Heating with data centers: Finland's good idea?
As we know, the operation of data center servers emits a lot of heat. Enough to feed the district heating network of cities that have one, as is the case in Finland. But it's far from being a panacea, as Bloomberg explains.
When Ari Kurvi takes a shower or turns up the thermostat on his radiators, the Finnish engineer uses waste heat from a 75-megawatt data center 5 kilometers from his home. Servers in the center churn out terabytes of digital information so people can make video calls, use their GPS, and search online. But this center has a twist: an ingenious system of pipes and pumps collects the thermal energy and delivers it to homes in the town of Mantsala, in southern Finland.
Since its commissioning about ten years ago, the data center has been providing heat to the city. Last year, it heated the equivalent of 2,500 homes, covering about two-thirds of residents' needs, resulting in lower energy bills. It also reduces the environmental impact of these electricity-intensive infrastructures. Global tech giants are now beginning to harvest heat from their data centers in an effort to develop a more sustainable model.
Ari Kurvi is a pioneer of this technology. Hired as an engineer and c
Courrier International
