Deep Green gets £200M from power supplier to scale waste heat reuse
- Reference: 1705400185
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/01/16/deep_green_gets_200m_from/
- Source link:
Deep Green is a startup that aims to deploy more datacenters “in the community”, including as part of district heating networks or leisure center facilities such as swimming pools. The idea is that a site hosting the datacenter kit gets free heating generated by Deep Green’s servers processing data, which in turn get free cooling.
In the setup, the servers in Deep Green’s bit barns are submerged in a tank that resembles a chest freezer, with a dielectric fluid circulated around them by pumps. The heat is transferred from this tank to the host site’s hot water system via a heat exchanger.
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The site's own heating system only needs to "top up" the temperature of the water if it hasn't reached the desired point using heat captured from Deep Green's unit, the company claims. We're told there is no cost to the host site to install a Deep Green unit as it covers the installation, maintenance and operating costs of the IT infrastructure.
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Octopus Energy is providing the £200 million investment via its Octopus Energy Generation tentacle, which invests in renewable energy projects through the Octopus Energy Transition Fund (OETF) and the Sky (ORI SCSp) fund it manages. This is likely to be spread over a number of years, but is relatively small beer for Octopus, which last year disclosed plans to invest £15 billion ($20 billion) in offshore wind by 2030.
This backing is sufficient for Deep Green to deploy into between 100 and 150 more swimming pools, the company said, and it is eyeing larger scale deployments. Just such a scheme was [4]announced last year in London , which will see 10,000 new homes connected to nearby datacenters to use their waste energy for heating in the boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham and Brent and Ealing.
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“By using excess heat from datacenters to slash energy bills for communities across the UK, Deep Green solves two problems with one solution,” Octopus Energy Generation chief Zoisa North-Bond said in a statement. “We’re looking forward to rapidly rolling this out and positively impacting even more people as we drive towards a cleaner, cheaper energy future.”
[6]Cloud upstart offers free heat if you host its edge servers
[7]SETI: How AI-boosted satellites, robots could help search for life on other planets
[8]US and EU looking to create 'critical minerals club' to ensure their own supplies
[9]Equinix to expand liquid cooling to 100 datacenters to quench your AI thirst
Deep Green has operated this business model [10]for at least a year . We last discussed the tech when it was deployed at Exmouth Leisure Centre in southwest England, where the waste heat from a dozen of the company’s servers was being used to warm the swimming pool. This was expected to reduce the pool's energy requirements by 62 percent, and save the site more than £20,000 ($25,430) a year on heating bills.
Repurposing waste heat from servers to warm offices or some other use is nothing new, as Microsoft was proposing this [11]more than a decade ago , and there have been numerous examples since. Datacenter operators, however, are increasingly worried about the [12]high cost of energy and keeping their systems cool, as well as the threat of regulations to force them to become greener, so have a more pressing need to find solutions.
“The datacenter sector is rightly facing scrutiny about its growing energy demand and associated carbon emissions,” Deep Green founder and CEO Mark Bjornsgaard said. “Our datacenters are highly energy efficient and support local communities with free heat.”
According to Australian cloud operator ResetData, an on-site datacenter like that provided by Deep Green should be an [13]amenity that building owners offer to tenants . An arrangement of this nature may have the advantage of resilience, because the infrastructure is distributed among a number of different premises. ®
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[4] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/06/uk_waste_datacenter_heat/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZaZh1UHegN1th4caYXaRYAAAAUs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/14/cloud_startup_waste_heat_dcs/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/07/ai_rover_seti_assist/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/08/us_and_eu_critical_minerals/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/13/equinix_liquid_cooling/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/14/cloud_startup_waste_heat_dcs/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2011/07/28/microsoft_cloudy_home_heating_idea/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/11/datacenter_demand_growing/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/18/resetdata_basement_datacenters/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: The lawyers of thermodynamics would like a look at the contract.
I would expect that it's the data centre that pays for their power - even if that power is actually purchased from the leisure centre rather than the grid directly.
Now if they didn't purchase that electricity efficiently, or if they fixed only one half of that purchase/supply contract, then that could leave the leisure centre in difficulty given recent price rises in fossil fuel supplies.
Of course your article is about 11 months old, since it refers to Friday Feb 24th (must 2023) in the (recent) past tense.
It probably therefore is about coincident with the installation of this system - and indeed it says as much:
"To reduce its energy costs and carbon footprint LED has installed ... a new state-of-the-art heat recovery system that is due to be commissioned imminently."
Re: The lawyers of thermodynamics would like a look at the contract.
Now if they didn't purchase that electricity efficiently, or if they fixed only one half of that purchase/supply contract, then that could leave the leisure centre in difficulty given recent price rises in fossil fuel supplies.
That's why I'm curious. I've found some articles that suggest the leisure centre provides the electricity, and gets the heat in exchange. So like you say, seems a bit of an arbitrage risk between the cost of electicity and gas. I'm looking through LED Community Leisure Limited's annual report at the moment, but the latest is from Feb last year. As Octupus has it's tentacles in this, there's probably a lot more complexity involved with stuff like renewable heat incentives and other subsidies.
Re: The lawyers of thermodynamics would like a look at the contract.
"The lawyers of thermodynamics would like a look at the contract"
The laws of thermodynamics don't need lawyers, they will take their tax anyway. But it seems trivially true that with an operation requiring cooling and an operation requiring heating transferring heat from one to the other, that whatever losses there are in the process, it is still more efficient than each of them doing their heating / cooling independently.
"What I haven't been able to find is how the deal is structured, ie who pays for Deep Green's electricity? Them, or the leisure centre?"
Whatever the contract details, since partnering together means lower energy requirements for both operations combined, there is scope for both to benefit. In any case I assume that "save the site more than £20,000 ($25,430) a year on heating bills" is a net figure (although it would be certainly in keeping with UK government projects in general if the private company were getting all the benefits of the arrangement to themselves).
Win-win
"The idea is that a site hosting the datacenter kit gets free heating generated by Deep Green’s servers processing data, which in turn get free cooling."
Seems like a perfectly good win-win for both parties
The lawyers of thermodynamics would like a look at the contract.
Deep Green has operated this business model for at least a year. We last discussed the tech when it was deployed at Exmouth Leisure Centre in southwest England, where the waste heat from a dozen of the company’s servers was being used to warm the swimming pool. This was expected to reduce the pool's energy requirements by 62 percent, and save the site more than £20,000 ($25,430) a year on heating bills.
But.. has it?
https://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/23349026.exmouth-leisure-centre-highlights-rising-energy-costs/
LED say their utility costs have increased by over £300,000 since 2020 with nearly £100,000 attributed to Exmouth Leisure Centre, EDDC’s largest facility with both a 6-lane 25m swimming pool as well as a teaching pool.
Most of the greenwash is a variation on this theme-
The surplus heat donated by Deep Green’s unit will reduce the pool’s gas requirements by 62 percent
With gas, heat and energy being used almost interchangeably. What I haven't been able to find is how the deal is structured, ie who pays for Deep Green's electricity? Them, or the leisure centre?