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New Data Center Will Heat Homes In London
1sockchuck writes "The heat generated by thousands of servers at the new Telehouse West data center in London will soon be used to heat nearby houses and businesses. The Greater London Authority has approved a plan in which waste heat from the colocation facility will be used in a district heat network for the local Docklands community. The project is expected to produce up to nine megawatts of power for the local community."
Well, obviously this isn't going to be the primary source of heat for most of the homes involved. I would imagine that all of the homes that will be affected already have some sort of heating (e.g. furnace, base board heaters, etc). These people won't be completely freed from a monthly gas/electric heating bill, but I would imagine it will save them a pretty penny in the colder months. Really, this makes a whole lot of sense. I've had computers confined in a cabinet under a desk that ran so hot that the BIOS would shut down the computer if you didn't leave the cabinet door cracked. Granted, that was back in the P4 days (although I imagine the newer multi-core CPU's crank out their fair share of extra heating). That, and my laptop is currently acting as a rather nice heater for my lap.
The only way to tell the difference between a hamster and a gerbil is that the hamster has more white meat.
Cogeneration (or combined heat and power) can increase the efficiency of fossil fuel plants by a factor of 2 (from 50% to 93% efficiency mention in this Times article). The downside is that the the piping infrastructure investment needed is huge. Maybe this data center powered heating scheme can give it a leg up.
Karma: Good! Napster: Baad!
Some years we do. We tend to celebrate with a hosepipe ban.
I think there may have been 3 or more days of sun in August 2005.