Equinix’s Peter Lantry discusses the ins and outs of the company’s heat export projects, including its most recent application at the Paris Olympics.
The topic of data centres has been highly discussed as of late. As the world continues its digitalisation journey and further embraces disruptive tech like generative AI, the demand for data centre capacity continues to grow to accommodate vast data requirements.
The growth of data centres has sparked numerous debates, such as the effect of these centres on the energy grid and the efforts to balance the need for data centre capacity with climate responsibilities.
On the other side, recent efforts have looked at the potential for utilising excess energy from these centres for sustainable means. A study from last year suggested that 97pc of energy consumed by a data centre could be recovered as heat.
Data centre company Equinix has been deploying a process with similar concepts, called district heating. According to Peter Lantry, managing director for Equinix Ireland, district heating – also known as heat export – is “the provision of excess data centre heat to heating networks in towns and cities that transport that heat to a range of buildings who can make use of the heat”. Lantry says that through this process, buildings such as houses, businesses and community facilities like swimming pools can avail of this heat.
“Data centres are carefully controlled environments – not just because of the sensitive data that resides in them, but also because of the requirement to keep equipment within a certain temperature range,” explains Lantry. “We have probably all experienced our laptops overheating at some point – it can impact the functionality – and that is similar to the equipment residing in data centres.”
To avoid this problem, Lantry explains that most data centres will use water to transport residual heat produced by their servers to their cooling system.
“This water is then cooled, converted into cool air and repurposed back into the data centre,” he says. “What happens in district heating or heat export is that the water, heated by the residual heat, is instead transported to a separate system operated by a heat network operator or energy utility company.”
Hot topic
One notable application of this process was seen at the recent Paris Olympics, where excess heat from one of Equinix’s data centres was given to a network that transports the heat to the aquatics centre used for the global sport event.
“Our data centre, PA10, is transferring its residual heat to the Plaine Saulnier urban development zone and the Olympic Aquatic Center, which hosted several events during the Paris Games,” said Lantry. “But this goes well beyond the Olympic Games: we are committed to providing this heat free of charge for a period of 15 years.”
According to Equinix, PA10 is the company’s 10th data centre in Paris and is covered by “100pc renewable energy”.
This isn’t the first time this process has been used either, as according to Lantry, Equinix’s first heat export project took place in Helsinki in 2010 – and continues to this day. He explains how the company partnered with Helsinki’s primary provider for electricity – Helen Electricity Network – to transfer residual heat to the provider’s district heating network.
Heating up
Despite the success of past and present heat export projects, Lantry describes some of the challenges that such an endeavour can present. In particular, he says some of the main trouble comes in finding partners to develop the projects from Equinix’s sites, as the company can’t deploy them alone.
“It is only possible through collaboration with energy providers, governments and other third parties. Our partners in turn need to be able to secure enough customers of heat in the community to justify investment in heat network infrastructure that will take residual heat from our data centres to heat the community,” he explains.
When it comes to the technological requirements of these projects, Lantry says that they actually rely on technology that is already commercially available, but that it needs to be “repurposed specifically for use with data centres”.
“The technology that is most important in the capture and transfer of heat from data centres are heat exchangers to separate the data centre cooling system from the partner’s heat network and heat networks to transport the heat from data centres to the community.
As for the future, Lantry says the company is looking towards Dublin for its next heat export project, with plans to use residual heat to support “vital infrastructure” in the Blanchardstown area. According to Lantry, the company is currently in the process of developing a feasibility study for the project through a partnership with energy efficiency agency, Codema.
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Juliette Dhalluin competes for France in Water-Polo Women’s Group A match between Spain and France during the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at the Aquatics Centre in Saint-Denis. Image: France Olympique via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
