.png)
Google is making a $1.1 billion investment to expand its data centers in Finland. As part of the plan, the company partnered with the municipality of Hasamina to reuse the heat from these facilities to heat nearby homes, schools, and public buildings. The heat is sufficient to meet 80% of the annual heating demand of the local district, while predominantly viewed as a clean source of energy.
Photo Credit: Google
Utilizing the heat locally is effective since data center heat typically reaches only about 32–43 degrees Celsius and cannot travel long distances. Data center company, Deep Green, uses the heat of data centers to heat public swimming pools in the UK. The laundry machine-sized box mini data center in Devon manages to heat the pool to 30 degrees Celsius about 60% of the time, potentially reducing carbon dioxide emissions by close to 26 metric tons a year. In January 2024, Octopus Energy invested £200 million into the company, aiming to expand this technology to up to 150 more swimming pools across the country. In a similar application, located in Quebec, QScale is using the heat from its Lévis data center campus to supply greenhouses that will nourish more than 80,000 tons of produce every year.
In Canada, space heating accounts for 63.6% of the residential energy consumption. Furnaces, boilers, and heat pumps all rely on either natural gas, oil, and electricity. Around 28% of residential heating is powered by electricity; with Canada’s large hydroelectric generation resources, 81% of the electricity is from low or non-carbon-emitting sources. However, natural gas makes up around 50% of residential space heating, and fossil fuel combustion can produce haze-generating pollutants. Pollution does not occur exclusively outdoors, exposure from carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter can lead to fatigue, irritant, and even death when the concentration is high. With Canada’s goal to achieve zero-net emission by 2050, adopting more heat reuse technologies could prove crucial.
留言