Science & Tech · Science & Environment · 9 hrs ago
Danish data centre sends its waste heat to homes
A supercomputer in Sønderborg, Denmark, is turning its waste heat into a useful resource.
The Bitten system at the University of Southern Denmark uses powerful processors for academic research, and their work produces heat around the clock.
A liquid-cooling system captures all of that heat and sends it to the town’s district heating network, which serves 75,000 residents.
The system, designed by Danish company Danfoss, replaces fans and air conditioning that would otherwise vent the heat outdoors.
The heat can help warm homes and support industrial processes, making use of energy that would otherwise be lost.
Data centres used 485 terawatt hours of electricity in 2024, or 1.5 percent of the world’s total, and that share is expected to reach 3 percent by 2030.
Recovering their heat offers one way to use more of the energy these centres consume, as their electricity demand grows.
The Bitten supercomputer in Denmark sends its waste heat into a municipal heating network for homes.
A liquid-cooling system designed by Danish engineering company Danfoss recovers all of the supercomputer’s waste heat.
The heat helps warm homes in Sønderborg, a town with 75,000 residents.
Bitten was launched in May at the University of Southern Denmark and provides AI computing for academic research across the country.
- Who
- The University of Southern Denmark’s Bitten supercomputer and Danfoss, which designed its cooling system.
- What
- The system recovers the supercomputer’s waste heat and channels it into a municipal heating network.
- When
- Bitten launched in May. The article does not give a date for when the heat recovery began.
- Where
- Sønderborg, Denmark.
- Why
- To use heat that would otherwise be released into the air and help warm homes.
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- Supercomputer
- Bitten
- Location
- Sønderborg, Denmark
- Residents
- 75,000
- Heat recovered
- 100 percent of the waste heat
- Cooling system designer
- Danfoss
What people are saying
With the waste heat recovery system, at the end of the process you basically have a tap of hot water coming out of the data centre.