Data center uses its waste heat to warm public pool, saving $24,000 per year

midian182

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In brief: The heat generated from a data center is being put to good use by heating a public swimming pool, helping save thousands of dollars per year while cutting carbon emissions. UK-based Deep Green's system provides enough heat to keep the pool at about 86 degrees Fahrenheit 60% of the time.

As reported by Datacenter Dynamics, UK startup Deep Green's 28kW system runs a high-performance computing (HPC) cluster for cloud customers looking to use its computing resources.

The system, which the BBC describes as washing-machine size, is located at Exmouth Leisure Centre swimming pool and has 12 four-CPU cards. It is used for AI training and machine learning workloads, though Deep Green CEO Mark Bjornsgaard says it could be used for cloud services and video rendering in the future.

The 82-foot pool and children's pool in the center need around 222,000 kWh per year to heat. Deep Green's computers are submerged in mineral oil that removes heat from the servers. The hot oil is then pumped into a heat exchange that warms the pool. Deep Green says it's transferring about 96% of the energy used by its computers, reducing the pool's gas heat usage by 62%. That translates to an expected saving of about $24,000 per year and a carbon emission reduction of 25.8 tonnes annually.

Deep Green's contribution comes at a time when energy prices in the UK are spiraling, the result of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Sean Day, who runs the leisure centre, said, "The partnership has really helped us reduce the costs of what has been astronomical over the last 12 months - our energy prices and gas prices have gone through the roof."

Deep Green pays Exmouth Leisure Centre for all the electricity its data center uses and any setup costs.

Deep Green CTO Mat Craggs said, "Our expected heat transfer from the kit is 139,284 kWh a year, equivalent to 62 percent of the pool's heat needs." He added that adding extra servers could increase this to 70 or 80% of the pool's heating needs.

We've heard of data centers utilizing heat in novel ways before. One of the more unusual cases was a business venture in Hokkaido, Japan, that planned to grow hundreds of thousands of eels in water warmed from by its data center waste heat.

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What a concept, use waste heat to heat something wasteful to heat!
I feel like this is a dumb idea as I know very little about the subject, but what if we could use heat pumps to concentrate the waste heat enough to power steam turbines.
 
I feel like this is a dumb idea as I know very little about the subject, but what if we could use heat pumps to concentrate the waste heat enough to power steam turbines.
The heat output from servers isn't sufficient for boiling water to that capacity. The firebox found in power plants regularly runs over 1000 degrees centigrade when in use. The CPUS would need to be running at similar temps to boil water to that degree. And since said steam would be in boilers, under pressure, the boiling temp would actually increase from 100c, requiring even higher source temps.
 
Thats actually a very good idea, in France we had a company who proposed to heat your house/appartment with heat produced from servers, but I didn't heard about them since several years so I don't really know if they still exist.
If we gonna produce heat anyway, if it can serve to do something, better using it than wasting all that energy.
 
Not a bad application tbh. I always dream one day we'll have the tech to further reuse thermal energy. for an example a typical house in the tropics would have air-conditioner that dissipates heat to the atmosphere. instead of wasting it perhaps one day we could redirect the heat into water storage tank to reduce electric water heater energy consumption.

I actually wonder if one could make a mini laundry dryer out of a server computer. I mean if you have a very hot CPU and GPU you could already make a tiny "sock dryer" operating at 65C/150F. just need to make sure to clean the lint in every cycle lmao.
 
I have a few friends that call their GPUs a "space heater" and have been using them to heat for years. The 30 series on for Nvidia just pump out insane heat.

I had a 470 way back and I could only play games in the winter with how much heat that thing put out.
 
"Deep Green says it's transferring about 96% of the energy used by its computers, reducing the pool's gas heat usage by 62%."

With Energy Crisis in Europe, you would see more and more of such energy conservation measures in the future...!
 
Not a bad application tbh. I always dream one day we'll have the tech to further reuse thermal energy. for an example a typical house in the tropics would have air-conditioner that dissipates heat to the atmosphere. instead of wasting it perhaps one day we could redirect the heat into water storage tank to reduce electric water heater energy consumption.

I actually wonder if one could make a mini laundry dryer out of a server computer. I mean if you have a very hot CPU and GPU you could already make a tiny "sock dryer" operating at 65C/150F. just need to make sure to clean the lint in every cycle lmao.
There is a major issue with such integration, and that would be the increase in complexity, and thus price. See also: the price of cars, even "cheap" cars, and their repairs.
 
The heat output from servers isn't sufficient for boiling water to that capacity. The firebox found in power plants regularly runs over 1000 degrees centigrade when in use. The CPUS would need to be running at similar temps to boil water to that degree. And since said steam would be in boilers, under pressure, the boiling temp would actually increase from 100c, requiring even higher source temps.
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The water is not boiled as per the article, it is the extracted heat from the servers, that is being rerouted, then repurposed by heating the pool's water to warm temp, which the body can tolerate, but not to a boiling temp, but my question is: How many servers or server farms that can max-produce x amount of btunits of heat per cubic feet, in order to generate enough heat to keep up the warming to x amount of degrees in that pool
 
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Fantastic idea! 86 degrees Fahrenheit is too warm for workouts, but probably great for kids flopping around with their parents.
 
