Waste heat from an Amsterdam data center will be used to warm up a nearby business park thanks to a partnership between Penta Infra and heating company Polderwarmte.
The pair have signed a letter of intent for a collaboration that will see residual heat from Penta’s AMS01 data center in the Haarlem area of Amsterdam redirected into a district heating system being developed by Poldewarmte.
It is hoped that 100 percent of residual heat from the data center can be used in the heating system, which is set to come online in the next year.
This will serve the Waarderpolder business park in Haarlem, which is home to 1,100 businesses. Any organization in the park will be able to connect to the heating system. Poldewarmte was selected by the city of Haarlem and Industriekring Haarlem, which manages the park, to develop the heating network and operate it for the next 30 years.
Bob Sprengers, Penta Infra CEO, said the letter of intent was “an important step” towards “further development of our sustainable data center in Haarlem.”
Sprengers said: “Data centers are an indispensable part of our digital infrastructure and we feel a duty to ensure that our data centers fit into that infrastructure as sustainably as possible. Thanks to residual heat utilization, our data center in Copenhagen has twice been awarded as the most sustainable data center and that gives us confirmation that we are on the right track.
“Making our residual heat available in the Waarderpolder is a logical next step on our way to a more sustainable future.”
Penta acquired AMS01 from another operator, KPN, at the end of last year in a sale partial-leaseback deal. KPN remains a tenant in the 6,225 sqm (67,000 sq ft) facility, with Penta developing other rooms at the site for colocation customers.
Backed by a private equity fund, Penta is focused on investing in European data centers with around a dozen facilities across the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Denmark.
In the Netherlands, it owns a data center in Geleen and two in Leeuwarden, which it took over in its acquisition of DataCenter Fryslân in 2020.
The Copenhagen facility referenced by Sprengers is a former Sentia data center bought in 2021 and expanded last year. Its heat reuse system generates enough warmth for 1,500 properties.
“Working together is important for the success of our mission and accelerating the energy transition,” said Valentijn Kleijnen, CEO of Polderwarmte. “All stakeholders play an important role in this, but participation of data centers, especially in this region, is crucial.”
