heating expansion and energy efficiency, while scarce biomethane and other green gases should be used in sectors ...
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IGC Frankfurt to focus on geothermal heat financing

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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Think GeoEnergy Summary As cities and industries seek secure, affordable, and climate-neutral heat supplies, the upcoming IGC Invest Geothermal Conference in Frankfurt will place a strong focus on the role of deep geothermal energy in the transition away from fossil fuels. Deep geothermal energy offers several advantages for district heating systems. Unlike solar and wind energy, geothermal resources can provide continuous baseload heat independent of weather conditions while relying on local energy sources. Continue Reading #News #DistrictHeating #GeothermalandGeo-Exchange
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Exploring SMR Technology for Energy Needs, Port Decarbonisation

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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Sea News Summary There is great interest in Small Modular Reactors (SMR) for decarbonisation, to accelerate transition towards net zero emissions using nuclear power in the maritime industry – merchant ships and ports. Marine-based SMRs can be deployed as offshore barge-mounted floating power units and immersible power units. With their ability to operate in hybrid systems and off‑grid, SMRs can help relieve pressure on power grids, which are coming under increasing strain due to rising demand from data centers, low‑carbon hydrogen and synthetic‑fuel production, as well as water desalination. This technology can play a particularly important role in ...
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District Energy St. Paul to start construction on chilled water plant

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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Yahoo! News Summary District Energy St. Paul plans to build a chilled water plant at University Avenue and Mississippi Street that will serve downtown's energy needs. Construction on the Capital City Thermal Plant will be divided into two phases. This month, crews will erect a 2-million-gallon storage tank on the site, planned to be completed by next April. Then, through the summer of 2028, the energy center will be built around it. "This new capacity on our district energy system is an investment that our community asked for," said Luke Gaalswyk, president and CEO of District Energy St. Paul, in a news release. "It's important that we lay the groundwork ...
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Clean energy champions receive European Sustainable Energy Awards at EUSEW 2026

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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Balkan Green Energy News Summary Donna Gartland, the head of Dublin’s Energy Agency Codema, won in the Women in Energy category, rewarding her role in driving Ireland’s transition to low-carbon heat. She has been instrumental in leading a landmark district heating project using waste heat from a nearby data centre to supply municipal and residential buildings, as well as securing major EU funding under the LIFE Clean Energy Transition programme. At the same time, she has transformed workplace practices, mainstreaming gender equality and progressive policies at Codema, including a four-day working week on full pay and a gender-neutral family leave ...
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District heating schemes could dramatically reduce Ireland’s energy bills

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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The Irish Times Summary To figure out the future, you sometimes need to look to the past. In the winter of 1973, as Europe shivered its way through the oil crisis, the Danish government was under intense pressure. With 90 per cent of its energy coming from oil, the drop in supplies from the Middle East saw temporary factory closures, cuts to street lighting and even a ban on Sunday driving. Something, it was decided, would have to change. A case might reasonably be made that the dispersed population of 1970s Ireland wouldn’t have been suited to district heating, which works at greatest efficiency when it’s deployed in densely-populated urban areas. ...
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Singapore Turns to District Cooling as Heat and Energy Pressures Rise

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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futr Summary It is an old idea, but one that is finding renewed relevance in Singapore. District cooling, a concept dating back more than a century, is gaining ground in the city-state as temperatures rise at twice the global average. For a country that imports almost all of its energy, the appeal is straightforward: the system uses less electricity than conventional air-conditioning and can be deployed at scale. Singapore has already laid such networks beneath at least eight districts. The Marina Bay network, which began operations in 2006, remains the world’s largest underground district cooling system. More buildings are ...
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Statement By H.E. Ahmad Bin Shafar, CEO Of Empower, On World Environment Day 2026

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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Menafn Summary “World Environment Day is an important occasion to reaffirm our commitment to protecting natural resources, promoting sustainable practices, and raising awareness of the importance of adopting practical solutions that support development goals while safeguarding the environment for future generations. At Empower, we are guided by the vision of the wise leadership, which has placed sustainability at the heart of Dubai's and the UAE's comprehensive development journey. We continue to translate this vision into advanced and highly efficient district cooling solutions that contribute to reducing carbon emissions. We believe that district cooling ...
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How heat resilience was hardwired into the UAE

