Amazon will heat a new "green" campus with hot water supplied from data centers

^{Photo by Puget Sound Aerial Imaging}

Journalists were invited to look at the new Amazon campus under construction in Seattle, which will feature both unusual futuristic architecture and heating method - hot water for the building will be supplied from the Westin Building data center. This method is effective enough to heat more than 370,000 m ² of Amazon and nearby office buildings, after which the chilled water will be returned back to the data center. This concept was called by the city authorities an “eco-district”.

In addition to the office building itself, there will be special transparent “green” spheres next to it, which should serve Amazon employees as a place to relax and socialize in a natural environment. Such a “park” will be composed of more than 300 different trees and plants brought from more than 30 countries of the world, which will be taken care of by special staff. The largest "eco-sphere" will have a diameter reaching 40 meters. It is for heating such an artificial park that an environmentally friendly heating system will be used.



In the summer, when there is no need for heating, the heating system provides for the injection of hot water on the roof of the building, where heat will be transferred to the atmosphere.


^{A pumping station for pumping water from the Westin Building to the Amazon campus.}

From the point of view of economic efficiency, such a project looks quite attractive. The Westin Building data center consists of 34 floors of server hardware and manages Internet traffic throughout the northwest of the US Pacific coast. Water pumped by the data center to heat the Amazon building will save hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, and over the next 25 years, 80 million kWh of thermal energy will be obtained in this way.

Other examples of such applications of heat from data centers, however, on a smaller scale, can be found here .