24.06.2024
Source: Energie & Management Powernews
Mainova plans to supply a residential area with waste heat via heat pumps from a data center in the future. The existing biomethane CHP plant will then be used for peak load.
In Hattersheim am Main, Frankfurt-based Mainova plans to heat more than 600 households in single and multi-family homes with waste heat from an NTT DATA data center, the utility announced. Mainova has been operating a local heating network since 2014, supplying the residential area on Hugo-Hoffmann-Ring with biomethane from a combined heat and power plant. The immediate vicinity of a new development area being built on site and an NTT DATA data center are now to be integrated into the supply concept.
The new development and existing residential area will be connected via a shared heating network, which will be supplied almost entirely with server waste heat from the data center in the future. The gas-powered combined heat and power plant of the existing local heating network will be retained for peak loads and as redundancy.
In order to cover the total heating requirements of around five gigawatt hours per year, Mainova is building and operating a new energy center, which will be integrated into the data center's cooling center in close cooperation with NTT DATA. Two large heat pumps, which are expected to go into operation at the end of 2024, will bring the waste heat there from around 30 degrees Celsius to the 70 to 75 degrees Celsius required for the heating network. In addition, a photovoltaic system with an output of almost 100 kW is planned on the roof of the data center. It will cover around a tenth of the heat pumps' electricity consumption. The total heating output will be around 2.5 MW.
"This flagship project will be the first time outside Frankfurt that we will be heating a new development area and an existing district with climate-friendly waste heat from a data center," said Mainova board member Diana Rauhut. "I am very pleased about this. Also because we are decarbonizing a local heating network that was previously supplied with gas at an early stage."
Author: Heidi Roider
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