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This data center waste heat powers 7,000 homes

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We Don't Have Time

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The digital world generates massive amounts of heat—let’s use it

For which energy user: Digital Infrastructure
When a major social media company built its new data center in Odense, Denmark, it integrated a system to capture and recycle the immense heat generated by its servers.
Instead of releasing this thermal energy into the air, the facility uses a cooling water pipeline to transfer it to a local heat pump station.
High-capacity industrial heat pumps, equipped with Alfa Laval evaporators and condensers, elevate this recovered heat and distribute it directly into the city district heating network. This sector-coupling initiative successfully recovers 100,000 MWh of energy every year, which is enough to warm 7,000 local homes while phasing out emissions.
Additional benefits:
  • Powered by renewables: The data center combines heat recovery with wind-powered operations and advanced evaporative cooling, making it one of the world’s most energy-efficient facilities.
  • Partnership-driven infrastructure: The project was enabled through collaboration with local utility Fjernvarme Fyn, which invested in and operates the heat pump station—showing how public-private cooperation can accelerate fossil-free heating.
  • Future-proof heat pump technology: The system uses natural ammonia refrigerant instead of climate-harming F-gases, demonstrating how industrial heat pumps can deliver large-scale heating with a lower environmental footprint.
Learn more


https://app.wedonthavetime.org/frontpage/energyefficiencyaction



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