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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The National News Summary In the UAE, extreme summer temperatures have been a reality for generations. It is also something that has shaped how the Emirates developed and where it is headed. Heat resilience has, by necessity, been hardwired into UAE communities. The Emirates has had the advantage of being a young country and this blank canvas allowed it to design cities and buildings in which cooling features were infrastructure, not landscaping. Examples of this can be seen in Dubai where the Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation operates infrastructure that includes an underground distribution pipeline network of more than 430km and ...
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Valmet's solution boosts Gren Tartu's district heating capacity in Estonia with flue gas heat recovery

By District Energy posted 2 hours ago
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PR Newswire Summary Valmet has received an order from Gren Tartu for the delivery of a flue gas condenser and heat pumps to the Tartu biomass heat and power plant in Estonia. The solution will increase the amount of heat supplied to the local district heating network. The new equipment recovers heat from the plant's flue gas and upgrades it with heat pumps for district heating use. The solution will add more than 10 MW of additional heat supply to the district heating network. This enables the production of more district heat, using less fuel and reducing emissions. Continue Reading #News #DistrictHeating
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Nottingham EfW heat scheme secures funding for further development

By District Energy posted 3 hours ago
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ENDS Summary Nottingham City Council has secured government funding to help inform the next phase of development for its district heating network, which is powered by the Eastcroft Depot energy-from-waste facility. The funding has been awarded through DESNZ’s Heat Network Efficiency Scheme (HNES). While the precise amount hasn’t been disclosed, EWB understands that the local authority was one of 33 organisations that received a share of a £1.2m revenue grant from HNES’s latest funding round. The grant will support two detailed optimisation feasibility studies across key parts of the network. Continue Reading #News ...
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A Pilot Project for the Heat Transition

By District Energy posted 3 hours ago
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2G Energy Summary With two large-scale heat pumps and a biomethane CHP plant, EWE subsidiary TEWE generates renewable heat for the Brandenburg town of Erkner while also reducing the strain on the power grid. We are pleased to be able to make an important contribution to this forward-looking project with our energy solutions. We are all the more delighted to congratulate the project on being named “CHP Project of the Month” by the energy magazine Energie & Management. The electricity generated in this process in turn powers the heat pump system with an output of 530 kW. Thanks to intelligent sector coupling, there is no additional strain on the electricity ...
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A Practical Path to Heat Reuse: Linking Data Centers to District Heating Networks

By District Energy posted 10 hours ago
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Engineered Systems News Byline by Rob thornton, President & CEO, IDEA Summary Data centers are growing faster than the grid can keep pace with. Interconnection queues are long, transformer lead times are stretching to years, and communities are pushing back on new development. Meanwhile, the sector's thermal profile is shifting from air cooling to liquid cooling – concentrating heat into a form far more useful than hot exhaust. That’s the context in which district energy belongs in this conversation. By 2028, data center electricity demand is projected to reach as much as 12% of total U.S. electricity consumption – though forecasts vary widely ...
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The World Is Watching Canada

By District Energy posted 23 hours ago
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ReNew Canada Heating and cooling account for roughly half of Canada's total energy demand. It's also the piece of the energy puzzle that's largely been left out of national policy conversations. Until now. In a new piece for ReNew Canada, IDEA President & CEO Rob Thornton makes the case for why district energy, already at work in more than 200 Canadian communities, is how Canada closes that gap. This June, delegates from over 20 countries come to Ottawa to see what's been built and what’s coming next. Join us at IDEA2026, June 23–26. Read Rob's full article here: https://www.renewcanada.net/the-world-is-watching-canada/ #MemberNewsIDEA ...
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Podcast: Hot n' Cold: Talking efficiency with International District Energy Association

By District Energy posted 4 days ago
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S&P Global IDEA President & CEO Rob Thornton joined Hill Vaden and Samantha Humphreys of [tag]S&P Global Energy for the EnergyCents podcast to discuss how district energy networks are accelerating decarbonization in downtowns, campuses, clusters and communities more effectively and efficiently than traditional building-by-building approaches. The conversation also explores why district energy is gaining momentum globally as utilities, regulators, developers and policy-makers look for more practical, scalable solutions to today's energy challenges, including: 🏭 Cutting emissions from building heating and cooling $ ...
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