The largest project for recycling waste heat from data centres in the world is set to be completed in Finland in 2025.
The project involves Microsoft, who is building the data centre complex, Oilon is providing heat pumps and energy company Fortum will recover the waste heat and use it for district heating in the Helsinki metropolitan area.
Oilon has inked a $A24.9 million deal with Fortum to provide several S series heat pumps for two plants. Each unit weighs as much as 10 cars, or around 15,000 kg and each plant has an output temperature of 85 °C.
Together, the two plants will produce nearly 40 MW of district heating.
The first heat pump plant is currently being built in Kirkkonummi, and the first heat pumps will be delivered to the site in early 2025. The Espoo project will follow six months later.
At full capacity, the waste heat recovery system will produce enough emission-free district heating for 100,000 customers.
This accounts for 40 per cent of the 250,000 district heating customers in Espoo, Kauniainen, and Kirkkonummi. For Fortum, this means a permanent CO2 emission reduction of up to 400,000 tonnes per year.
Fortum is a forerunner in reducing CO2 emissions from energy production and aims at reaching carbon neutrality by 2030.
Oilon sales manager, Jussi Alpua, said by recycling energy streams, the company can deliver outstanding coefficient of performance values.
“The total COP of the system is 6.6, which means that for each unit of electricity, the heat pump generates 6.6 times as much energy for heating and cooling,” he said.
Traditionally, heat pumps have been seen primarily as a means of making heat generation more efficient in industrial applications and energy production.
In recent years, the trend has started to shift towards using heat pumps also as a primary method of energy production on a wider, industrial scale.