UK data centre waste heat will keep thousands of homes warm

In a first for the UK Government’s Green Heat Network Fund (GHNF), OPDC has been awarded £36million to reuse heat from London’s tech infrastructure to help households stay warm this winter. 

It’s the first time energy that would have otherwise been wasted, generated by large scale data centres in the UK capital, will have been used in this way. The new heat network sits in the largest adopted Opportunity Area in the city, which spans three boroughs, including Old Oak West, located at the future HS2 station Old Oak Common, a development comprising 9,000 homes and 250,000m2 of commercial space, creating around 22,000 new jobs.

In total, 95Gwh of heat will be delivered through the scheme to power the regenerated brownfield site. Data centres are proving popular for this type of project, as they produce reliable and predictable supplies of ‘low grade heat’ between 20C and 30C, most of which is wasted, with many facilities simply pumping this back into the atmosphere. 

Instead, this latest scheme uses a plastic ‘ambient’ network to supply heat pumps, and raise the temperature to Low Temperature Hot Water. This will then be piped into a traditional steel network to be used by a mixture of new and existing buildings that form part of the Old Oak West redevelopment. The full project will be delivered in five phases, between 2026 and 2040, and has benefited from a £400,000 investment by the Mayor of London’s Local Energy Accelerator (LEA) funding programme, which has now been extended to March 2024 with an additional £3million recently allocated for it. LEA uses European Regional Development Fund money to bolster its own financial resources. 

“Recycling the huge amounts of wasted heat from our local data centres into heat and energy for local residents, a major hospital and other users is an exciting and innovative example of OPDC’s support for the Mayor’s net zero ambitions,’ said OPDC Chief Executive, David Lunts. ‘We are excited to be leading the way in developing low carbon infrastructure, supporting current and future generations of Londoners in Old Oak and Park Royal to live more sustainably.’

‘This is a fantastic opportunity for the new communities emerging within the OPDC area to lead the way in how our cities can operate more sustainably, by using the waste heat sourced from data centres,’ added Jo Streeten, Managing Director, Buildings + Places – Europe and India, AECOM. ‘An enormous amount of stakeholder collaboration and technical expertise has gone into getting us to this point, but we now have a blueprint for an innovative ambient heat network which we hope will provide a template for future developments.’

More on data centres and recycled energy: 

Data centres can keep leisure centres afloat, saving authorities thousands

Image: Lars Kienle