Originally posted to Data Center Frontier by Rich Miller.
Servers generate lots of heat, and a growing number of data centers are using this heat to warm nearby homes. The latest company to embrace this strategy is Facebook, which announced Monday that its cloud campus in Odense, Denmark will connect to a neighborhood district heating system.
Heat recycling projects allow huge data centers to contribute large amounts of heat energy to their communities. Facebook expects the Odense system will warm 6,900 homes, and thousands more homes are being heated by data center servers in Stockholm and other European cities that employ district heating.
These data centers are designed for peak sustainability, combining renewable energy, efficient cooling systems, and heat recycling to dramatically reduce their impact on the environment, while boosting their usefulness to the local community. It’s a virtuous cycle that aligns all facets of data center operations to optimize energy impact.
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