Data centres consume a huge amount of energy and given their critical nature in today's life, their energy usage is only going to increase. They also produce an enormous amount of waste heat due to their cooling systems. Increasingly we're now seeing innovative ways of re-purposing that waste heat to benefit local communities and businesses. Last year, we saw Deep Green in the UK host mini data centres at locations such as swimming pools where waste heat can be utilised directly on site.

Throughout Europe, where district heating systems are more common, waste heat from data centres can be fed directly into the network to benefit local businesses and communities. This also leads to the important topic of where to locate data centres. If they can be sited at locations with adjacent heat demand then this can be hugely beneficial for reducing their environmental impact, as well as creating a revenue stream. 

As with this project in Manchester, local communities will benefit from the waste heat of this data centre via a heat pump system. Over the coming years, I expect to see a trend of data centres being paired with local heat demand as they try to boost their ESG credentials. 

At Hyperion, we've worked with a number of clients in the thermal energy storage and heat networks sectors on their critical hires. If you're looking to scale up your teams with top talent in these areas, please reach out to the team.