NEST serves EU project as pilot plant
Die Eidgenössische Materialprüfungs- und Forschungsanstalt will in ihrem Forschungsgebäude NEST die komplette Abwärme, auch aus dem Mikrorechenzentrum, zurückgewinnen und in das Heizsystem integrieren. Damit wird das NEST zur Pilotanlage für das EU-Forschungsprojekt HEATWISE.
The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology(Empa) is part of the international consortium for the recently launched three-year HorizonEurope research project HEATWISE. The aim is to fully integrate the waste heat from these systems into the building technology in buildings with extensive IT infrastructure.
“The goal is a zero-waste principle,” explains Binod Koirala from Empa’s Urban Energy Systems Lab in a press release. “This means that we want to recover as much waste heat as possible and integrate it into the building’s heating system.” In this context, the Empa team’s first task is to identify the potential for heat gains in Empa’s NEST research building. In addition to the waste heat from the microcomputing centre in its basement and the computers in the offices, the influence of people present on the room temperature will also be taken into account.
The researchers want to use the data obtained in this way to derive predictive control algorithms that link the energy management of the IT infrastructure with the building technology. In addition to NEST, they will then be installed in three other pilot facilities: in buildings at Aalborg University in Denmark, in a car factory in Turkey and in an IT research and development centre in Poland.
At NEST, the data centre’s air cooling system will also be supplemented by the newly developed on-chip liquid cooling system from Israeli project partner ZutaCore. The heat of up to 70 degrees recovered in this way can be used to power the showers in the building, for example.