In the Netherlands, testing servers for heating homes

    The Dutch energy company Eneco with more than 2 million customers will install “e-Radiators” in five houses of the country - servers that will heat the room during operation. The experiment will show the economic feasibility of using servers instead of traditional radiators. Families will save € 400 per year on heating.

    Server in the form of a radiator
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    The technology was developed by Nerdalize startup. It all started with a joke after a thermostat breakdown, when the founder was offered to buy a hundred laptops. Startup suggests using this technology to companies and research institutes as an alternative and cheaper option than hosting servers in data centers. Nerdalize will pay for energy consumption, so that homeowners will receive free heat. The third “winner” will be the environment - because energy is effectively used simultaneously for powering servers and heating rooms.

    The radiator heats the water in a closed system to a temperature of 45-55 ° C, the temperature can be controlled, and the excess heat is "dumped" into the street. In the future, it will be possible to use longer pipes so that the radiator can heat more than one room.

    In Germany in November 2014, a similar solution was proposed by Cloud & Heat. An integrated water heating system works here: the heat generated by the server cabinet heats the water tank. The electricity provider will take the bills, but the owner must pay for the installation of the heating system.

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    But the first to come up with this idea was researchers from Microsoft Research in 2011. The air temperature in the server is about 40-50 ° C, this is enough to heat the house, dryers, water heaters and greenhouses.

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