There are more than 5,000 data centers in the United States, and that number is growing. City and state leaders may wish to attract data center investment to their areas, yet they require solutions to mitigate these facilities’ environmental impacts.
Thermal energy networks (TENs) may be one solution. This is because data centers throw away enough heat to warm entire neighborhoods, and TENs can harness this “waste heat” and use it to reduce building emissions, save water, ease stress on the grid, and help make data centers better neighbors to surrounding areas.
This solution is already used around the world. The brief highlights existing examples of data center waste heat recovery, and identifies policy tools that can help data centers provide non-emitting thermal energy to surrounding areas through stakeholder engagement and forward-thinking design.
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