Case Studies

Case Study: Feeding Data Center Waste Heat into a District Heating Network

The Opportunity

A hyperscale data center rejected several megawatts of server heat. Nearby homes needed winter heating. A district heating network was the natural sink.

The Recovery Chain

  • Server heat was first captured by liquid cooling and moved to a water loop, as described in liquid-cooling heat reuse.
  • A heat pump lifted the loop temperature to district standards.
  • Substation heat exchangers transferred energy into the residential network without mixing fluids.

Outcome

The data center cut its cooling energy, and the district network gained low-carbon heat. Air-to-air and plate interfaces kept the two systems separate and safe, with no data-center air entering homes and no network water entering the IT loop.