Heat from IBM datacenter used to warm swimming pool
Apr 4th, 2008 by RedPepper
A new computer center in Switzerland is making original use of the hot air thrown off by its servers and communications equipment. The heat is being funneled to warm the local swimming pool.
The town pool in Uitikon, Switzerland, outside Zurich, will be the receiver of the waste heat from a data center recently built by IBM Corp. for GIB-Services AG.
While air conditioners fight day and night to keep the computers cold, the hot air is pumped out into the atmosphere. Basically it’s wasted. However in this case it will pass through heat exchangers which shall use it to heat up their swimming pools.
Steven Sams, a data center services vice president for IBM, said the Swiss project should be a model. After all, IBM says, the computers in the Uitikon center generate enough heat to warm as many as 80 houses.