Data centers are energy pigs. We know this. The numbers tell the story. Data storage facilities alone consume 1 percent of the planet’s electricity demand. Some 40 percent of that total is committed to simply cooling the millions of servers humming nonstop to store, process and retrieve the rocketing amounts of data and video we create hourly, daily and yearly. Overheat a server and it will go down, and data will likely be lost.
Here’s the problem with the cooling process. The industry standard is to simply cool and remove the heat all this digital processing generates, which explains why so many data centers are being built and operated in the tundra-like conditions of northern Europe and Scandinavia.
But all the big brains at Microsoft think they have found a better way keep data centers cool. The software giant’s new collaboration with Fortum, the Finnish state-owned energy company, calls for warming homes by capturing and repurposing the excess heat generated by those hot-blooded data centers.
Fortum, with Microsoft’s help, aims to capture the excess heat generated by a new data center region in Helsinki, Finland, which will be run on 100 percent emission-free electricity, and transfer that heat homes and businesses connected to its district heating system.
Pretty cool idea.
And here’s a couple of numbers some of us find hard to believe: The plan will allow 60 percent of the of the area’s heating to be generated by climate-friendly waste heat, with 40 percent generated from the nearby data center, reducing Finland’s annual CO2 emissions by around 400,000 tons.
How, you might ask, does all of this heat get transferred? Fortum’s district heating system includes about 600 miles of underground pipes that transfer heat to about 250,000 properties in the cities of Espoo, Kauniainen and Kirkkonummi. This is reportedly the most popular method of heating the built environment in Nordic countries.
As it turns out, repurposing heat from data centers is not a new idea, but this data center location was chosen specifically with waste heat recycling in mind, and when this project is finished, it will be the largest of its kind in the world.
Some parts of northern Europe already encourage this kind of heating solution. There is an Amazon data center whose excess heat is being used to warm the limbs of Dubliners in Ireland. Facebook is heating 6,900 homes in Denmark with data waste heat, and the U.S. tech capital of California is said to be well on its way requiring this sort of energy reuse.
Optimization of the Finnish system will employ artificial intelligence, complements of Microsoft.
“Developing solutions for the global climate challenge together with partners is a strategic priority for Fortum,” Markus Rauramo, CEO of Fortum, is quoted as saying in The Fifth Estate, an Australia-based online newspaper. “Sometimes the most sustainable solutions are simple ones. … This is a significant step for a cleaner world, made possible by our joint ambition to mitigate climate change.”
Sanna Marin, prime minister of Finland, said she hopes the collaboration between Fortum and Microsoft will serve as a model to other countries and cities looking for ways to achieve “the double transformation of climate neutrality and digital competitiveness.”
Mike Consol (m.consol@irei.com) is editor of Real Assets Adviser. Follow him on Twitter (@mikeconsol) and LinkedIn (linkedIn.com/in/mikeconsol) to read his latest postings.