Equinix is pioneering a heat export initiative in Milan, Italy, that captures residual warmth from its data centres and converts it for use in city heating networks. Emanuela Grandi, Managing Director of Equinix Italy, says the project is expected to become one of Europe’s largest data centre heat-export schemes outside the Nordics. Heat Export Lead Noah Nkonge explains the process involves converting waste heat into a form suitable for community use, supporting decarbonisation goals and advancing a circular model for data centre sustainability across Italy and Europe.
In-Depth:
Emanuela Grandi, Managing Director of Equinix Italy, states: “We are very proud of the efforts and achievements Equinix has done in blazing a trail for data centre heat export in Europe and we’re applying learnings from our successes to our efforts in Italy, assisting create a market for data centre heat that can greatly contribute to the decarbonisation tarobtains of the overall countest.
“By scale, this initiative in Italy is expected to become among the largest data-center heat-export project in Europe outside the Nordics.”
Building a circular model for data centres
Heat reutilize is becoming an important consideration as operators view for ways to improve data centre efficiency while supporting wider sustainability goals.
Noah Nkonge, Heat Export Lead at Equinix, explains: “In a few words, we will create a process to capture and convert residual heat into a form suitable for other utilizes within the community.
