Gigawatt Datawarehouse City Central Heating factory
Gigawatt Datawarehouse City Central Heating Factory
Data centres are the backbone of the digital economy, storing and processing vast amounts of information for various applications and services. However, data centres also consume a lot of energy and generate a lot of heat, which poses challenges for their sustainability and efficiency. How can we make use of the excess heat from data centres to benefit the society and the environment? This is the question that inspired the Gigawatt Datawarehouse City Central Heating Factory, a visionary project that aims to create a circular economy of data and heat in the Netherlands.
The Gigawatt Datawarehouse City Central Heating Factory is a proposed development that will consist of three 80-metre high towers, each housing a data centre with a capacity of 100 megawatts. The towers will be located next to the Telegraaf Media Group head office in the Western Docklands of Amsterdam, a strategic location that offers access to high-speed fibre optic networks and renewable energy sources. The data centres will provide cloud computing and storage services for various clients, such as media companies, e-commerce platforms, and online gaming providers.
The innovative aspect of the project is that the waste heat from the data centres will not be wasted, but instead captured and distributed to the surrounding area through a district heating network. The district heating network is a system of pipes that carries hot water from a central source to multiple buildings, providing space heating and domestic hot water. The district heating network in Amsterdam is operated by Westpoort Warmte, a joint venture between the energy company Vattenfall and the municipality of Amsterdam. The network currently serves about 40,000 households and businesses, and aims to expand to 70,000 by 2025.
The Gigawatt Datawarehouse City Central Heating Factory will be able to supply up to 10% of the total heating demand of Amsterdam, equivalent to 80,000 households. This will reduce the reliance on natural gas and other fossil fuels, and lower the carbon footprint of the city. The project will also create economic and social benefits, such as job creation, revenue generation, and improved quality of life for the residents.
The project is being developed by the Caransa Group, a real estate trust group that specializes in commercial property development. The Caransa Group has partnered with Switch Datacenters, a data centre operator that has developed a state-of-the-art technology for capturing and transferring heat from data centres. The technology, called Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC), uses liquid instead of air to cool the servers, which increases the efficiency and performance of the data centres, and allows the heat to be delivered at a higher temperature and quality. The project has also received support from the municipality of Amsterdam, which has lifted a moratorium on data centre construction that was imposed in 2019 due to concerns about the impact of data centres on the power grid and the land use.
The Gigawatt Datawarehouse City Central Heating Factory is expected to be completed by 2026, and will be one of the first and largest projects of its kind in the world. The project will demonstrate how data centres can become a source of clean and renewable energy, and how data and heat can be integrated into a circular economy that benefits both the digital and the physical domains. The project will also serve as a model and inspiration for other cities and countries that are looking for innovative and sustainable solutions for their data and heating needs.
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