Exchanges on Exchangers episode 7 - Heat Recovery and Data Centers Integration

Show video

good morning and welcome to the seventh episode  of exchanges on exchangers i am kristy smith   and i'm cosimo pecchioli today we are very  excited to talk with jaime Comella from cloud   and heat and birger ober from Valtenfall so  can we start off with you're both introducing   yourself and telling us about your company hi  mate you want to go first all right perfect   yeah my name is jaime comella and I  work for cloud and heat technologies   i'm located actually in madrid in spain but  our company is from from germany from dresden   our company was started around 10 11 years ago  and focused on the heat reuse of data centers   and distributed cloud services so this is if we  are very very fast in defining what we do is uh   are the most uh two important things just an extra  comment about that we also use liquid cooling   because we think is the best way to uh make this  sustainable and to make heat reviews possible   hey first of all thank you thanks for  having me, my name is birger ober and i   work for for Vattenfall. Vattenfall is one of the  the bigger european energy utilities and we have a   bit broader business so we are we're producing and  and distributing electricity and also heat also   in energy trading we have a variety of  businesses in we're one of the larger   wind park developers in in europe we operate one  of the largest district heating networks in berlin   uh but we're also active in the netherlands  and in sweden where our home base is so it's a   it's a swedish-owned company very very interesting  uh jaime i actually i have a question for you   right away um there's a lot of different flavors  of liquid cooling uh there's there's cold plates   someone says there's a rear door there's  immersion chassis base what kind of if you have   one let's say the solution  which one do you use normally   good uh question cosimo actually when we're  talking about liquid cooling we must understand   the cold plate as a liquid cooling version we  use of course in our data centers are there are   mixture of different systems uh not never 100 can  be liquid cooled so there's always dissipations in   the air which are air-cooled actually have to be  air-cooled and this is almost always in our case   indirectly with liquid cool i mean to side coolers  we are doing heat exchangers top coolers whatever   you can have there so this is a but of course  immersion is another option uh i know you know   them well uh this couldn't be also a problem to be  integrated into their centers because at the end   of all we're talking about pipes water kilowatts  power it's always at the end of what is the same   and last question which actually it's a it's it's  a segue for my question for ober what temperature   of the water you you you have in your system yeah  thank you all for the question because uh before i   was trying to be compact and define everything  in one minute but absolutely we we started our   company 10 years ago i said before by putting uh  black boxes which were ecological heaters in the   sellers of private homes the the the people were  living there were buying these ecological heaters   uh but there were actually racks racks with  services inside those servers were used by   clients or the people other other companies  miles away from that places from those places   and the idea of using those servers for the  heating system of those houses was because we   were able to get a very high temperature from  them with direct liquid cooling which what is   the high temperature i don't know the Fahrenheit  sorry for the American spine 60 degrees Celsius   why 60 degrees because with 60 degrees we were  able to also deliver domestic hot water which   needs to be hot enough to kill the legionella  so ober this actually this this comes to you um   as as a utility company uh do you think that you  have a good use for a 60 degrees water stream um   what what is a good use that's that's  like that's what you what you need to   define of course we have a variety of applications  like the first applications that that heimi just   explained we have also a business that is  uh that works for and with multi-family   homes for instance so we have also a branch that  delivers heating systems for for especially those   homes that kind just explained or described and  for these of course the 60 degrees is is fine   but i also mentioned our very big berlin district  heating system and for that it is really a   a challenge especially when you think about  raising the temperatures because these are run   at above 130 degrees c especially in winter  times this varies a bit over over the year   of course in summer you don't need that  much of uh or that high of a temperature   but when it gets really cold during winter  times you actually do need this temperature   because berlin is three and a half million people   and for three and a half million people need  quite a bit of heat and you need to transport   that you via via hot water and when you have  the the respective volumes you just need the   temperature in order to limit the amount of  water and that's just pure physics uh you have to   limit your you have to limit the amount of water  you're putting through it so you have to increase   the amount of energy you transport per liter or  cubic meter of water that's why we need a bit of a   higher temperature and and and that of course is  technically feasible there are systems around to   also push the temperature up uh to that uh  to that level that that that we could use it   but this is technically and economically net not  easy and that is uh actually something that we   that we do need uh to work on but at the  same time looking at the amount of heat   that data centers are putting out nowadays  there is just in my view this one single   uh senseful or or feasible heat sink actually  because thinking about installations i mean   i i in my view we're getting news from the  