Amazon: Heat From Data Centers Will Be Used as a Furnace (vox.com)

Vox reports on Amazon's recent push for "corporate sustainability": It plans to have 15 rooftop solar systems, with a total capacity of around 41 MW, deployed atop fulfillment centers by the end of this year, with plans to have 50 such systems installed by 2020. Amazon was the lead corporate purchaser of green energy in 2016. That year, it also announced its largest wind energy project to date, the 253 MW Amazon Wind Farm Texas. Overall, the company says, it has "announced or commenced construction on wind and solar projects that will generate a total of 3.6 million megawatt hours (MWh) of renewable energy annually."
But here's the most interesting part. GeekWire reports: Amazon is moving ahead with a unique plan to use heat generated from data centers in the nearby Westin Building to warm some of its new buildings downtown. The system transfers the heat from the data centers via water piped underground to the Amazon buildings. The water is then returned to the Westin Building once it's cooled down to help cool the data centers. The setup will be unusual. "Certainly there are other people using waste heat from server farms but you don't hear a lot about tying it in with buildings across the street from each other," said Seattle City Councilmember Mike O'Brien.

Comments

Not new

[markdavis]

>"But here's the most interesting part. GeekWire reports: Amazon is moving ahead with a unique plan to use heat generated from data centers in the nearby Westin Building to warm some of its new buildings downtown. The system transfers the heat from the data centers via water piped underground to the Amazon buildings"

Factories and businesses that generate waste heat have been doing that for at least two centuries now, all over the world. Where I work, some 80 years ago they ran waste heat steam lines from the laundry building to other places on the campus, including 1/4 mile away for some residences. Data centers have also been doing it in many places for many years both on and off capus. http://www.datacenterknowledge...

It is great to hear, but really nothing new.

Re:Not new

[sittingnut]

GeekWire reports: Amazon is moving ahead with a unique plan ...

Factories and businesses that generate waste heat have been doing that for at least two centuries now, all over the world. ...>

It is great to hear, but really nothing new.

here is another no new thing - modern self styled "geeks"/"nerds"/"technophiles"/etc(and most of others), especially those who write/edit for public consumption, are illiterate on all subjects except highly abstracted, designed to death, interfaces of modern tech.
they stand on shoulders of giants, but can't see the giants and never heard of them.

Re:Not new

[rmdingler]

You know, really, there's very little new under the sun; but when a company with worldwide impact adopts an energy strategy that's efficient and progressive, my hat's off to them.

They don't have to care about the conservation of resources, and yet, they do.

Measure this against countless corporate juggernauts who give less than a damn.

Re:Not new

[markdavis]

>"They don't have to care about the conservation of resources, and yet, they do."

In this particular example, however, there is nothing altruistic about it- using waste heat just makes economic sense. Unless, of course, there is so little heat that paying for the infrastructure to reuse it doesn't make sense. Doing the "right" thing often is right for many reasons. It is the best kind of right.

Just like what primarily drives solar, wind, and other renewables. We can believe it is for some "save the earth" type concept, or we can know for a fact that it points the way to national energy independence, reduces dependence on a fragile grid, lessens foreign violence, and is actually a good investment as it never runs out and won't see ever increasing costs.

Re:Not new

[Hadlock]

The colorado school of mines (i.e. MIT of the midwest) is heated largely by waste heat from the nearby Coors (yes that Coors) brewery. They run the steam vents under major sidewalks to help keep them clear of water and ice during the winter. Pretty cool to show up on campus and there's one sidewalk that's just bone dry all the time with green grass on either side. This has been going on since at least the 1950s, probably much earlier.

strange uninformed additional to the story

[Anonymous Coward]

"Certainly there are other people using waste heat from server farms but you don't hear a lot about tying it in with buildings across the street from each other" ummm no, this is actually the common use case when heating buildings from datacenter waste heat, in fact I can't think of an example where it was anything but this type of setup (I am sure there are but they would not be the norm as most datacenters don't have large office spaces in to make it worthwhile)

This technology is very old

[gweihir]

And it has been used for typical city-wide distances for a long time. Where the heat comes form is unimportant as long as it is available with reasonable dependability or there are fallback alternate heat sources. This whole system was probably available from a catalog already. May have been an European catalog, but still.

name in the news.... no good reason.

[starblazer]

It's the holiday season... so AMAZON IN THE NEWS!!! AMAZON IS DOING GLOBAL GOOD!!!! AMAZON IS DOING X, Y, AND Z!!!

All this Amazon press is just keeping their name in your brain so you shop there during the Christmas season.

As others have said, this isn't new.

Cloud&Heat

[tepples]

most datacenters don't have large office spaces

Which is why Cloud&Heat brings the water-cooled server rack to the office space.