Can Data Heat Your Home for Free?

By Thanthara @ Adobe Stock

You have read here that data centers are eating up energy, and demand for more AI data centers could even spark a renaissance in U.S. nuclear power. Using all that energy generates a lot of heat, and Google is now working toward using some of that heat to warm homes near its data center in Finland. Justine Calma reports at The Verge:

Google’s data centers are expanding to support its AI ambitions, and a new project in Finland shows one way the company is trying to grapple with the environmental impact of that growth.

Google will drop €1 billion (roughly $1.1 billion) to expand its data center in Finland to “further unlock the potential of AI,” the company said in an emailed press release today. It includes plans to reuse heat from the data center to warm nearby homes, schools, and public buildings.

Already energy-hungry data centers are now even more energy-intensive when used for AI. Reusing the server heat is one way to mitigate the effects that AI has on the power grid and environment. After all, if Google isn’t careful, its scramble to inject AI into Search and other products could derail the company’s climate goals and place added pressure on energy systems where it operates.

The announced expansion of its Finland data center comes on the heels of the Google I/O event last week that showcased Google’s search engine revamped with generative AI and a faster version of its Gemini model. AI was uttered no less than 121 times at the event and infused into everything from vacation planning and scam detection tools to virtual assistants.

Training and running AI requires new and more powerful data centers, which risks stressing out power grids with soaring electricity demand. There’s also growing concern about fossil fuel power plants meeting that demand at a time when they need to be replaced with renewable energy to keep climate change from becoming a bigger disaster.

To literally take some of the heat off the expansion of its Finland data center, Google struck up a partnership with the municipality of Hamina and the city-owned energy provider Haminan Energia. By 2025, they plan to recover heat from the data center’s servers and send it to homes and public buildings in the area.

This is the first project of its kind for Google, which says it’s providing the heat free of cost. Google’s been reusing that heat for its own offices on-site for nearly a decade. As the data center expands and uses more energy, Google plans to share that heat to meet 80 percent of annual heating demand for the local district. And since Google purchases carbon pollution-free energy to match 97 percent of the data center’s energy consumption, the heat it provides to Haminan Energia will also be considered a mostly clean source of energy.

Action Line: So, can data heat your home for free? You may see more projects like this as data centers are built in more places. Those data centers may demand massive amounts of new electric generation capacity. Click here to subscribe to my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter.

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zildjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West (RIP JB) and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com To sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter, click here.

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