F E A T U R E
environmental goals. Amid the challenge, there is now a growing opportunity to not only prioritise sustainability, but to become active energy assets via heat reuse.
What is data centre reuse?
In years gone by and as data centre equipment densities grew, new cooling techniques were developed to cope with the increased volume of heat produced by servers and CPUs( Central Processing Units). Hot and cold aisle containment configurations, along with more efficient heat extraction, allowed owners and operators to keep their equipment within a specified window of optimal operation.
However, despite recognising there was value in the heat extracted, heat reuse was technically challenging and with uncertain reward. In the UK and Ireland, for example, many operators now build data centres that include heat reuse capability but have nothing to connect to at the boundary – limiting the ability for data centres to become contributors to local communities. In Europe, the advent of greater regulatory supervision via the European Energy Efficiency Directive( EED) has also refocused the industry on the issue but highlighted the potential opportunity.
Why heat reuse matters
Data centres consume significant amounts of electricity and much of that energy ultimately becomes heat. In fact, the IEA predicts data centres will represent around 3 % of total global electricity consumption by 2030.
Historically, operators focused on removing this heat as efficiently as possible. Today, the industry is increasingly recognising that waste heat can be repurposed as a valuable energy source and can be a valuable part of their efforts to achieve net zero.
For 2024, the State of European Data Centres report found that 31 % of data centres had an actively measured Energy Reuse Factor( ERF) fully supported by data. For 2025, this had risen to 39 %. The report also found that the greatest challenge for heat reuse, distance from heat distribution networks, had fallen by 15 % from the previous year and uncertainty on legal responsibility and requirements had fallen by 13 %.
Putting heat reuse into practice
A great example of heat reuse in practice can be seen at Queen Mary University of London where Schneider Electric, in collaboration with its partners at Advanced Power Technology( APT), undertook a data centre modernisation programme to increase high-density computing functionality, upgrade the university’ s inefficient cooling and increase reliability and availability issues, while implementing heat recovery.
Using a Hot Aisle Containment System( HACS) and Data Centre Infrastructure Management software, the companies were
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