Microsoft datacenter to heat homes in Finland
- Reference: 1647542426
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/03/17/microsoft_datacenter_finland/
- Source link:
Microsoft and Fortum made [1]the announcement today after several years of development, with the final location chosen specifically for the purpose of moving waste datacenter heat via existing water pipes to homes and businesses in the surrounding cities of Espoo and Kauniainen, as well as the municipality of Kirkkonummi.
According to Microsoft, the datacenter could create up to 11,000 jobs, with its purpose being to provide cloud services to the Finnish public sector, businesses, and individuals, as well as reduce response times for local cloud customers. The facility will be part of Microsoft's global cloud complex of more than 200 datacenters.
[2]This data center will be Europe's first with hydrogen backup power
[3]'Significant business growth' fueled Microsoft's emissions rise
[4]Bill Gates on climate change: Planting trees is not the answer, emissions need to be zeroed out to avoid disaster
[5]The climate is turning against owning our own compute hardware. Cloud is good for you and your customers
There's no word on the size of the datacenter itself, though Microsoft [6]describes it as "the world's largest initiative to recycle waste heat from datacenters." It's also supposed to provide warmth for 40 percent of the 250,000 residents in the area it covers, all generated by heat captured from cooling servers.
The power flowing into the datacenter will be 100 percent emission-free, just like the heat energy flowing out of it. Markus Rauramo, president and CEO of Fortum, said that using waste heat from the datacenter could cut CO 2 emissions by approximately 400,000 tons, which he calls "a significant step for a cleaner world, made possible by our joint ambition to mitigate climate change."
District decisions
But how do Microsoft and Fortum plan to move that waste heat from the datacenter to homes and businesses? A process called district heating.
If the name is unfamiliar, the concept probably isn't: it's hot water or steam pumped from a central source through insulated pipes that feed radiators. District heating is common in urban areas, though more so in Europe. District heating in the US is more often used institutionally, in places like college campuses or government complexes.
[7]
One of the major criticisms of district heating is that the heat tends to be generated by burning fossil fuels, though heat generated in this way is often done simultaneously with energy generation. Fortum said that the new datacenter is part of its initiative "based on replacing fossil fuels with smart and flexible solutions, such as renewable electricity, heat pumps and waste heat utilization."
[8]
The district that Microsoft's new datacenter will heat is the second largest in Finland, and consists of around 900km of pipes. Once the new datacenter is constructed, it will form 60 percent of the heat generated for the district from environmentally friendly means. ®
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[1] https://www.fortum.com/media/2022/03/fortum-and-microsoft-announce-worlds-largest-collaboration-heat-homes-services-and-businesses-sustainable-waste-heat-new-data-centre-region
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/15/northc_hydrogen_power/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/11/microsoft_winding_its_way_towards/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/16/gates_climate_change/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/30/register_debate_hardware_subs_tues_against1/
[6] https://yle.fi/news/3-12363215
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YjO9pxC7wpy8@EnvxYRD@gAAAEI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YjO9pxC7wpy8@EnvxYRD@gAAAEI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Use the heat to drive turbines, which then produce electricity to run the servers.
Look at the icon. LOOK AT IT! -->
That's the normal problem with these schemes.
Unless you are doing it for pure green-washing it massively increases the cost. You have to build the worst case cooling plant, to handle the full load in the hottest summer AND the infrastructure to move a lot of low grade heat to the community in winter.
You also have the maintenance problem that each of these systems is shut down for half the time.
Baths
... Or showers water needs neating.
Also Artic Circle.
Re: Baths
Espoo is 700 km to the south from the Arctic Circle! It is not much to the north of the latitude of Lerwick, Shetland Islands!
it's Finland
their idea of Summer, is still a touch cooler than our winter
but at least it is a step, admittedly a small one, but one step anyway, imagine ANY Co doing this 20 years ago ..................
Heat saunas?
People in Finland love their saunas!
Well, it's a first
This is as far as I know the first time that the inefficiency of the way Microsoft writes code is turned into something positive.
I'm assuming they'll be running Intel chips as well? Epyc chips may not heat enough..
Re: Well, it's a first
Late 90s cyrix processors ;)
Re: Well, it's a first
Found a supply of Pentium 4 Prescotts?
Re: Well, it's a first
Pentium? 486 surely, given they didn't have a thermal cut out.
Perhaps we will see Zeon's with modified thermal limiters, to ensure they always run nice and toasty.
Re: Well, it's a first
I was thinking along similar lines, with this scheme what is the incentive to make the datacenter be more energy efficient and thus produce less heat.
Also does the need to collect the heat impact the design of the datacenter ie. whilst you still need airflow for cooling, you don't want too much airflow as otherwise, the heat becomes too diluted.
What do they do with the heat in summer? At least if you're burning fuel to provide the heat you can turn the burners down or off in the summer but presumably in this case the data centre will have to switch to active cooling. That would offset at least some of the gains.