Frankfurt area more or less on a weekly basis   uh that that hundred hundred fifty hundred  sixty megawatt data centers are being announced   and putting this amount of heat or  electricity then turned into heat to good use   is a challenge and there are not many other  heat sinks around that may actually make sense   uh on on a rather low temperature level apart  from district heating systems so i think   it's really really important to close this gap  which brings actually to another challenge and   and high me since you have been around for  a few years probably you have experienced   that um district heating or let's  say domestic use is highly seasonal   yeah so how what do you do in summer when  you are actually that heat sink that that   Ober was mentioning i mean it goes down yeah  that's a good question um actually is a matter   of dimensioning uh your systems at the end of all  if you have a 10 megawatts of install power in   data center delivering i would say constantly 10  megawatts you have to cover with this 10 megawatts   the demand of uh i would say such a large  population that is always consuming that that 10   megawatts alternatively you can always use the the  the waste heat for other for the things i mean you   can also use in summer for making cooling i mean  it's of course thermodynamically thermodynamically   not so efficient as compression cooling but if  you bear in mind that you're using a garbage   and you're using something that you want to get  rid of it's always good to use that garbage for   making something valuable so heat for heating is  the most automatic thing we everybody think about   heat for cooling can be done heat for desalination  of seawater is also possible green houses in the   north when it's very cold as well olympic pools  etc also industrial needs for for sorry for   heating like uh wood drying this is something  very typical as when the nordics in sweden know   where they are drawing wood to sell it uh farther  so we we might have to look farther i mean in the   other applications besides uh the i would say  the the easiest one even if it's not easy as   burger just said uh to be able to integrate  all these data centers all around the world   not only in the code of coolest regions and if i  if i may add i think that's a very very important   point integration i think that's really a key word  in this we see it in for the district heating part   if you look at what what we're doing in this city  is actually we're producing electricity because   we also need it in the city we're producing  heat because we need it and the same interfaces   you have with the data center just the other way  around of course we are producing electricity data   centers consume electricity we need heat the data  center is producing heat so the interfaces sort of   are the same and that's why i always advocate  for for a bit of a different thinking that   that the data center is becoming or will become  an integral part of an energy system and the   urban energy system around the district heating  system is just one example of a energy system   uh when you think about the nordic installation  that frame i just mentioned of course you have   these massive 300 megawatt installations out in  the out in the nordics where very little people   compared to the amount of energy live and if  you just don't have the discrete heating system   you will not persuade uh a quarter of a million  people to move there just because there's gp it   just won't happen so you have to you have to think  or to to emphasize on the on the system thinking   around it and the integration and and bring these  industries together because now where we came from   is very isolated business cases and people are  very um are not very eager to uh to en engage   really in in cross branch discussions because  they have been having super successful businesses   this goes for for data center operation this  goes for energy utilities this goods goes for   the wood industry and everything has been worked  on isolated very very successful with very very   little incentive really for uh collaboration and  optimization but it always came at a price and   this price is increased or decreased efficiency  or not uh not utilized possible synergies   and i think that is something that we can  overcome at least a certain extent via   integration but what i think is uh integration  is a super important word in this context super   interesting uh conversation actually and and um  we have been thinking along the same lines for   for a while um but it seems that when  a company picks a new location for a   data center um the possibility of integration  with the existing let's say system or ecosystem of   reality is not high in in their list of priorities  cost of energy water availability real estate   infrastructure of course first  because if you don't if you don't have   connectivity or power you don't have any chance  but i mean the possibility to reuse whatever   waste energy you have i don't think it's very high  in their priorities right now at least in the us   it it seems that that that europe is a little  uh ahead of us when it comes to this concept but   i i i maybe you can spend a few words how do  you incentivize this integration jaime and and   auburn were the two of you yes actually in europe  there is this uh co2 emissions market right and uh   we we sell rights of emission and between  industries and so on um europe also has very   strong objectives of the carbonizing the lions the  industries and so on at some certain point of time   i am pretty sure that everything will be linked to  the co2 emissions rights and this will be marketed   in a very broader way so there is no way  to escape that and so there is no way to   under the best way of of reducing the the carbon  emissions of data center is the waste heat reused   definitely because every kilowatt every energy  unit power unit is going inside for data center   is for producing some some real value of services  digital