Data Center Underneath Orthodox Church To Heat Helsinki Homes

12/ 01/2009

(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Set upon a hillside overlooking Helsinki, the main cathedral of the Finnish Orthodox Church will be housing a computer room that will generate enough heat to warm 500 single-family houses.

Located in a cave below Helsinki’s Uspenski Cathedral, this two-megawatt capacity data center project could result in the world’s most efficient computer room, according to Finnish energy company Helsingin Energia (www.helen.fi), which will be pumping heat from the servers to Helsinki buildings. The data center’s location is another bonus for security — it is being building the room in a former bomb shelter, which was carved by a WWII fire brigade underneath the cathedral as a refuge for city officials from Russian air raids.

IT and telecom services company Academica is building the data center, and expects the data center will go online at the end of January, and will measure, at first, 500 square meters. Its energy output will be roughly equivalent to that of a large wind turbine.

While its heat is being used for good, the data center will also take great measures to limit its heat production by keeping its efficiency high. The facility is aiming for a power usage effectiveness rating of less than 1.5 — placing it among the most efficient data centers.

This sort of synergy between energy companies and the data center industry is likely to be a recurring trend because data center managers want to reduce their energy demands and energy companies can use excess heat as alternative energy. This week, data center cooling solutions provider AdaptivCool (www.adaptivcool.com) partnered with Massachusetts-based Bluestone Energy Services (www.bluestoneenergy.com) to provide data center energy-efficiency solutions in National Grid and NSTAR utility territories across the state.

The re-purposing of data center waste energy has also been being experimented with elsewhere. For instance, as part of its billion-dollar Project Big Green initiative, IBM (www.ibm.com) launched a Zurich, Switzerland, facility that uses waste heat to warm up a public swimming pool for local residents.

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