Challenges

Find a suitable business model

Model Solution

This project can be seen as a blueprint for a collaboration between an industry partner and a municipal building. Even though heat sink and source are in the vicinity of each other, questions about ownership and investment arise. Wien Energie provided the solution by being the middleman providing the necessary infrastructure.

It is planned to replicate the model all over Vienna. The symbiosis between data centres and hospitals should become an integral part of Vienna’s healthcare planning.

General Description of the Case Study

The waste heat utilisation project in Vienna represents a pioneering collaboration between Digital Realty, Wien Energie and Klinik Floridsdorf, seamlessly integrating technology and healthcare for environmental sustainability. Digital Realty's data centres, located in close proximity to the hospital, generates excess heat during its operations. Wien Energie is acting as a facilitator, setting up an innovative infrastructure to utilise this waste heat. The project uses three powerful heat pumps, each with a capacity of one megawatt, to extract heat from the data centre's servers, which operate at 26°C. This energy is then raised to 82°C, providing a sustainable and efficient heating solution for Klinik Floridsdorf. The initiative is expected to cover 50-70% of the hospital's annual heating requirements, resulting in a significant reduction of up to 4,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions per year.

The collaborative model, orchestrated by Wien Energie, exemplifies a symbiotic relationship between a data centre and a healthcare facility and demonstrates the potential for public-private partnerships to address environmental challenges. The integration of renewable energy sources, such as a photovoltaic system, further emphasises the commitment to green energy practices. With project completion scheduled for mid-2023, this initiative represents a remarkable step towards local, sustainable energy solutions that benefit both the technology and healthcare sectors, guided by Wien Energie's vision as a catalyst for environmental progress.

Waste Heat of data centre for Hospital - Vienna, Austria