Read about the Kirkkonummi heat pump plant under construction
Fortum and Microsoft's datacentre project spearheads energy efficiency
Data volumes and digitalization are growing everywhere. To accommodate this, datacentre operators are looking for best locations to build new facilities. In the Finnish capital region, Fortum and Microsoft are taking the trend to a new level by heating buildings with waste heat from datacenters on an unprecedented scale.
Fortum and Microsoft join forces
Datacenters provide electricity-based district heating
In the Espoo Clean Heat programme, Fortum’s district heat in Finland has been produced coal-free since 2024 and is increasingly based on low-carbon electricity, such as wind and nuclear power, since 2014. A significant part of this will be covered by recycling waste heat from Microsoft's large-scale datacenters to the district heating network.
In most datacenters globally, waste heat generated by cooling of the servers is released to air or the surrounding water system. In terms of energy efficiency, it makes most sense to capture the waste heat and use it, for example, to heat household water and buildings connected to district heating. To achieve this, datacenters require proximity of a district heating network, a large enough plot, access to a secure supply of low-carbon electricity and a strong data network.
The locations of Microsoft's datacenters were chosen with this in mind. Microsoft's two new datacenters in the cities of Espoo and Kirkkonummi will eventually provide approximately 40 percent of all the district heat needed in the area. About 75 percent of the datacenters' waste heat will be used for district heating annually; the need for heating is very low in the summer months. Recycling waste heat will also provide a steady base load of heat and help to keep the district heating prices competitive. Fortum's data centre project has been awarded European Union NextGenerationEU funding and investment support from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.
The project is one of a kind: there is no datacentre heat recovery concept of a similar scale anywhere else in the world.
of the area's district heat can be provided by the new data centres
About 40%
Transferring waste heat from datacenters to buildings
How it works: Recycling waste heat from datacenters
Data centre project benefits:
Reduces emissions from heating
Supports the economy and employment
Increases recreational opportunities
Major share of heat to be based on waste heat
Fortum already produces district heating by utilising the waste heat from the local waste water treatment process and from several smaller datacenters. Waste heat and heat pumps currently provide almost a quarter of all the heat used in the network area. Together with waste heat recycling from Microsoft's future datacenters, this share will eventually increase to about 65 percent.
Leading datacentre operators aim to reduce their own carbon footprint by using energy sources that are based on, for example, renewable or nuclear power. In general, if waste heat from such data centers is available for use in district heating network, heat produced by burning fossil fuels can be replaced with heat that is based on electricity.
Supporting regional wellbeing
Microsoft's datacentre region enhances further digitization of businesses and the whole society. In addition, datacentre investments create local jobs and new training opportunities. A large datacentre typically employs 100-300 people directly with various educational backgrounds. Indirectly, the number of new jobs is manifold – and even higher during the construction phase.
Biodiversity is extremely important for Fortum, Microsoft and the cities of Espoo and Kirkkonummi. Active stakeholder dialogue was conducted in the development phase to adjust new development with biodiversity needs as much as possible. Recreational areas have also been maintained or even improved around the datacentre region.
Fortum's data centre project has been awarded European Union NextGenerationEU funding and investment support from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.
Read more about data centers
Data centers and district heating – a perfect match
We are at the intersection of two global megatrends: digitalization and the energy transition. The demand for cloud services keeps growing and new data centers are built around the world at an increasing pace. At the same time, we seek new solutions to replace fossil fuels across the energy system, as well as in other areas. In achieving carbon neutrality in the energy system, the concept of circular economy is particularly attractive.
How do data centers impact the climate?
Data volumes are growing exponentially worldwide, and the use of cloud services is on the rise. This will quickly expand the need for powerful data centers. Finland has excellent opportunities to mitigate the climate impacts of digitalization: we can offer data centers clean electricity and use the waste heat generated by the centers to replace coal-based heat production.
Espoo Clean Heat
Fortum and the City of Espoo have committed to carbon-neutral district heating during the 2020s in the network that operates in the Espoo, Kauniainen and Kirkkonummi regions. The development work has since been accelerated with an intermediate goal to discontinue the use of coal in 2025. The accelerated project for carbon-neutrality in 2020's is called Espoo Clean Heat.
