Data centers generate a significant amount of heat due to the large number of servers and other equipment housed within them. In line with this, the interest in finding ways to harness it to cut energy costs and offset carbon emissions is continuously growing.
According to ResearchGate, data centers worldwide consume over 200 TWh of electricity each year-comprising around 1% of the total electricity usage -and are poised to grow to 3-13% of the global electricity demand by 2030. As data centers consume a lot of electricity, it generates lots of heat as well.
However, to manage the heat generated by data centers, several traditional cooling techniques are being used. There are also several sustainable approaches being discovered to cool data centers and harness the heat generated from it.
Data centers are a significant contributor to global energy consumption and carbon emissions. By adopting these sustainable practices, data centers can reduce their environmental impact and contribute to global efforts to mitigate climate change.
Sustainable Ways to Use the Data Center Heat
Instead of using electricity to keep the data center servers cool, various firms are capturing that heat and channeling it for other uses, with the aim of reducing both costs and carbon emissions.
In March 2022, Microsoft revealed that it was building a new data center in Finland which would use excess heat to power local homes, businesses, and services. A district heating system was set to be constructed to connect heat from the server cooling process to buildings in the local area.
Facebook has also recycled the heat from at least one of its data centers, using it to heat thousands of homes in a community in Odense, Denmark.
In September 2022, White Data Center in Bibai, Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido, turned to snow. They discovered using snow as a way to cool the vast servers that support the global digital economy without fueling the climate crisis.
In a nearby greenhouse where the company is growing mushrooms and has tested other products like Japanese mustard spinach, coffee beans, abalones, and sea urchins, heat from the servers is used to warm the air and water.
Recently, Deep Green, a UK-based tech startup, has installed a mini data center underneath a swimming pool in Devon County. That way, the pool doesn’t need to rely as much as it typically does on a gas boiler. The company’s ‘digital boiler’ technology is a “cloud data center” that transforms the heat generated by a bank of computer servers into hot water. It is installed on-site at swimming pools or businesses that need heat, such as bakeries, distilleries, laundrettes and blocks of flats.
Moreover, Reid Brewin Architects (RBA) has completed a new project that uses waste energy including heat from Equinix PA10 data centers to power a rooftop ‘urban farm’ on the outskirts of Paris. Central to the client’s sustainability commitment was the desire to reuse waste heat from the data center, and to create a usable area that would promote health and wellbeing.
Managing the heat generated by data centers is a significant challenge for organizations. By adopting practices such as improving energy efficiency, using renewable energy, offsetting their carbon footprint, designing for sustainability, and reducing waste, data centers can become more sustainable and can minimize their environmental impact while still meeting the growing demand for data processing and storage.
