A French data center company has come up with a novel way to use some of the excess heat it generates, using it to grow algae that can then be used to power other data centers and create bioproducts.
The heat generated by server racks in a data center is a growing problem for the industry, as operators are forced to use expensive cooling to keep hardware running at optimal temperatures, which is costly and detrimental to business. planet.
As a result, data center companies are trying to find better ways to use that heat.
Paris-based data center group Data4 said it is working with the University of Paris-Saclay on a first-of-its-kind experiment to reuse some of the heat produced by its data center in the Essonne region. , south of Paris.
Data4 said the project will be led by a team with skills in biomass, artificial intelligence, physics, chemistry and economics alongside academics, startup Blue Planet Ecosystems and Data4 teams at the group's site in Marcoussis.
“Given the exponential growth of digital technology and the amount of data stored in data centers (+35%/year worldwide), the environmental efforts of sector players must rise to the challenge,” he said. Data4 in a blog post.
“This new R&D project is a response to the strategic challenge of reusing the heat produced by data centers.”
To prevent this heat from being lost, several reuse options are currently being explored. The option many data centers have chosen is to use excess heat to heat nearby homes. However, according to Data4, this option “only takes advantage of 20% of the heat produced.”
The company said it plans to reuse waste heat to reproduce natural photosynthesis mechanisms using captured CO2 to grow algae. “It will then be recycled as biomass to develop “new sources of circular energy” and reused to make bioproducts for other industries.” In the long term, these surplus bioproducts could also be used to provide materials for the cosmetic or agricultural industries, for example.
“This energy will then be used by the Data4 data centers but also by the local community,” the company said. “We also want to solve the waste heat problem and increase energy efficiency by creating a new sustainable energy source.”
The project is estimated to cost around €5 million ($5.4 million), and Data4 has a partnership with the university that will last four years. The company said it hopes to have a first prototype to show in the next 24 months.
“As this project has great duplication potential, we hope that the Data4 campus in the Paris region will live for many years and inspire other countries and regions,” the company said. ITPro.
In a feasibility study conducted with startup Blue Planet Ecosystems, Data4 stated that this method of carbon capture can be 20 times more efficient than that of a tree.
“This increased biomass project responds to two of the main challenges of our time: food security and the energy transition. Close collaboration is needed between all actors in the Essonne region, including Data4, to develop a true industrial ecology project aimed at pooling resources and reducing consumption in the region,” said Linda Lescuyer, Head of Innovation at Data4.
Demand for data center space continues to grow, but so does pressure on data center providers to ensure they are as green as possible. That means using renewable energy to power the sites in many cases and ensuring excess heat is used rather than wasted.
For example, a proposed data center in east London could use its waste heat to heat up to 13,000 local homes. Other data center facilities have promised to improve biodiversity through the use of green roofs and other features.
