Heat Reuse
Project track
Accelerating data center heat recovery projects in Europe
“Heat-Reuse Ready” is becoming a key design requirement for European Data Centers. The goal is to develop reference designs for heat reuse that can be applied to both new builds and retrofits, enabling data centers to transfer excess heat to various users.
Why heat reuse?
- Taps directly into any Net Zero strategy
- The EU Taxonomy urges companies to report their environmentally sustainable economic activities. Energy is a scarce commodity.
- The data center sector in the European Union is expected to undergo new and rigorous directives (EED) and potentially regulations intended to reduce their carbon emissions. A directive for reuse of data center excess heat launched in 2022.
Heat Reuse Calculator supports heat reuse cases
Nearly 100% of the electricity consumed by IT equipment is dissipated as waste heat.
The NZIH heat reuse calculator provides an approximate cost range for the heat supplied by a data center.
Waste heat from Europe’s data centers could make a major contribution to meeting Europe's demand for renewable heat, providing 221TWh/ year or 12% of the total demand (EUDCA, Euroheat and Power reports).
To engage potential users, local utilities, and communities, it is useful to be able to address this common question: "What is the price of heat provided by data centers? Is it competitive within the local heat market?"
About the Heat Reuse Calculator
This tool was created and verified by the hub heat reuse team.
This tool provides:
- A cost range based on informed estimates.
- A starting point for economic discussions with internal and external stakeholders.
Project partners
Project scope & goals
- How to implement reuse of excess heat into the design of new and existing DC’s if reliability is not to be compromised?
- Can load shifting go hand in hand with heat reuse?
- Is reuse of excess heat a sound investment?
- Standard conditions between a DC and a district heating company?
- How to optimize DC and district heating efficiencies?
- What to look for during DC site selection to exploit reuse of heat?
- Should a DC choose to deliver low temperature excess heat or produce high temperature district heating?
- A screening tool to evaluate the business case for reuse of heat from a data center?
Project objectives
- Publish a framework & blueprint for planning, modeling & executing heat reuse systems at data center facilities
- Deliver a simple, clear resource for producers, off-takers, and distribution partners to better educate and inform primary stakeholders
- Advocate for standardization & acceptance of best-practices of data center heat reuse
- Development of a DSO/off-taker ecosystem that enables data center heat to be utilized cost effectively
- Advocate for appropriate heat reuse metrics and the development of appropriate carbon accounting for data center heat reuse stakeholders
Project lead
Get in touch with the program lead for any questions relating to the Innovation Hub's data center heat reuse project.
