Greenhouse Effect: 5 Ideas for Reusing Data Centers’ Waste Heat
Data centers use a lot of electricity, much of it just to keep computers cool. Here are five creative ideas for recycling the machines’ waste heat.
Virtuous cycle: Blue pipes carry cold water to chill computers at Syracuse University’s Green Data Center. The facility generates its own electricity on site using small, gas-fired turbines. Exhaust from the turbines is used to heat water and power an absorption chiller, a refrigeration device that uses heat as a power source. The system produces the cooling equivalent of 300 tons of ice, three times what the data center needs to cool down its computers. Excess cold water is pumped to an adjacent office building for air conditioning. In winter, hot water is used in the office building’s heating system (red pipes).
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