Achi news desk-
The scheme is one of seven public sector projects across Scotland which will receive shares from a £20 million fund, and demonstrates the potential of using waste heat to heat homes.
“These are the coolers,” said Robert MacGregor, manager of energy engineering at Edinburgh University. “Data centers use a lot of electricity and that is turned into heat, so a lot of that heat has to be removed, with something like this that sends the heat up to the sky.”
“It’s not being used for anything, so it’s lost. What we will do is put that into a heat pump so we can use it to heat the buildings. You use all the heat that has been generated for a useful purpose rather than throwing it away.
Data centres, such as these, in other parts of the University and other locations across the City of Edinburgh, are considered a potential source of heat for the capital, as are other sites of waste heat such as sewage treatment centers and plants waste.
Patrick Harvie, the Minister for carbon-free buildings, visited the new project site to announce the first seven projects set, between them, to receive grant funding of £11 million from the £20 million Public Sector Heat Decarbonisation Fund.
“It’s amazing,” he said, “the number of these data centers around the country, and at the moment they have to use energy to take heat out of them. You walk into one of these rows of racks and computers and you feel the heat – and all that heat is lost.”
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This series of projects will show how leisure centres, schools and university campuses will be transformed by a government fund designed to accelerate the decarbonisation of public sector properties.
That £20 million is part of the £200 million already committed to the public sector for energy efficiency and renewable heating over the next five years – part of the wider plan to spend £1.8 billion during the current parliamentary session on the decarbonisation of Scottish buildings.
Even with the cooling system on, it’s warm inside the data center. The temperature varies from around 20C to 40C. “Compare that temperature,” says Mr MacGregor, “with the outside air, which in winter can be below freezing, and think about using it for an air source heat pump. It is much more efficient to use the data center as it produces a higher temperature than the air.”
He explained that the University has been looking at how to move away from gas for heating its buildings for several years. “We thought it was likely that a hat would contain heat pumps and if you use heat pumps you want to make them as efficient as you can, and this heat source seemed to obvious.”
The energy used to run this website provides an insight into the amount of energy used when storing data. There is enough electricity being used in its one room at the moment, to power around 2-300 houses worth of heat. Each bank, according to the data center manager, Paul Hutton, uses around 14 houses worth of energy.
“Without the cooling system,” he added, “we wouldn’t be able to stand here. Right now it’s producing about 200 KW and we know we’ll be producing about 400KW in a few months, because we’re bringing in some new equipment.”
Around £400,000 of the university’s £2 million grant will be used for the heating network and data center transformation and the rest for other measures such as insulation.
There are hopes, says Grant Ferguson, director of net zero and carbon leadership at the University of Edinburgh, that the university, which has five gas-fired district heating networks, will be able to replicate this pilot project in other areas in different ways, on a larger scale.
Currently, he said, the university is also working with Edinburgh City Council to “map heat opportunities – not just from data centres, but from sewerage and other waste systems”.
“One of the main things we want to do,” said Mr Harvie, “is to decarbonise existing networks, many of which have used gas. We are keen to use facilities such as data centres, where heat is currently being wasted and put it into heat networks which have applications in urban areas like this, but also in many rural areas of Scotland.”
He said: “We don’t know exactly what the heating potential is from data centers across Scotland. A current assessment would not even begin to give you the full picture, as we see technology increasing, especially with the growth in the use of Artificial Intelligence.
“Data centers are going to continue to grow and we need to be using that energy efficiently. This represents a win-win for everyone because it reduces their operating costs. It reduces carbon emissions. And it gives users of those networks a source of affordable heat too.”
Among the countries that have already invested heavily in heating networks is Denmark, which has created a system where around two-thirds of the country is served by networks over fifty years. Half of these are currently fueled by biomass.
Mr Harvie admitted that there was a risk that “people could get confused because of the abundance of different technologies” involved in decarbonisation heating.
“But in reality,” he said, “we need to recognize that this is a way to meet people’s needs, is affordable and low carbon. If we get this right we will not only get cheaper energy bills, not only will we get safer energy, but also produce a huge number of high quality careers.”
“For anyone looking for individual advice about their own home or building,” he said, “Home Energy Scotland is the way to go, Business Energy Scotland if it’s a small business.”
