Executive Summary
- Prosumer data centres are on the rise as sites seek to distribute excess heat back into local communities to help them keep warm and cut costs.
- Data centres have a ton of excess thermal energy and it’s time to reuse the heat waste to give back to the community, with initiatives like Deep Green’s “digital boiler”.
- For decades, data centres have sat behind huge fences, shut off from the public and that shows when you look at the knowledge disconnect from the general public and how much they actually know about data centres. The overall perception of data centres “taking” and not giving back is strong and it’s time to change that narrative.
Imagine being able to heat your morning coffee up because of AI. Or even heating up a swimming pool thanks to your Claude query. Heat reuse is an up-and-coming area of progress where the industry tackles waste heat from servers.
In 2024, Equinix exported 14.5 GWh of residual heat from its operations, a 245% increase on the previous 12 months. Over in Helsinki, Toronto and Paris, the sites supplied the extra thermal energy into heating systems and local community facilities to recycle the heat and give back to the community simultaneously. And Europe needs to be investing more into this so we can tackle efficiency and recycling energy so nothing is wasted.
This year, Equinix is proposing a site south of Paris that will heat greenhouses for growing tomatoes and a fish farm, essentially turning that data centre site into an agricultural hub that multitasks. Imagine the impact this could create if more operators followed this path.
The EU Energy Efficiency Directive
Of course, it wouldn’t just be done out of the goodness of hearts and to give back to the community; investing time and money into heat reuse will enable the sites to operate within the new EU EED, where data centres over 1MW must perform a cost-benefit analysis for waste heat reuse.
This, of course, adds stakes because sustainability has shifted from nice to have to if you’re not creating an impact with a percentage of your heat reuse, you may not get permits and face delays.
The Deep Green Swimming Pool Case Study
In 2023, UK startup Deep Green heated Exmouth swimming pool with its heating solutions. Through their immersion cooling, they captured excess heat and transferred it to the swimming pool’s heating system for free, reducing the gas requirements by 62%.
Their ‘digital boilers’ put waste heat to good use, reducing carbon footprint and saving local businesses a lot of money on energy bills.
This goes to show that you don’t need a massive warehouse to make a positive impact on the local community. Even a washing machine-sized server can save a community pool around £20,000 each year.
For decades, data centres have sat behind huge fences, shut off from the public and that shows when you look at the knowledge disconnect from the general public and how much they actually know about data centres. The overall perception of data centres “taking” and not giving back is strong and it’s time to change that narrative.
The success of Deep Green’s community pools and Equinix’s heating networks in Paris and Helsinki is proof that the “prosumer data centre” is an operational and sustainability necessity and helps the community’s perception of data centres. The next time you trigger a complex genAI query, you may be helping warm the local florist. The future of cooling isn’t just about thermal management on sites, it’s about making servers colder but the community warmer.
