There’s a lot of talk these days about how much electricity it takes to operate data centers. Those concerns are fully justified, as those data centers consume as much as 1.5% of all the electricity generated in the world today. That number could increase dramatically if the use of artificial intelligence expands as expected.
O’Shea and his team at Codema estimate the project is saving 1,400 tons of CO2 emissions every year, which equals a reduction of about 60% compared to the previous system of individual onsite boilers. Once fully operational, the system is expected to heat 47,000 square meters of local public buildings, 3,000 square meters of commercial buildings, and 135 apartments. Several other residential developers have also expressed interest.
Meta claims its data center in Odense, Denmark, delivers enough hot water to heat 6,900 local homes. Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle has used excess heat from a data center in the Westin Building Exchange since 2019. In March of last year, Microsoft and Fortum, the Finnish energy company that maintains the Dublin system, announced that is was developing a system that would deliver heat to 100,000 Helsinki residents, saving 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide every year.