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Paris 2024: Excess Data Center Heat Used to Warm Olympic Swimming Pools
An Equinix data center is playing a supporting role at the Paris Summer Olympics this year. We take a closer look at the project.
5 Min Read
The Equinix PA10 data center is being used to heat the impressive Olympic Aquatic Centre in Paris.Image: Paris 2024 / MGP / Proloog
As global attention turns to Paris with the official start of the Summer 2024 Olympics today (July 26), much of the focus is rightfully placed on the athletes. As it turns out, there is a role that data centers – specifically data center heat – is playing as well.
It takes a lot of resources to build and power Olympic venues. Among the many facilities in use during the game are swimming pools for numerous aquatic events. The primary venue is the Paris Olympic Aquatic Centre in Saint-Denis, which is using a range of eco-friendly initiatives to minimize its carbon footprint. One of those approaches is using excess data center heat to warm the Olympic pools.
An engineer inspects the final stages of construction of the Paris Olympic Aquatic Centre in June 2024 (Image: Alamy)
Heat Reuse at the Equinix PA10 Data Center
The heat used to keep the water at the optimum temperature comes from the recently constructed Equinix PA10 data center in Paris.
PA10 is the 10th data center opened by Equinix in Paris over the past 20 years. Covered by 100% renewable energy, the facility has more than 5,000 sq.m of colocation space and room for around 2,250 cabinets.
“Our newest data center in Paris, PA10, which opened in 2023, was designed and built to recover and export the heat produced by customer equipment,” Noah Nkonge, heat export lead senior manager at Equinix, told Data Center Knowledge.
“We will transfer the surplus heat, free of charge for 15 years, to the Plaine Saulnier urban development zone and the Olympic Aquatic Centre, which will host several events during the 2024 Summer Olympics.”
In addition to heat reuse and water recovery, the Equinix PA10 data center features a rooftop greenhouse and beehive.
Equinix PA10 is the company’s 10th data center in Paris (Image: Equinix)
How the Equinix PA10 Data Center Heats the Olympic Pools
Data centers often run hot, generating lots of heat. In recent years as data center power usage has increased and operators are increasingly trying to be more sustainable, a variety of creative ways to reuse excess data center heat have emerged. The Equinix PA10 data center is one such example.
“The data center will produce 10,000 MWh of heat per year, which is enough to warm more than 1,000 homes,” Nkonge said.
Discussing the inner workings of the liquid cooling system, Nkonge explained that heat generated by Equinix customers’ servers in the colocation data center is recovered at 28 degrees Celsius all year round.
Three heat pumps increase the temperature to 65 degrees Celsius, and the water is then distributed via a heat exchanger to the heat network operator for the benefit of users of the Plaine Saulnier urban development zone free of charge for 15 years.
“Residual data center heat is rejected to the atmosphere by the data center cooling system when there is no heat export set up,” he said.
Colocation cabinets inside the Equinix PA10 data center (Image: Equinix)
Data Center Heat Reuse: A Growing Trend
While the competitors at the Paris Olympics can breathe a little easier knowing that the Olympic Aquatic Centre is using excess data center heat, the deployment is part of a larger overall industry trend.
Data centers around the world are increasingly attempting to improve efficiency by harnessing waste heat.
For instance, Facebook’s facility in Odense, Denmark, recycles warm air from the data center to heat nearby homes, while Quarnot Computing, a start-up in France, distributes data center heat through digital heaters, offering free heat to customers. Elsewhere, atNorth’s SWE01 site in Sweden is equipped with a recovery system for both air-cooled and liquid-cooled IT infrastructures.
Just last month, surf park developer Aventuur won approval to develop a New Zealand project promising year-round access to waves warmed by heat from a nearby data center.
“Facilities can reduce the cost burden and their carbon footprint by finding ways to harness waste heat,” Kyle Mangini, who looks after all laboratory and mechanical systems at the Amherst College Science Center, said during this year’s Data Center World industry convention.
Equinix’s PA10 data center also features a rooftop greenhouse and beehive (Image: Equinix)
‘A Move Toward a Circular Economy’
For Equinix, the PA10 deployment is one of several heat reclamation projects in progress. Nkonge said that Equinix currently has three sites contracted to export heat. The first project was opened in 2010 in Helsinki, Finland, in collaboration with energy supplier Helen.
The other location is in Toronto, Canada. Nkonge said Equinix exports heat from its TR5 IBX data center to its energy partner Markham District Energy heat network for distribution to multiple residential buildings and a nearby hotel, hospital, and local shopping center in downtown Markham.
Read more of the latest data center sustainability news
He added that TR5 also supplies multiple buildings with domestic hot water year-round.
“We’re designing all future Equinix IBX colocation data centers with heat recovery and export capabilities,” Nkonge said. “Our heat export initiative demonstrates the power of collective community action to support a move toward a circular economy.”
The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics opening ceremony takes place later today (July 26). The 15,000-seat Aquatic Centre was designed by architects VenhoevenCS & Ateliers. Once the games are over, the facility will be open to the general public.
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