IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v17y2024i2p445-d1320361.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dynamic Modelling of Data Center Waste Heat Potential Integration in District Heating in Latvia

Author

Listed:
  • Ieva Pakere

    (Institute of Energy Systems and Environment, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Technology, Riga Technical University, Azenes Street 12/1, LV-1048 Riga, Latvia)

  • Kirils Goncarovs

    (Institute of Energy Systems and Environment, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Technology, Riga Technical University, Azenes Street 12/1, LV-1048 Riga, Latvia)

  • Armands Grāvelsiņš

    (Institute of Energy Systems and Environment, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Technology, Riga Technical University, Azenes Street 12/1, LV-1048 Riga, Latvia)

  • Marita Agate Zirne

    (Institute of Energy Systems and Environment, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Technology, Riga Technical University, Azenes Street 12/1, LV-1048 Riga, Latvia)

Abstract

As demand for data centers (DC) has increased rapidly, so has their electricity consumption. Cooling DCs is essential to maintain optimal temperatures for the operation of servers and equipment. The consequence of the cooling process is that most of the electricity consumed in DCs, including cooling, is eventually dissipated as heat that is released into the atmosphere without any useful application. Recovering and reusing waste heat offers a sustainable solution to reduce primary energy consumption and minimize the environmental impact. Using waste heat from DCs to heat buildings can significantly improve the energy efficiency and environmental sustainability of DCs. Therefore, this research analyzes the existing potential of waste heat recovery from data centers in Latvia and proposes a system dynamic modelling approach for evaluation of the future impact of waste heat on the national heat supply. The overall waste heat generated by DCs in 2022 was 51.37 GWh at a temperature of 65 °C. By 2050, the total heat energy production potential from DCs will increase to 257 GWh, with 201 GWh being utilized.

