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Data meets efficiency in Vienna, Austria, where a data center nestled in the Floridsdorf neighborhood provides heat for a public hospital. Digital Realty’s data center uses a heat pump system from regional energy provider Wien Energie to heat up the neighboring Klinik Floridsdorf hospital, around 150 meters (490 feet) away.
“Using local heat sources is essential for the energy transition,” Rusbeh Rezania, who heads the department of decarbonized heat generation assets at Wien Energie, told IT Brew in an email. The project cost €3.5 million, or around $3.8 million, and was partially funded by the Austrian Ministry of Climate Protection.
IT Brew caught up with Rezania to chat about the project’s origins and what’s next.
Tell us a bit more about your project—how long has this been in the works?
“We began construction in autumn 2022 and started operations in winter 2023 to 24,” he said. “During this period, we built a heat pump system at the hospital, connecting it to the data center’s cooling system with a short pipe. Since the past heating season, Wien Energie has been efficiently recycling excess heat from the server rooms and converting it into district heating for the clinic.”
This system “allows us to cover between 50% and 70% of the hospital’s heating demand, and save up to 4,000 tons of CO2 per year,” he said, also noting that “there are virtually no heat losses” since “the connecting pipe is quite short.”
Why did you and your team want to get behind this initiative?
“Wien Energie aims to make Vienna’s energy supply climate-neutral by 2040, and the heating transition is crucial for this goal,” he said. “We operate one of Europe’s largest district heating networks, serving more than 460,000 customers with a network length of 1,300 kilometers. Our goal is to make district heating completely CO2-free by 2040, and projects like this are vital to achieving that.”
What future plans do you have in relation to potentially reusing power, heat, or energy from data centers?
“We are always looking for new sources of waste heat to use for district heating. We are also actively engaging with other data center operators to explore similar opportunities.”
Update 07/24/24: This story has been updated since it was first published.