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Home heating, possible use of excess heat from data centers in Europe

In Europe, concerns about polluting gas emissions are added to those caused by the price of the necessary energy, among other things, to heat the houses of its citizens. But several countries on the continent have already started looking for alternatives to existing technologies. For example, according to Techradar, they are studying how take advantage of excess heat from data centerswhose presence in the region is more than notable, and which is increasing, given the construction of new facilities.

These data centers, mostly owned by big tech companies, consume vast amounts of energy to keep their servers and computers cool. The massive amount of heat they produce as a result of having to store more and more data and run more tasks is typically dissipated through high-powered air conditioning systems or cooling towers. This leads to all the waste heat being wasted, something many data centers are already remedying.

Thus, more and more data centers are using this residual heat to heat buildings and homes. A) Yes, in Denmark, Meta it takes a while recovering excess heat from its Odense data center. It started doing it in 2020, and hopes to be able to heat the equivalent of 11,000 homes with it in 2023. On the other hand, both Microsoft and Apple and Amazon have begun to draw up plans to carry out similar actions. Alphabet is also committed to exploring opportunities related to the use of this excess heat for heating.

Meanwhile, there are already ten data centers in the Netherlands connected to district heating systems, distributing excess heat to nearby homes and buildings. These are not going to be the last, since there are another 15 in the country that have plans to continue their walks.

Using data centers to heat homes has many advantages. To begin with, it reduces the demand for fossil fuels, widely used for heating in many European regions. It also has the potential to help reduce emissions of polluting gases. This is because in many cases data centers are powered by renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.

In France and Denmark, both municipal and national governments have reportedly approved tax incentives for the smart use of waste heat, and some building permits require the building for which they are granted to capture the excess heat they generate. .

In addition to heating homes, data centers are also being used to heat greenhouses, which allow farmers to grow their crops year-round. According to some experts, a 180 kilowatt data center would be capable of heating up to 5,000 square meters of greenhouse space in winter. It is enough to produce 250 tons of tomatoes.

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