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Digital boilers --

Free data-center heat is allegedly saving a struggling public pool
$24K a year

Deep Green deploys data centers in places that could use wasted
data-center heat.

Scharon Harding - Mar 16, 2023 8:07 pm UTC

Indoor swimming pool with lane markers
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A public pool in the UK is expected to save PS20,000 (about $24,000)
and cut carbon emissions by 25.8 tons annually by warming a 25 m and
children's pool with waste heat from a data center from startup Deep
Green. Data center owners have long tried to limit the impact of heat
emanating from their machines, with some going as far as to submerge
servers in water and others finding ways to redirect waste heat so it
can warm larger areas, like buildings and communities. UK-based Deep
Green is a newcomer in the data-center heat game and is making its
entrance notable by putting a monetary figure on potential savings,
which are fueled by the heat's low, low rate of free.

Deep Green's paying customers are machine-learning and AI firms
seeking computing resources. As reported by Datacenter Dynamics on
Tuesday, clients can leverage Deep Green's 28 kW system with
high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities. The HPC cluster at the
Exmouth Leisure Centre swimming pool has 12 four-CPU cards and could
eventually be used for cloud services and video rendering, Deep Green
CEO Mark Bjornsgaard told the publication. According to the BBC , the
server is about the size of a washing machine.

The computers are submerged in mineral oil that captures heat that
gets transferred into pool water with a heat exchanger. The pool
still has a gas boiler to boost the water's temperature if required.
Deep Green claims it's transferring about 96 percent of the energy
used by its computers and reducing a pool's gas heat usage by 62
percent. Deep Green is paying the Exmouth Leisure Centre for all the
electricity its data center uses, as well as any setup costs, and the
Exmouth Leisure Centre gets the heat for free.

Deep Green CTO Mat Craggs told Datacenter Dynamics: "Our expected
heat transfer from the kit is 139,284 kWh a year, equivalent to 62
percent of the pool's heat needs." He noted that adding more servers
to the tub could extend the figure to 70 or 80 percent. Deep Green's
data center can heat the Exmouth Leisure Centre's 25 meter pool to 86
degrees Fahrenheit for about 60 percent of the time, BBC reported.

The startup has plans to set up data centers in seven more UK
locations and has a 2023 target of 20 locations.

Trying to make data-center heat recovery practical

Deep Green is one of numerous companies attempting to reuse
data-center heat, including France's Qarnot and England-based Heata,
which says it recycles data-center heat to heat water for people in
need. Other data centers, including some owned by IBM, have explored
putting data-center waste heat to use for years. And there are
companies in the US that sell data-center waste heat and regions
already using data-center heat to keep warm. Of note, last year, tech
giant Microsoft announced plans to supply some areas in Finland with
the waste heat from a data center it's building in the country.

But considering the massive amount of energy the massive number of
data centers around the world use, data-center heat redistribution is
still a niche market. That's partially because data-center companies
face costs and challenges in distributing the heat, including
(depending on the country) the cost of getting onto a local district
heating system. Heat recycling can also be more difficult depending
on the type of technologies used. Heat from data centers using water
cooling, which many firms have turned to to reduce heat generation
and increase performance, can be harder to reuse, Oslo-based IT firm
Cloud&Heat told Datacenter Dynamics last year.

Earlier this year, Germany started mulling the idea of requiring data
centers to provide heat to nearby homes but is challenged by a lack
of interest from the would-be recipients, as reported by Bloomberg.
Basically, the waste heat isn't hot enough on its own, which calls
for heat pumps with their own financial and power costs.

"Datacenter operators are mostly ready and willing to give away their
waste heat. The challenge here is finding someone who can use that
heat economically," Ralph Hintemann, senior researcher at data-center
lobby group Borderstep, told Bloomberg.

The inhabitants of a 1,300-apartment residential area opening in
mid-2025 in Germany will have no choice but to accept at least some
of their heat from a server farm nearby, with Bloomberg reporting
expected carbon emissions savings the size of removing 200 cars with
combustion engines from the road. But this project is still a work in
progress and is only feasible due to the data center, Telehouse
Deutschland GmbH, being so physically close (0.3 mile / 500m) to the
upcoming community.

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Scharon Harding Scharon is Ars Technica's Senior Product Reviewer and
writes news, reviews, and features on consumer technology, including
laptops, PC peripherals, and lifestyle gadgets. She's based in
Brooklyn. Email scharon.harding@arstechnica.com
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