Data centre retrofit to boost Stockholm district heating

A world-first district heating project in in Stockholm, Sweden has the potential to heat up to 10,000 households with excess heat from a data centre.

Nordic data centre operator DigiPlex and Stockholm Exergi (formerly Fortum Värme), the city’s district heating supplier, announced this week that they have have signed a large-scale heat re-use agreement.

Under its terms, an already operational data centre (pictured) that features an indirect evaporative air-to-air cooling solution will be retrofitted to recover excess heat for delivery to the district heating network. According to DigiPlex, this is the first time such a retrofit has been undertaken.

Close to ninety per cent of Stockholm’s buildings are connected to the district heating network, and in future Stockholm Exergi aims to provide 10 per cent of the city’s heating needs with recovered heat from data centres.

Anders Egelrud, Stockholm Exergi CEO, called the agreement “a strong validation of our waste heat recovery programme”.

“The partnership with DigiPlex shows that heat recovery to district heating systems is also compatible with indirect air-to-air cooling technology. It represents a key step towards our vision of using data centre heat to contribute to a more sustainable society,” he added.

And Karin Wanngard, Stockholm’s mayor, said: “Digitalization must go hand in hand with the development of environmental technology. Utilizing smart technological solutions to make the most of synergies between recovered data centre heat and the city’s heating needs is a part of the [city’s] environmental objective to become fossil fuel-free by 2040.”

See also: Swedish capital launches data centre district heating initiative

Source: Decentralized Energy
Data centre retrofit to boost Stockholm district heating