Data centers use a ton of energy. Some of the most innovative technology companies are turning something that has historically been a liability into an asset: the massive amounts of heat generated by the servers.

Because of the way thermodynamics work, virtually every joule of energy pumped through a computer ends up as heat one way or another. The amount of heat generated by personal computers is relatively small - barely enough to heat your lap - but the rows of servers that make up a data center generate enough heat to pose a serious engineering problem. Larger companies are able to leverage efficiencies of scale to cut their cooling costs, but in smaller data centers cooling can account for up as much as half of the electricity used.

Instead of using electricity to cool data centers, a handful of companies at the forefront of efficiency are capturing that waste heat and using it to defray energy use elsewhere. Not only does this reduce costs and carbon emissions, it has an appealing elegance. That elegance could come in handy as data centers fight the perception that they are at best ambivalent toward and at worst harmful to their surrounding communities.

Data centers in other locations around the world are also putting their waste heat to interesting use. In addition to the dozens more data centers that put their waste heat to work heating homes. An IBM data center in Switzerland is heating a nearby community pool. And in Canada, communications company Quebecor donates its heat to the editorial office of a local newspaper.

The State of Indiana currently has 38 data centers listed, from 8 markets in Indiana. Click here to explore the data center locations. Building and maintaining the plumbing, HVAC, and electrical systems for a data center are vast, might you be discussing with your local power utility and data farm owners the ideas of harnessing that energy? This is not only an engineering problem, but the P-H-C contractors are the solution to that engineering problem.

Here is the article that most of the data farm information above is referencing

Here is an article from June of 2024, discussing how Indiana is becoming a haven for these data centers.