The UK is to get its first district heat network powered by waste heat from a data center, thanks to a deal between Old Oak & Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) and district heating firm Hemiko.
The first of half a dozen projects announced by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero last year, the plan is to provide heating to 9,000 new homes and businesses in the Old Oak and Park Royal area of London, along with existing buildings including Central Middlesex Hospital.
The waste heat will be sourced from nearby data centers, including Vantage's two local campuses.
"By powering our data centers with renewable energy and supplying the surplus heat to this innovative district heating network, we are taking a holistic approach to resource efficiency and sustainability," said Adam Shalapin VP for global sustainability at Vantage Data Centers.
The OPDC’s plans were first made public in 2023 and with Hemiko selected as the development partner the project is now moving ahead to deliver up to 95GWh of heat a year. Five further expansions are expected between 2028 and 2040.
As it grows, the area taken in will cover the wider Old Oak and Park Royal regeneration area, London’s largest new development project. Up to 25,000 new homes are planned over the next 20 years, along with around three million square feet of new commercial, retail and leisure space.
"By taking surplus heat from local data centers, we don’t need to burn gas in the middle of a city to heat people’s homes, with the right infrastructure we can take local waste heat and offer it to local people, while offering local jobs at the same time," said Toby Heysham, CEO at Hemiko.
"There is enough surplus and wasted heat in London to heat the whole city – we just need heat networks to access it."
Funding for the project comes largely from Hemiko, which will invest £63 million in the first phases, growing to around £600 million by 2040.
The project has also received a £1.7 million contribution from the Mayor of London’s Local Energy Accelerator (LEA) program, which was co-funded by the Mayor and the European Regional Development Fund alongside the Mayor’s Green Finance programme. This will fund work to develop the commercial case for the network.
District heating powered by data center waste heat is already common across the Nordic region. Examples include Sweden's Stockholm Data Parks, Meta’s Odense data center in Denmark, and the LUMI supercomputer in Kajaani, Finland, which provides 20% of the city's heating demand.
The data center services company atNorth is constructing a 250 MW data center in Ølgod, Denmark, which will use its excess heat for nearby infrastructure such as greenhouses and community hot water.
Google is keen on the idea, too, with a $1 billion investment last year in Finland, where the company plans to soon start using waste heat to the district heating network in Hamina, which covers local households, schools, and public service buildings.
In the UK, other projects to reuse waste heat from data centers for district heating are planned for Leeds, Plymouth, Bristol, Stockport and Sheffield, with the help of £5.8 million in government funding. British gas is also trialling using waste heat to give consumers free hot water.
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