Excess heat from a datacentre in Val d’Europe, France

This case study is part of a project catalogue produced by ReUseHeat to inspire how to utilize excess heat from urban sources for heating and cooling purposes. The catalogue contains 25 existing or planned projects, 12 of which are Danish and 13 from other European countries.

Description

A new heating system near Val d'Europe outside Paris aims to utilize excess heat from a local data centre. A new local district heating network with 4 km distribution pipelines will be constructed to heat nearby buildings.

The data centre is in the area Bailly-Romainvilliers, which is a new development zone under construction. A future business park is to be located next to a data centre. The data centre will operate 24 hours a day, all year round and to avoid overheating, and the servers are continually cooled using a refrigerator system. Excess heat from the server cooling is recovered and used to heat nearby buildings. Dalkia organized the project to utilize excess heat from the data centre.

The system comprises two heat exchangers connected to the heat recovery network. Further, a natural gas boiler boosts temperatures when needed and acts as a peak load in periods of high heat demand. The heat exchangers can provide district heating water temperatures between 48 and 55 degrees Celsius, corresponding to a total thermal capacity of 7.8 MW, which can be extracted from the data centre. The data centre is expected to provide 90% of the future heat requirements of connected buildings, including both the current aquatic centre and the future business park. Hereby, an annual heating loss of 20,000 MWh is avoided, and more than 4000 tons of CO2-equivalents are saved annually. This sustainable energy recovery boosts the probability of the project being fully realized. This reduces overall heat costs, and heat prices further benefit from a reduced VAT.

The total project is estimated to cost € 3.46 M, of which the project receives aid from ADEME, the French Environment and Energy Management Agency, of € 1.0 M. The overall project is a decentralized alternative to urban district heating networks with no investment risks to be borne by public actors. The energy recovery is both green and sustainable as it benefits from a local energy source, reducing the environmental impact. As the data centre operates all year round, the heat prices are low and are expected to be relatively stable.

Val d'Europe, France

ReUseHeat, Project began in 2013, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute

Names of stakeholders

Dalkia
Quartier Valmy - Espace 21
33, place Ronde
92981 Paris La Défense Cedex
France
Telephone :+ 33 1 71 00 71 00
Fax :+ 33 1 71 00 71 10

External links:

Dalkia, ADEME, Handbook – 25 cases of urban waste heat recovery