New high-density data centre heats 10,000 households in Stockholm

Borderlight AB, a leading supplier of advanced IT and Telecom services to the public sector and industry sectors, has decided to build a new data center with large scale heat reuse in cooperation with Europe’s leading district heating operator Fortum V?rme in Stockholm, Sweden. With full IT load, the implementation will run at more than 5 MW and heat some 10,000 modern residential apartments.

Monday, 4th September 2017 Posted 7 years ago in by Phil Alsop

Borderlight’s sister company GoGreenHost will provide the server blades and racks specifically optimized for heat recovery, with rack densities reaching up to 100 kW per 19" rack. The cooperation between Borderlight, GoGreenHost and Fortum V?rme is a strong validation of Stockholm Data Parks’ objective to attract and promote a data center industry where no heat is wasted.

The excess heat from the Datacenter will be captured, recovered and reused for heating of buildings in Stockholm. This is made possible by Fortum V?rme’s district heating network which connects more than 10,000 buildings, representing an aggregated heating demand of 12 TWh per year.

“Borderlight’s and GoGreenHost’s target is to become a leading supplier of advanced IT services coupled with efficient heat recovery from data centers that reach close to 100% recovery of consumed electrical power. GoGreenHost technology creates a new potent heat energy source with a very low carbon foot print. Our plan is to contract installation of 30 MW in new data center capacity 2017 and another 60 MW 2018 in sizes from 1-6 MW per site, all connected to a redundant high capacity fiber backbone. GoGreenHost’s ramp up time to delivery of full heat capacity per new data center site is typically 6-12 months", says Sten Oscarsson, CEO of Borderlight and GoGreenHost AB.

GoGreenHost’s solution uses new inventive heat recovery technology integrated directly in the server systems in combination with new heat pump design. Recovered heat energy is fed directly from the data center to the district heating network at the required temperature. Fortum V?rme purchases this recovered heat from GoGreenHost.

“Borderlight and GoGreenHost will make a very significant contribution to Stockholm Data Parks' objective to reuse data center excess heat on a large scale. It's particularly exciting to see how the digitalization of our societies and GoGreenHost's high-density technology can enrich one another to the benefit of all parties as well as the environment", says Erik Rylander, Head of Stockholm Data Parks at Fortum V?rme.

Close to ninety percent of all buildings in Stockholm are connected to the district heating network. The Swedish capital is one of the few cities in the world where large-scale heat reuse from major data centers is possible. The long-term objective is to meet ten percent of the city’s heating needs through data center waste heat reuse.