Sell waste heat into a district heating network at a market price rather than donating it
#00225
Connect the facility's cooling loop to a district heating network under a contract that pays per MWh delivered at a market-referenced price. Stockholm's open market has ~20 suppliers; Odense delivers 215,000 MWh/year to over 12,000 homes using ammonia heat pumps.
Parent issue
#00211 data-center waste heat is vented to the atmosphere while neighbouring buildings burn fuel for heating
Sustainable Development Goals
Location
Description
The proposal
Connect the facility's cooling loop to a district heating network through heat pumps that lift the temperature to network requirements, under a contract that pays the operator per megawatt-hour delivered at a published, market-referenced price. The price is the mechanism, not an afterthought.
Why the price is the mechanism
The technical case for heat recovery has been settled for a decade and it still almost never happens, because free heat cannot finance a network. Max Schulze of the SDIA puts it precisely:
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