New Datacenter In Italy Captures Heat Waste

Italian utility A2A and French tech firm Qarnot have launched a data center in Brescia, Italy, that captures waste heat from servers and redirects it to a local district heating system. "The Brescia project is expected to meet the heating needs of more than 1,350 apartments and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 3,500 tons annually -- equivalent to the absorption capacity of over 22,000 trees," reports Reuters. From the report: "The rapid spread of data centers and the growing electrification of consumption require major investments in power grids. But data centers also offer a remarkable opportunity for cities with district heating networks," A2A CEO Renato Mazzoncini said at the inauguration. "In (the Italian region of) Lombardy alone, with projects already in the pipeline, we estimate that 150,000 apartments could be heated this way," Mazzoncini added.

How exactly is this system going to work?

[DrMrLordX]

Anyone got technical details? The summary and article are pretty basic.

Well some places have infrastructure for that

[Casandro]

For example Vienna has a "remote heat" as well as a "remote cooling" network. You can simply connect your datacenter (or bakery) to the "remote cooling" network and a municipal company will take that heat with a big heat-pump and provide heat for people who want it.

Even in places where you don't have such networks, it's not uncommon to use waste-heat to heat flats or public pools.

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[Skinkie]

It is very important to see that remote cooling is what this datacenter needs. Hence, for publicity reason claiming it is an "offering" is the opposite of what actually happens: cooling paid for via clean water or other media.

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[drinkypoo]

It is very important to see that remote cooling is what this datacenter needs. Hence, for publicity reason claiming it is an "offering" is the opposite of what actually happens: cooling paid for via clean water or other media.

Remote cooling is what this datacenter needs, and remote heating is what other facilities need. It's only the opposite of what actually happens if there are no consumers for that heat energy. Got a citation that shows that this is the case?

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[Skinkie]

This is in Dutch. https://www.agconnect.nl/partn... [agconnect.nl] The main reason is that the heat temperature is relatively low, therefore low caloric. Heat pumps could obviously increase that, but if you start with only 30 degrees and you would need to go to 70 degrees, that is quite a leap. If you would accept temperatures less than 50 degrees, every home would need a dedicated heat pump.

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[ElGraz]

I don't have specific details about this part of the project, but it's part of a larger project that started with collecting heat from local metal smelters and using it in the city's central heating system. I imagine it works in a similar way. (Links in Italian only, translate with your preferred tool ) https://www.ambientebrescia.it... [ambientebrescia.it] , https://www.giornaledibrescia.... [giornaledibrescia.it]).

Seems sensible

[The123king]

Given a computer is just a very expensive space heater, capturing the "wadte" heat and using it to heat homes is a very sensible idea. "Waste" and "Byproducts" are almost always just "products" waiting for a use.

I used to run Folding@home in the winter on my old dual CPU rig. Definitely helped keep the chill off. In that situation, it was the heat i wanted and the science research was a nice bonus

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[MacMann]

"Waste" and "Byproducts" are almost always just "products" waiting for a use.

This comment reminds me of "coal ash" becoming "coal combustion product".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

What is left behind after coal is burned is basically just sand, therefore coal combustion product is used for things where people might otherwise use sand. It is mixed with cement to make concrete and mortar. It is spread on icy roads for vehicles to get more traction. It is used as structural fill for construction. There's more but that should get the point across. There's also other examples tha

Mining+power

[Ed Avis]

I guess the logical next step is to capture the heat output as hot water, concentrate the heat somehow (or heat the water a bit more) and use steam to drive a turbine producing electricity. Ye cannae break the laws of physics, but it should be possible for a datacentre to recoup at least part of its electricity costs this way? Essentially a steam-driven power station where the heating element is a bank of GPUs with water running over them.

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[AmiMoJo]

Probably more cost effective to use the heated water directly, for heating homes and for showers and the like. There are always losses with conversion.

You can't easily "concentrate" heated water anyway, you would have to actually heat it with something that is well over 100C itself. Computers don't usually get that hot.

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[ElGraz]

This is hooking into the already existing centralized city heating system called "teleriscaldamento" (remote heating). This is already collection heat from nearby factories and when needed, the "waste-to-energy" plant. This is about reusing wasted heat before we burn stuff.

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[sabbede]

I'm wondering how efficient that can be.

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[sabbede]

Tell that to Intel with their 100C CPUs. Maybe that still isn't hot enough, but I'm pretty steamed over how many CPUs I've had to throttle so they stopped cooking laptop users.

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[AmiMoJo]

You need it to be considerably hotter than 100C to produce useful steam. A typical kettle's heating element will be around 200C.

Expanding on what Cloud&Heat did

[tepples]

The summary sounds like a district-scale counterpart to Cloud&Heat, a German firm that colocates server racks running OpenStack in businesses needing heating. See "Germans Can Get Free Heating From the Cloud" from November 2014 [slashdot.org]. Interestingly enough, the summary of the Cloud&Heat story mentions Qarnot as well.