1.12.2009
Computer hall heats Helsinki residents' homes
The computer hall situated in a cave under Uspenski Cathedral is cooled by district cooling, and the heat generated by the computers is piped as district heating to buildings in Helsinki – the heat generated by the full computer hall is sufficient for heating 500 single family houses. The aim of the joint project of Academica and Helsingin Energia is the world's most eco-efficient computer hall.
Computer halls consume a lot of energy, and usually as much is required to cool the computers as for their operation itself.
District cooling, computer hall and district heating combined
Academica's and Helsingin Energia's solution was to use district cooling to keep the computers cool. The district cooling is produced from the thermal energy from heat pumps, cold seawater or energy generation that would otherwise be wasted.
The heat produced by the computers is piped via a heat pump into the district heating network to heat Helsinki buildings and the residents' domestic hot water.
The capacity of the computer hall situated in a bedrock cave beneath Uspenski Cathedral is two megawatts. When the hall is full of computers, the heat it produces is enough to heat up to 500 large single-family houses in Helsinki. The planned capacity for extending the computer hall is up to five megawatts.
Aim: world's most eco-efficient computer hall
The cooling of computer halls is a major environmental issue which is only just receiving attention. Academica is seeking a significant competitive edge from energy efficiency.
"We monitor the overall energy efficiency of our computer hall and we intend to make this the most eco-efficient computer hall in the world. Just the district cooling and recovery of waste heat give us an enormous advantage over others", claims Jarmo Tuovinen, CEO of Academica.
The energy efficiency of computer halls is quantified by the so-called efficiency factor which expresses the ratio of the total energy consumption and the energy used for actual computing. The efficiency factor of ordinary computer halls is between 1.5 and 2, with the figure for computer halls deemed to be extremely eco-efficient possibly under 1.5. The efficiency factor of Academica's and Helsingin Energia's hall is around one, and it is possible to get even below this figure.
For the clients of Academica's computer hall, energy efficiency is not only an ecological choice, but also an opportunity to save costs, as the company intends to pass on to its customers the benefits of its lower electricity bills.
Underground Silicon Valley in the heart of Helsinki?
For Helsingin Energia, the first computer hall is an important opening, as it aims to extend its computer hall operations.
"We have a ready-made district cooling and -heating network under the city centre, and plenty of underground premises. There are many computer halls in the capital area that could as well be under central Helsinki. Neither is it an impossible thought that interest in this type of a solution would be aroused in other countries too", says Project Manager Juha Sipilä, who is heading the project at Helsingin Energia.
Sipilä reckons that in district cooling the primary energy consumption of the computer hall now commissioned is only 20% of that of a standard computer hall, and the additional benefit of the waste heat recovery is a bonus.
"Eco-efficient computer halls could really save significant amounts of primary energy and at the same time recover wasted heat for recycling. It is perfectly feasible that a quite considerable proportion of the heating in the capital city could be produced from thermal energy generated by computer halls", Sipilä explains his vision.
"At a rough estimate, the total energy consumption of Finnish computer halls is 0.5% of all electricity consumption. If all the computer halls operated like this one of ours, 500 megawatt hours of energy would be saved every day. And at the same time, a medium-sized town's worth of buildings could be heated", Academica's CEO Tuovinen goes on.
Additional information:
Academica, CEO Jarmo Tuovinen, +358 (0)500 705 565
Helsingin Energia, Project Manager Juha Sipilä, +358 (0)40 334 6663
Computer halls
Production of district cooling
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