The heat output from servers isn't sufficient for boiling water to that capacity. The firebox found in power plants regularly runs over 1000 degrees centigrade when in use. The CPUS would need to be running at similar temps to boil water to that degree. And since said steam would be in boilers, under pressure, the boiling temp would actually increase from 100c, requiring even higher source temps.
The solution does not need to boil the water. Instead, it can be an alternative source of heat that contributes to boiling the water. It is like when you have a solar panel at home, it contributes by supplementing power to your home in addition to the power lines. And to be honest, with CPUs getting increasingly power hungry, I would think the heat output will increase as well.

The problem with heating a pool is that you will hasten the evaporation. So you end up losing water faster, and having to pump them back.
 
The solution does not need to boil the water. Instead, it can be an alternative source of heat that contributes to boiling the water. It is like when you have a solar panel at home, it contributes by supplementing power to your home in addition to the power lines. And to be honest, with CPUs getting increasingly power hungry, I would think the heat output will increase as well.

The problem with heating a pool is that you will hasten the evaporation. So you end up losing water faster, and having to pump them back.
Guys I'm not talking about boiling the pool. I was specifically replying to yraz on whether servers could contribute to steam turn ines, which is a totally different ball game.
 
In Canada, we do something similar but with nuclear plants. The Pickering Nuclear Generating Station generates steam to turn turbines. After it condenses to heated water, it is piped through buildings to provide space heating in the winter before it returns to the plant to be boiled again. The amount of carbon emissions saved (not to mention money) is enormous.
 
In Canada, we do something similar but with nuclear plants. The Pickering Nuclear Generating Station generates steam to turn turbines. After it condenses to heated water, it is piped through buildings to provide space heating in the winter before it returns to the plant to be boiled again. The amount of carbon emissions saved (not to mention money) is enormous.
Nuclear....Great energy source
 
Wish our local pool would do this. Their heater isn't up to the task. By about my 60th lap, my man parts decide to hide and look for warmer waters. :joy:
If it's indoor, it might be a racing pool. I used to swim competitively and the special Olympic-sized (50m x 8 lanes) pools we used for races are kept at a constant 26°C. The pools we used for training were normal Junior-Olympic-sized pools (25m x 6 lanes) and are kept at 28°C. Not all racing pools are full Olympic pools though. Racing pools for pre-teens are just standard 25m "Juney-Ollies" kept at 26°C.

This is done deliberately to prevent the swimmers from getting too hot. You'd be surprised just how much heat your body can produce when you're swimming as hard as you can for as long as you can. This is especially true when the pool is twice as long as the pool that you normally train in. Going full-out in butterfly or freestyle with laps that are 100m long can cause you to get very hot very quickly.

Racing pools can be dangerous though, because their colder temperature can increase the likelihood of cramping. This is made worse by the fact that racing pools don't really have "shallow" and "deep" ends so they have a very low volume:surface ratio and so don't hold heat as well. To counter this, there's always a 25m warm-up pool kept very-warm at 30°C in the same building as the racing pool, often just adjacent to it. We'd swim four laps (200m) at a leisurely pace to make sure that all of our muscles were nice and loose before using the racing pool.

The thing that puzzles me about your situation is that you should have been used to the water after only 2 laps, let alone 60. Of course, I don't know if it's a regulation lap pool or just some outdoor pool that they don't bother heating at all. It sounds like you'd be better off swimming in the ocean! :laughing:
 
If it's indoor, it might be a racing pool. I used to swim competitively and the special Olympic-sized (50m x 8 lanes) pools we used for races are kept at a constant 26°C. The pools we used for training were normal Junior-Olympic-sized pools (25m x 6 lanes) and are kept at 28°C. Not all racing pools are full Olympic pools though. Racing pools for pre-teens are just standard 25m "Juney-Ollies" kept at 26°C.

This is done deliberately to prevent the swimmers from getting too hot. You'd be surprised just how much heat your body can produce when you're swimming as hard as you can for as long as you can. This is especially true when the pool is twice as long as the pool that you normally train in. Going full-out in butterfly or freestyle with laps that are 100m long can cause you to get very hot very quickly.

Racing pools can be dangerous though, because their colder temperature can increase the likelihood of cramping. This is made worse by the fact that racing pools don't really have "shallow" and "deep" ends so they have a very low volume:surface ratio and so don't hold heat as well. To counter this, there's always a 25m warm-up pool kept very-warm at 30°C in the same building as the racing pool, often just adjacent to it. We'd swim four laps (200m) at a leisurely pace to make sure that all of our muscles were nice and loose before using the racing pool.

The thing that puzzles me about your situation is that you should have been used to the water after only 2 laps, let alone 60. Of course, I don't know if it's a regulation lap pool or just some outdoor pool that they don't bother heating at all. It sounds like you'd be better off swimming in the ocean! :laughing:
This I know. All kidding aside, I break out in a sweat swimming laps. Watching my heart rate while swimming in warmer pools, its much higher.
 
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