services but if you are converting that   into a secondary value and you're converting that  a hundred percent into into something that you can   reuse then your co2 emissions are are zero i  mean so this is right yeah but so ober and and   from from your point of view how do you  incentivize this integration because currently   again i mean i'm talking mainly in the u.s and i  understand that europe maybe it's a little more   advanced but there's not much yeah as in because  because the stick is regulations and no one likes   real regulations that what's the carrot as in as  an as an engineer it it it causes physical pain to   me uh in order to say this or to say the following  uh it is mainly about money the rest is just   technology and that's really causing physical pain  as an engineer saying that it's just technology   the rest is about money uh the alternative just  needs to be more expensive uh as much as it   as i know that people will will cry out yeah  you're hurting economy and you're you're trying   to kill projects and so on so forth so forth but  after all projects will happen as long as they uh   result in a in a positive uh in a positive  business case uh and if you have a desired outcome   which is lower co2 emissions and you are not  able to put a price tag on these everybody   everybody will choose the cheaper or more  economic way and you can't really blame the   people or the project managers for for doing that  after all they have their own set of incentives   and they have people they that are financing  uh the projects and it's just a matter of   you know it's i don't want to turn it it's  a political decision or discussion but after   all we are living in there or working  and living in an economic and capitalist   uh world and and people trying to maximize uh the  the the outcome from of what they have so they are   after after profit after all and they need to  compete with also with with other companies and   if there is a choice somebody will take the  cheaper choice and as long as they are in a   in a competitive environment it's just natural  that they do that and you get you can't blame them   for that so that's why i think that the incentive  scheme needs to be created and i believe this is   a via a price scheme and raymond just mentioned it  and i think that's that's true so we see it about   around co2 prices in in in europe and you  see already now what this does to the energy   supply actually because all the fossil fuels are  becoming more and more expensive we have seen a   i think a factor of four uh so the prices for co2  emissions have quadrupled within this year already   and and and that is that that creates  an incentive on the energy supply   and that's that the input factor but at the  same time you of course could uh could think   about uh just as co2 is in a mission uh heat  is also an emission it's being put in the   in the atmosphere and you you see this from  the uh discussions in singapore i believe   uh where they where they see higher temperatures  within the cities and they at least partly link   these to the high density of data centers there  so it is an emission just like diesel emissions or   dust emissions and they are limited  by law for a good reason and to me   heat is moving in the same direction so and if you  treat it as as what it is it is an emission then   it needs to have a price tag so regulation  essentially what you are saying is regulation basically basically yes and or yeah financial  incentive regulation whatever you want to call it   but yeah it's true when we talk about heat  regeneration or hit reuse we take for granted   that we are talking about some sort some form  of liquid cooling right uh that does that is   it possible to think about a heat regeneration of  an air cooled data center yes it is possible the   temperature level will be lower or your overall  efficiency will be lower because you were using   the quantization part of the of the cooling  machine so you will have a lower efficiency   but it's always possible and there are use cases  in germany there are a couple of them there is   a really flagship project right now in frankfurt  from telehouse making some publicity here for them   and uh they are connecting to actually a  district heating uh system in in the city   of frankfort in the northern part of germany  there's always a usage of waste heat for elegant   farm for an algae production growth and in norway  as well you have different examples of that but   it is maximized to liquid cooling and this is um  physics and of course liquid cooling we believe   in liquid cooling because uh you are much more  efficient you go down in your in your opex so   in your operational cost you go down and you go  up in the heat capture you you can you can have   and in the in the quality of that of that heat you  can store it much better you can transport it much   better uh at the end of all uh is is the medium  isn't to to use sure so we definitely see that   the future is going towards the liquid cooling but  maybe not as quickly people are racing the liquid   cooling yes so what do you think this has been  the hot topic out there what do you think is one   of the biggest hurdles against um using liquid  cooling price okay uh totally uh again price   why because of what of the hardware mostly i mean  because if you're thinking about the data center   the 100 kilowatts uh air cooled versus 100  kilowatts mostly water cooled you will install   less chillers so you will actually reduce  the capex for that same data center right   if you're cooling with liquid cooling  with high temperatures of course if you   are needing low temperatures then it should be  very similar because you need to cool down the   the water for that and then in the opex you  are going down because you are using much   less power your pue values are going down and  so on you can even sell the heat so you get   to go even down actually artificially you're  putting down your your power price with that   