• Ongoing Projects
• Potential for waste heat recovery from data centers

In the German state of Hesse, the rapidly growing number of data centers is increasingly challenging local energy infrastructures. At the same time, electricity demand is reaching relevant orders of magnitude. Between 2010 and 2020, the energy demand of data centers in Hesse increased from 2.7 billion kWh/a to 4.3 billion kWh/a. The question of increasing efficiency and the question of using the waste heat generated by the data centers therefore represents a decisive factor of sustainable energy supply for affected municipalities and data center operators.

Blueprint for data centers already planned and those to be built in the future

Borderstep supports the Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen (THM) in the project with its many years of expertise in the area of waste heat utilization from data centers in Germany. Together with the relevant stakeholders, Borderstep is developing a transformation roadmap to realize the identified potential.

The associated project partner EVO is an energy supplier and data center operator of a data center with a connected load of approx. 25 megawatts. EVO supplies the data relevant for the project from its supply area.

THM is mainly responsible for the technology of utilizing the waste heat and the heat networks as well as for the calculation of the energy and CO2 saving potentials. In addition, they carry out the economic evaluation of the different variants.

The associated partners Local Agenda 21 Offenbach and BUND support the project with know-how on the local situation and the assessment of ecological effects. In particular, BUND can contribute expertise on thermodynamic assessments and emissions assessments.

The project is funded by the state of Hesse as part of the House of Energy innovation funding.