Waste Heat from Cooling in

Cities
Gareth Davies, Akos Revesz, and Graeme Maidment
London South Bank University

Presented at The Liveable City Event, Royal Danish Embassy, London

16th June 2017
 Contents
• Heat challenge and need for carbon saving

• Cooling and opportunities for waste heat recovery

• Example of integrated cooling and waste heat reuse

in cities:
– Data centres

• Benefits of waste heat recovery

• Luster! – A new project - Get involved

• Conclusions

1
 The Heat Challenge and
Need for Carbon Saving

• The Climate Change

Act (UK) - 80%
reduction in carbon
emissions by 2050

3
2
 What is the Plan?

1) Decarbonizing the Grid

2) Industrial Heat

3) Heat Networks and Waste

Heat

4) Heat in Buildings

5) Grids & Infrastructure

4
3
 District Heating Networks

• Currently supply only 2% of heat demand in UK by district heating

https://setis.ec.europa.eu/system/files/JRCDistrictheatingandcooling.pdf
4
 Heating Strategy for London

• Annual Heating demand

66TWh/yr.

• Increasing number & scale

of district heating networks
(DHNs)

• 25% of London’s heating

from secondary waste heat
sources by 2030

• 50 TWh/yr (70%)
secondary heat sources

5
 Waste Heat Sources
Heat Source Proximity to Available year Typical source
heat demand round temperature

Power station
35°C
rejection

Buildings 28°C

Industrial heat 35-70°C

Underground
32°C
Railways

Electricity
50°C
substations

Sewer heat
14-22°C
mining

Data centres 35°C

Roads / Car parks 25°C

7
 Distribution of Data Centres
across UK

• Distribution of colocation data centres in

UK - 252

• Largest concentration of data centres is in

London - 75

(Maps from: http://www.datacentermap.com)

8
 Data Centre Cooling & Waste heat

• Data centres currently consume 2-

3% of UK’s electricity.

• This is expected to grow rapidly in

the next few years

• All data centre electrical energy is

ultimately converted to heat

• Data centres are generally air cooled and the heat dissipated to ambient

• Data centre waste heat could be economically recovered and reused

9
 Main Approaches to Data Centre Cooling

Remote air cooling Local air cooling – close-coupled cooling

Direct liquid on-chip cooling Liquid immersion cooling

10
 The fridge or heat pump - waste heat from
cooling?
• Heat pump is used to pump heat and
cold

• Efficiency or CoP is
important
• CoPc = Qe/ W = 4/1

• CoPh = Qc/ W = 5/1

• CoPh+c = (Qc + Qe)/ W

=9

12
 Case Study of Data Centre
Waste Heat Recovery

• Mӓntsӓlӓ, Finland.
• reduced gas consumption by
• Using six heat pumps, total capacity 4 MW,
50% and CO2 emissions by
supply enough heat for 1500 homes
40%

• Significant cost savings

15
 Waste Heat Recovery Case
Studies in UK
UK power networks
• London electricity substation to provide heat for Tate
Modern building.
• Heat is released from transformers
• 7000 MWh per year, saving 1400 tonnes of CO2e,

Telehouse West
• Large data centre waste heat recovery scheme.
• 2009 – GLA plan for 28,000 m2 data centre facilities,
• Includes waste heat recovery to a local DHN for
local community heating.
• DHN has not been built and the waste heat recovery
facility is not used

17
 Heat and temperature distribution
in IT servers
For standard server For HPC Server
Component
Proportion Temperature Proportion Temperature
of total heat (°C) of total heat (°C)
Microprocessors 30% 85°C 63% 85°C
DC/DC
conversion 10% 50°C 13% 115°C

I/O processor 3% 40°C 10% 100°C

AC/DC
25% 55°C

}
conversion
Memory chips 11% 70°C
14% 40°C
Fans 9% 30°C
Disk drives 6% 45°C
Motherboard 3% 40°C

• Highest quantities of heat and highest temperatures

– microprocessors,
– memory chips
– some transformer and connection components

14
 Upgrading of waste heat using
heat pumps

• Heat pumps can be used to boost the temperature of waste heat,

increasing the range of options for reuse.

• Both single and multistage cycles can be used

15
 Estimated Savings for Heat
Recovery in Data Centres
Data centre
Energy Carbon
cooling Cost RHI payment
saving Savings
method/ heat Savings (£) (£/year)
(MW years) (tonnes)
source
Chilled water 2.76 1,864 £373,634 £519,242
Air 3.04 2,938 £614,862 £579,549
Liquid/Air 3.25 3,786 £805,212 £627,136
Liquid 3.33 4,102 £876,000 £644,833

• Waste heat from 3.5 MW data centre IT load

• Savings are in compared with gas

14
Benefits of Recovering Waste Heat

Heat end user Government

• Reducing energy costs • Lower carbon emissions
• Reduction in expected • Meeting targets
future carbon taxes • Particulates
• Tackle fuel poverty
• Reduce carbon emissions
• Renewable heat incentive
• Shared costs
• Plant space
• Noise

Cooling application
with waste heat recovery
• Reducing energy
• RHI
costs associated with cooling
• Lower carbon emissions
• Shared equipment costs
• Plant space
• Noise
Some Barriers of Waste Heat Utilisation
• Technical - applications and technology.

• Behavioural, policy, legal……

• Economics –

• High volume/low temperature waste heat

• Not suitable to transport long distances and expensive

• Location critical – need access to local users or local heat

network

• Need heat user to take heat continuously for effective payback

LUSTER – An Upcoming Feasibility Study
London Urban Sub - Terrain Energy Recovery

Cable tunnels Sewers

Underground railways
 Life After LUSTER
LUSTER next steps:

• Investigate the flexibility of integration into existing and new heat networks.

• Pilot studies: Design and implementation of bespoke heat exchanger solutions.

• Policy, commercial and regulatory frameworks around waste heat recovery.

• Risk assessments.

• …
LUSTER –The Team
• Academia

• Major utility companies in London

• Manufacturers

Get Involved!
Professor Graeme Maidment
email: maidmegg@lsbu.ac.uk

Akos Revesz
email: revesza2@lsbu.ac.uk
 Conclusions
• There are many waste heat sources in cities

• Although waste heat is often of low temperature, it can be readily

upgraded using heat pumps and reused

• Greatest energy, carbon and cost savings achieved when cooling

and heating are integrated

• Next steps

19
 Acknowledgements

• i-STUTE – one of the End Use Energy Demand

centres funded by EPSRC
• EPSRC Energy Programme funding
• London Underground Ltd

20
• Questions

21