Waste heat from data centres will be pumped into a new district heat network in London that is designed to warm nearby buildings.
The government’s Green Heat Network Fund (GHNF) has awarded £36m to the project that will see a heat network being built in a new development area around Old Oak Common Station and deliver more than 9,000 homes and 250,000m2 of commercial development.
The scheme will be run by the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) in three London boroughs: Hammersmith and Fulham, Brent and Ealing.
Data centres typically consume huge amounts of energy – a significant proportion of which is used to cool the enormous amount of waste heat generated during computation.
This predictable supply of ‘low-grade heat’ (between 20°C and 35°C) is often wasted, with many operators simply releasing it into the atmosphere.
As a result of this scheme, the wasted heat will instead be distributed to a number of energy centres via a plastic...