Waste Heat from Data Centres: a Strategic Review for Scotland

The review explores the current potential for heat reuse in Scotland, and what the technical and commercial barriers associated with waste heat reuse from existing and proposed data centres are. Growing requirements for electricity and for the decarbonisation of heat are going to compete directly with increasing land, electricity, and water demands of data centres – and this report explores the possible constructive collaboration between them.

This report focuses on the reuse of data centre waste heat within district heat networks, as this is considered the most scalable application in the Scottish context.

The report is intended to provide guidance to facilitate the engagement between stakeholders, and the potential development of waste heat offtake projects across Scotland.

Scottish Enterprise commissioned AECOM and HermeticaBlack to undertake a desk-based research exercise including structured interviews with key stakeholders and bringing in evidence from case studies.

Data centre waste heat represents a potentially significant and continuous source of low carbon heat. Depending on size and utilisation, a single large or hyperscale data centre could generate hundreds of gigawatt hours of recoverable heat annually. This has the benefit of:

• Lower whole-system electricity demand
• Low-carbon heat for heat offtakers
• Potential for lower delivered heat costs
• Wider system value

There are material challenges to realising data centre heat reuse at scale:

• Location dependency
• Access to grid infrastructure
• Policy and planning
• Commercial complexity

Without early and comprehensive coordination between major stakeholders, there is a substantial risk that many data centres in the planning pipeline will become fully operational before their heat reuse opportunity can be realised. To minimise this risk and encourage the reuse of waste heat from the expected growth in data centres this report recommends that:

• The compatibility of data centre locations with local heat reuse opportunities should be explored
• An organisation or individual is designated with responsibility to coordinate data centre heat reuse opportunities
• Local authorities and Scottish Government should consider developing a community benefit/heat infrastructure fund or offset mechanism
• Scottish Government and planning teams should expand planning policy to introduce clear, enforceable requirements for data centre developments
• Local authorities should use planning conditions/agreements to encourage heat offtake; and consider limiting high-water-use evaporative cooling to drive closed-loop adoption
• Scottish Government and local authorities should collaborate to define “Green Data Centres” within NPF4 – and the required heat and power plans that data centre operators need to provide
• Local authorities/heat network developers should develop standard offtake principles, clear system boundaries, and “no-regrets” investment staging
• Local authorities to capture data centre pipeline in Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategy (LHEES)
• Data centre operators should future proof data centre design with compatible cooling systems