14-05-2025
Nordic Countries Are Using Data Centers to Warm Homes
In Mantsala, Finland, an elaborate system of pipes and pumps is harvesting waste heat from a 75-megawatt data center and feeding it to homes. Last year, it heated the equivalent of 2,500 homes, about two-thirds of the town's needs. As the global demand for computing brings more server farms to the Nordic region — attractive to the tech industry for its frigid climate and low electricity prices — companies are tapping into cities' district heating systems to repurpose waste heat.
While no data center is good for the environment due to the immense hunger for energy, heat recovery technology can help blunt the impacts. Read more from Lars Paulsson, Kari Lundgren and Kati Pohjanpalo today on CityLab: Power-Hungry Data Centers Are Warming Homes in the Nordics
