A small data centre generated enough heat to warm a public swimming pool in Devon, UK. Exmouth Leisure Centre saved thousands of pounds due to the heat captured by computers inside a white box surrounded by oil. The pool was heated to 30C for 60% of the time.
Deep Green is a start up that charges clients to use its computing power for artificial intelligence and machine learning. Due to the running the „digital boiler“, the founder Mark Bjornsgaard stated that he company would also refund the leisure centre’s electricity costs.,
The concept has been in development over the last five years. Data centres have a huge problem with heat so usefully getting rid of the heat is proving to be a very good solution which is essentially very simple to implement. The hot oil is pumped into a heat exchanger to warm the water in the pool.
The manager of the leisure centre was expecting a rise in energy bills by £100,000 this year but the data centre heat has helped reduced the costs. The BBC reported that 65 swimming pools in England had closed since 2019 due to the rising energy costs. Subsequent to the successful heating of the Exmouth Leisure Centre, seven other English pools have signed up to the heating scheme.
(c) photo: MARK@DEEPGREEN.ENERGY