Suggested Citation

  • Ieva Pakere & Kirils Goncarovs & Armands Grāvelsiņš & Marita Agate Zirne, 2024. "Dynamic Modelling of Data Center Waste Heat Potential Integration in District Heating in Latvia," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-13, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:2:p:445-:d:1320361
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/2/445/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/2/445/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jovet, Yoann & Lefèvre, Frédéric & Laurent, Alexis & Clausse, Marc, 2022. "Combined energetic, economic and climate change assessment of heat pumps for industrial waste heat recovery," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    2. Liao, Hua & Peng, Ying & Wang, Fang-Zhi & Zhang, Tong, 2022. "Understanding energy use growth: The role of investment-GDP ratio," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 15-24.
    3. Ziemele, Jelena & Dace, Elina, 2022. "An analytical framework for assessing the integration of the waste heat into a district heating system: Case of the city of Riga," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(PB).
    4. Luo, Yang & Andresen, John & Clarke, Henry & Rajendra, Matthew & Maroto-Valer, Mercedes, 2019. "A decision support system for waste heat recovery and energy efficiency improvement in data centres," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C), pages 1217-1224.
    5. Cheung, Howard & Wang, Shengwei & Zhuang, Chaoqun & Gu, Jiefan, 2018. "A simplified power consumption model of information technology (IT) equipment in data centers for energy system real-time dynamic simulation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 329-342.
    6. Huang, Pei & Copertaro, Benedetta & Zhang, Xingxing & Shen, Jingchun & Löfgren, Isabelle & Rönnelid, Mats & Fahlen, Jan & Andersson, Dan & Svanfeldt, Mikael, 2020. "A review of data centers as prosumers in district energy systems: Renewable energy integration and waste heat reuse for district heating," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ieva Pakere & Dagnija Blumberga & Anna Volkova & Kertu Lepiksaar & Agate Zirne, 2023. "Valorisation of Waste Heat in Existing and Future District Heating Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-22, September.
    2. Peter L. Borland & Kevin McDonnell & Mary Harty, 2023. "Assessment of the Potential to Use the Expelled Heat Energy from a Typical Data Centre in Ireland for Alternative Farming Methods," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(18), pages 1-32, September.
    3. Yuan, Xiaolei & Liang, Yumin & Hu, Xinyi & Xu, Yizhe & Chen, Yongbao & Kosonen, Risto, 2023. "Waste heat recoveries in data centers: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    4. Oh, Jinwoo & Han, Ukmin & Jung, Yujun & Kang, Yong Tae & Lee, Hoseong, 2024. "Advancing waste heat potential assessment for net-zero emissions: A review of demand-based thermal energy systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    5. Zhang, Yingbo & Shan, Kui & Li, Xiuming & Li, Hangxin & Wang, Shengwei, 2023. "Research and Technologies for next-generation high-temperature data centers – State-of-the-arts and future perspectives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    6. Chen, Sirui & Li, Peng & Ji, Haoran & Yu, Hao & Yan, Jinyue & Wu, Jianzhong & Wang, Chengshan, 2021. "Operational flexibility of active distribution networks with the potential from data centers," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    7. Li, Haoran & Hou, Juan & Hong, Tianzhen & Nord, Natasa, 2022. "Distinguish between the economic optimal and lowest distribution temperatures for heat-prosumer-based district heating systems with short-term thermal energy storage," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    8. Steinegger, Josef & Hammer, Andreas & Wallner, Stefan & Kienberger, Thomas, 2024. "Revolutionizing heat distribution: A method for harnessing industrial waste heat with supra-regional district heating networks," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 372(C).
    9. Østergaard, P.A. & Lund, H. & Thellufsen, J.Z. & Sorknæs, P. & Mathiesen, B.V., 2022. "Review and validation of EnergyPLAN," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    10. Guo, Yurun & Wang, Shugang & Wang, Jihong & Zhang, Tengfei & Ma, Zhenjun & Jiang, Shuang, 2024. "Key district heating technologies for building energy flexibility: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 189(PB).
    11. Mohammadnia, Ali & Iov, Florin & Rasmussen, Morten Karstoft & Nielsen, Mads Pagh, 2024. "Feasibility assessment of next-generation smart district heating networks by intelligent energy management strategies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 296(C).
    12. Wang, Fengjuan & Lv, Chengwei & Xu, Jiuping, 2023. "Carbon awareness oriented data center location and configuration: An integrated optimization method," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    13. Ashouri, Mahyar & Chhokar, Callum & Bahrami, Majid, 2024. "A novel microgroove-based absorber for sorption heat transformation systems: Analytical modeling and experimental investigation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    14. Pauli Hiltunen & Sanna Syri, 2020. "Highly Renewable District Heat for Espoo Utilizing Waste Heat Sources," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-21, July.
    15. Han, Ouzhu & Ding, Tao & Zhang, Xiaosheng & Mu, Chenggang & He, Xinran & Zhang, Hongji & Jia, Wenhao & Ma, Zhoujun, 2023. "A shared energy storage business model for data center clusters considering renewable energy uncertainties," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 1273-1290.
    16. Ye, Huiying & Liao, Hua & Zheng, Guoliang & Peng, Ying, 2024. "Industrialization, environmental externality, and climate mitigation strategies," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    17. Han, Ouzhu & Ding, Tao & Yang, Miao & Jia, Wenhao & He, Xinran & Ma, Zhoujun, 2024. "A novel 4-level joint optimal dispatch for demand response of data centers with district autonomy realization," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 358(C).
    18. Peng Yin & Yang Guo & Man Zhang & Jiaqiang Wang & Linfeng Zhang & Da Feng & Weike Ding, 2024. "Performance Analysis of Lake Water Cooling Coupled with a Waste Heat Recovery System in the Data Center," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(15), pages 1-21, July.
    19. Hiltunen, Pauli & Syri, Sanna, 2021. "Low-temperature waste heat enabling abandoning coal in Espoo district heating system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    20. Piotr Kowalski & Paweł Szałański & Wojciech Cepiński, 2021. "Waste Heat Recovery by Air-to-Water Heat Pump from Exhausted Ventilating Air for Heating of Multi-Family Residential Buildings," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-17, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:2:p:445-:d:1320361. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.