but in the data center 60 50 to 70 percent of the  cost are the hardware cost and hardware costs for   water cooling for liquid cooling are still too  high they are still not so massively produced   as the other ones this is of course one of the  reasons and uh and but this should change i mean   we we do also adapt hardware that is air-cooled  into the liquid cooling and actually it costs very   very few money to make the cooling blocks to adapt  them inside i mean we have to get rid of all the   fans that they come from the from the factory i  mean if they came from the factory without that   it will be even cheaper and we can we assume cost  from from five percent to ten percent more i mean   in the adaptation of of of air cooling  service into the water cooling servers   i mean but uh the the realities that the  industry is still not so mature for that uh   mentality is in my opinion not a problem  because we do use put water and technology   together already in the data centers with  side coolers top coolers every other day   so this is not an issue i would say i mean it's  more for me it's more the price but it's solvable   again a challenge that that data centers are  facing right now uh particularly in the us and   particularly some areas that are popular with data  centers that are very dry and so water consumption   is becoming really an issue and one possible  solution as jaime was saying is definitely   liquid cooling but so and one resources now has  been seen as as critical already which is water   and communities are pushing back installation of  of new data centers because of water consumption   if you you and envision a an environment in  where data centers are kind of embedded in   urban realities and cds and so you  can use do you ever see actually   power availability becoming an issue uh when you  put together all these industries in one spot   um it's not really about at least uh in in  europe it's uh if you want to move right now   power can be a challenge of course but it's not  the overall availability it's more the time frame   is be difficult so of course you can have you  need always the three things for a data center   project right you need the you need the site  you need the power you need the connectivity   and everything else will will start will sort out  but if you want to move right now it could be that   the local power grid is just not fit for another  very very big electricity consumer so at least   that's what i know from from most of the german  market is that if you apply for a power connection   uh early enough you will get the power because  there's no overall power shortage of that because   europe has a rather strong electricity grid and  the electricity will arrive at the desired punch   just a matter of time so electricity as such  is not right now it could be a challenge yes   if you plan the normal a few years ahead then  normally you should run into a problem and   because there's a there's a big attention  let's say on what what kind of energy it's   used for data centers so are you talking about  traditionally fossil fuel generated power or   renewables that that's actually really interesting  uh interesting discussion especially when you   think about the discussion about uh green  washing certificates for electricity and so   on and so forth i think this while this discussion  sounds super easy in in at first glance i think i   personally think it deserves a bit more of a uh  differentiated discussion because uh if you just   take two scenarios and we touched upon these  earlier in the discussion uh take the megawatt   data center in the frankfurt area so you already  have a scarcity of land uh and but you have at the   same time you have the district heating system  which could serve at least theoretically as as   your as your heatsink but since you already are in  a position where you don't have uh you don't have   land readily available you you don't have the  ability or the possibility to directly supply   it with the big solar farm or with big big big  big windmills uh let alone hydropower i mean um   this you you can't plan for this so and  there's your dilemma put it in the in this   in the next to the city of frankfurt where  you probably need the capacity because it's   latency relevant for for all the banking that's  that's going on you just can't put it somewhere   somewhere else it needs to be right there and  at the same time you have the possibility to   reuse the heat but then you can have renewable  direct or direct renewable supply so is then   putting certificates on top of that a bad thing  i wouldn't say so because you have done the best   that you can and the at least you have you've done  the um you have done the um the heat reutilization   but the other example that we had is like the 300  megawatt installation in the north of sweden uh   renewable electricity there i mean there's hydro  abundant availability of hydropower and that's   then not a problem at all but i don't think one is  the better or worse system it's just a different   application and the different set of uh boundary  conditions actually i think the only bad thing   you can you can do is just ignore all of these  resources and the possibilities that you have   and part of my ignorance here of course i i'm not  a very utility expert but can you just move the   energy from a solar farm or a wind farm to the  data center with a with a new power line it's   that's normally or there are different steps  for supplying green power of course you can   have origins of certificate certificates of of  origin or you're actually matching directly the   supply or production of a renewable energy system  to a consumption of course you you can do that   and that and the discussion is really ongoing  right now is this really green electricity or   is this still i mean you can't control the  electron where it flows right so it's just   the electron goes wherever it's the it's it  sees the least resistance so physically you   cannot rule