Thermal energy optimisation and waste heat recovery of high energy demand IT rooms in buildings or small edge data centres

Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes: Improved open access to performance data, sharing of best-practices and useful knowledge and information for owners and operators of IT infrastructure, as well as the IT and building sectors; New designs of IT rooms in buildings or small edge data centres valorise waste heat through thermal management techniques, processes and tools. Scope: The growing energy needs of the ICT sector must be met while aligning with climate neutrality and sustainability goals. Small IT rooms or small data centres are an essential part of the twin green and digital transition. It is important to address the energy and resources consumption over the full ICT value chain. Solutions already exist, such as re-using waste heat from data centres, or moving towards circular models (longer lifetimes, reparability, reuse and recyclability). Most recent analysis suggests that the energy consumption of consumer devices in 2020 accounted for roughly 50% of the overall energy consumption of ICT technologies, with the two next largest contributors being respectively the production of ICT devices (~20%) and the operation of data centres (~15%)[1]. Moreover, this is expected to change dramatically by 2030, as the overall energy consumption of ICT technologies is expected to increase by 50% over this decade. The Commission has set the strategic goal of ensuring that data centres are climate-neutral, energy-…