Modern data centres emit large amounts of thermal energy, which has led them to become useful heat sources as well. The 2024 Paris Olympic Games were a prime example of this possibility. During the Games, waste heat from the Equinix PA10 data centre was used to heat the Olympic swimming pools, using a heat exchange and pump system integrated into the local grid.
An even more illustrative case is the public swimming pool in Exmouth (United Kingdom). There, the company Deep Green installed a “digital boiler“: a micro-data centre immersed in oil that transfers most of its heat to the pool water, thus drastically reducing its energy bill. The initiative has garnered such interest that Octopus Energy will invest just over €200 million to replicate the model in up to 150 municipal facilities. The result is almost free heat for the sports centre and minimal-cost cooling for the servers.
In Auckland, New Zealand, developer Aventuur and operator Spark received regulatory approval for a campus that will include a data centre and a 2.2-hectare artificial lagoon. The data centre’s excess heat, combined with a 7-hectare photovoltaic plant, will heat the water to enhance the surfing experience outside the summer season. This is one of the first commercial-scale projects to integrate a water attraction and leisure space of this type with high-performance computing infrastructure.
How does it work? Servers heat a primary circuit (preferably liquid-cooled), while an exchanger transfers that thermal energy to a secondary circuit connected to the complex’s heat pumps, which raise the temperature to the level required by the pool or lagoon. The higher the output temperature from the data centre, the more efficient the system’s performance.
“Heat export” programs, such as Equinix PA10’s, demonstrate that this symbiosis is feasible and scalable to large sports facilities or even residential buildings. This is a form of thermal circular economy, which involves less gas consumption and results in more energy-efficient cities.
By Juan Guardiola Cutillas, Senior Architect in the Architecture Department at Amusement Logic
