720 student residences in Amsterdam will become gas-free thanks to waste heat from the Nikhef data center.

The facility, which already warms nearly 800 homes in the ‘Science Park II’ complex, is used by the eponymous Dutch institute for fundamental research in the field of subatomic physics, Nationaal Instituut voor Kernfysica en Hoge-Energiefysica (Nikef).

A Christmas treat

Nikhef Housing
– Nikhef

Student housing agency DUWO plans to use the heat in the autumn and winter to warm the residences at the Science Park I campus. During the summer, some excess heat will be stored in the ground.

The project, which is part-funded by the municipality of Amsterdam, is expected to be completed within a year.

The Nikhef data center is home to the research institute, a research partner of CERN in Switzerland. The facility is also one of the 12 data centers that form the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX).

Part of the Dutch Data Center Association, Nikhef says that it is home to more than 140 parties, internet exchanges NL-IX, ND-IX, as well as telecom operators, carriers, Internet service providers and DNS servers.

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