By Marcelle Dibrell
Are internet providers the future source of free pool and spa heating?
If a pilot program taking place in England proves successful, the answer is yes!
Data centers are heating pools. A data center is a physical location that stores computing machines and their related hardware equipment. They contain the computing infrastructure that IT systems require, such as servers, data storage drives, and network equipment.
They consume massive amounts of energy and generate a tremendous amount of heat.
Now, a data center company will be using that heat to warm swimming pools.
That’s right. As many as 150 British public swimming pools will be offered this innovative form of free heating.
Deep Green, a data center company that recycles heat from computer processing, announced that they have received the equivalent of a $254 million investment to convert wasted heat from computer servers to usable water heating.
Deep Green is a London-based tech startup that installs small data centers
Deep Green data center is revolutionizing the way we heat swimming pools. The technique works for the data centre and the pool – the heat from the computers warms the water and the transfer of heat into the pool cools the computers. at energy intensive locations such as aquatic leisure center facilities. Its system converts the wasted heat from computers into hot water for the facility. In turn, the cold water from the facility is used to cool the computer servers. The concept is that the facility gets free heating, while Deep Green’s servers get free cooling.
Rather than relying entirely on electricity to cool Deep Green’s server rigs, their internal components are submerged in mineral oil, which absorbs the heat, and a heat exchanger transfers that heat to a swimming pool full of cold water, which cools the components. The system is able to convert about 96 percent of the electricity it uses into heat for the pool.
The company piloted the concept last year at Exmouth Leisure Centre in Devon, where the pool’s gas heating requirements were lowered by 62 percent. The pool can be heated to about 86 degrees, about 60 percent of the time. That means that a gas boiler is still necessary as a supplement, but the savings is still huge.
Pool heating costs were lowered by about $24,000 per year, and annual CO2 emissions were cut by almost 26 tons, according to Deep Green.
With this latest investment, Deep Green will be able to offer the same free heat to up to 150 additional swimming pools over the next two years.
Mark Bjornsgaard, the chief executive of Deep Green, said they don’t need a great demand for their data servers to make a meaningful contribution to the public.
“If just 1% of the data centre demand in the UK operated on our servers, we could deploy in every public pool in the country,” Bjornsgaard said.
The technology comes at a time when the UK’s swimming pools are struggling to stay operational due to soaring energy costs. Since 2010, nearly 400 British swimming pools have closed. And according to Community Leisure UK, which represents pools across England, Scotland, and Wales, half of the UK’s existing pools are in danger of closure.
Meanwhile, the concept is much bigger than simply providing pool heating.
“This is no longer just about pools,” Bjornsgaard said. “We have received interest from a wide range of other potential partners who could make use of our free heat, such as district heating networks.”
In November 2023, Deep Green announced that 10,000 new homes will be connected to nearby data centers to use their waste energy for home heating.
All Deep Green wants now is greater public buy-in — more people using their servers so they can provide free heat to the communities that need it most.For more information about Deep Green Technologies visit online at https://deepgreen.energy/ contactus/.