out that this is coming from a  coal plant from somewhere in in in europe right if you if you buy 100 megawatts of   solar power power for your data center someone  else's and and 50 percent of that comes from a   a natural gas power plant someone else  is not using that 50 megawatts right exactly this is then balancing and that's a big  question if if that that is okay uh because at   the same time it's it's a balance right uh and  if if you or if if if the data center operator   buys this amount of electricity produced by  the wind farm or by the by the solar by the   solar farm it's gone right and so somebody else  cannot use uh it cannot use renewable electricity   and i think that's a bit of the core  of the of the discussion around that   because uh normally the the data center operator  is is in this rather strong financial position   so if they basically buy what's being  produced from renewable electricity   just to be able to say that they are green it's  it's it's not a pure economic it's also a bit of a   not philosophic ethical yeah something in that in  that direction right so it basically you push you   push people that don't have really the free choice  to use non-elected non-renewable electricity   uh because there's just not enough being produced  in that sense and then i think that's a bit of   a discussion that's why why why it tends to be  called green washing i don't see it that black and   white uh personally i believe whenever it's it's  it's physically possible and and doable i think   it should be attempted and done but also see very  realistically that there are limits to this demand   super interesting conversation we could  talk for hours but unfortunately we have to   wrap this up but yeah i mean this is i i  really think that the location integration   uh hit reuse and and and again integration with  the industrial ecosystem let's say uh should be   one of the highest priorities but certainly it's  it seems that right now it's it is not and and   cosimo something we haven't talked about uh is  about seeing the whole data center ecosystem as   a connected ecosystem you know at the end of all  you have plenty of data centers interconnected and   nowadays the typical setup is to build data  centers that are totally they can work isolated   they can they have to have a lot of redundancies a  lot of machines involved in the data centers just   to be available of having 99.9.999 percent of the  availability per year while this could be actually  

ensured through virtualization at the end of all  you can you can distribute data centers actually   is something we are always it's our vision as  part of our vision to distribute data centers   that communicate each other as if they were the  same data center as if they were the same building   so i do identify you can do a very smart load  balancing between different locations depending on   the variables you have also if this doesn't have  any any effect in the service you provide to the   final client of latency or so on some applications  do not need a low latency and are used for maybe   learning models machine learning models or so  on you can move loads where they are actually   optimally used or optimally actually yeah  optimally optimally used are located yeah   for example if in the northern part of sweden  there is need for heating then you can shift the   loader an it load so you can create that heating  and the little fall is your is in a holistic way   uh better and the functioning of the data center  and energetically physically way better so this   is something uh actually is this is not still  there but i'm pretty confident that with the   edge revolution which is coming we are actually  announcing that since years since years i know   that i mean it's like h always h but now with 5g  we all hope that this push is coming and that's   really uh will produce i would say a development  of edge locations small locations where they are   needed actually yeah and where where the data  is needed for for the close calculation to the   place where the the the clients are and there  also you can better use this waste heat reviews yeah the edge the edge would be probably  another whole discussion because that opens   a lot of other opportunities and and challenges  i i i agree yeah but yeah excellent point jaime   i'd like to to raise one more point or again  uh and and also put a perspective on the   on the temperature level because we  only have touched upon this briefly   and so for for for the use of the heat the  higher the temperature the exhaust temperature is   the easier it really is and changing it from  the uh formerly 25 to 28 already now with the   new ashrae stand that's the 35 degrees  c somewhere around that uh the envelope   that is already a bit better uh but being able  to receive uh the heat at the temperature level   that cloud heat for instance is providing is a  real game changer for the for the reuse of heat   uh so it's really quite digital at 35 or at 28  degrees c it it normally is not possible to do   this in a in a technically an economically  uh viable way but but the 60 degree that the   cloud need is able to to deliver there is really  really a game changer uh and that's also a very   very easy reason why we have the pilot  project uh that we are doing and just   stockholm together um so i need to i would like to  stress this that this is really really important   for the injuries thank you both so much for being  a part of this discussion it was very interesting   and i definitely think it's going to lead to many  more discussions like like you said we don't have   enough time in this short podcast but um  be interesting to hear this conversation um   continue so again thank you both very much and as  usual to our listeners if you have any questions   you can find us and our guests on linkedin  i am christy smith and i'm calling pacquiao   and we hope you enjoyed our podcast and we'll  see you next time on exchanges on exchangers

2021-09-05

Show video