atNorth, a Nordic data center company, and Calentix, a Swedish energy infrastructure company, have signed a Project Development Agreement to develop a heat recovery project at its SWE04 data center in Sollefteå, Sweden, with the aim of supplying surplus heat to the nearby Långsele district heating network.
Under the agreement, Calentix will lead the project’s technical, commercial and financial development, including arranging the financing and infrastructure needed to recover and transport the heat. atNorth will provide access to surplus heat from the data center and manage the necessary site integration and infrastructure interfaces as detailed in an atNorth blog.
The partnership follows an initial feasibility study that confirmed the technical potential for heat recovery at SWE04 and identified local interest in using the energy. The companies will now assess the project’s design, investment requirements, commercial structure and agreements with the relevant parties.
The arrangement gives Calentix responsibility for developing and financing the heat recovery system, positioning it as an independent heat producer between the data center and the district heating operator. This means atNorth will supply the heat without taking responsibility for developing and operating the entire recovery infrastructure.
The proposed project builds on atNorth’s existing heat reuse agreements across the Nordic region. These include supplying surplus heat from its SWE01 data center to Stockholm Exergi’s district heating network, a partnership with Danish utility Vestforbrænding to heat more than 8,000 homes, and a heat supply arrangement with Finnish retailer Kesko for a neighboring supermarket.
The SWE04 project would apply a different commercial structure by placing a specialist heat recovery developer between the data center operator and the local heating network. Its implementation will depend on whether the technical requirements, infrastructure investment and commercial terms can be agreed by the parties.