Exmouth Leisure Centre has become the first in the UK to trial using the heat from computer servers to heat its swimming pool.
Deep Green is a British tech start-up company. The new 'digital boiler’ technology transforms the heat from computer servers into hot water, which will then be used to heat the pool.
Exmouth Leisure Centre is the first site in the country to benefit from this heat-recapture by cloud data centre technology.
Deep Green say: "The surplus heat donated to the leisure centre by Deep Green’s unit will reduce the pool’s gas requirements by 62 per cent, saving them over £20,000 a year and reduce their carbon emissions by 25.8 tonnes."
There are over 1,500 pools in England alone that could all benefit. Energy costs for leisure facilities have increased 150% since 2019 and an estimated 79 per cent face closure.
Using the latest ‘immersion cooling’ technology, Deep Green captures heat from the operating data centre servers, transferring it into the site’s existing hot water system, for free. Around 96 per cent of the heat generated by a Deep Green ‘digital boiler’ is recycled.
The installation in Exmouth Leisure Centre contains 12 servers of the highest grade computer equipment and is able to support a number of computing services such as cloud services, artificial intelligence, machine learning and video rendering.
Peter Gilpin, CEO of LED Community Leisure said: "Deep Green’s innovative technology will dramatically reduce our energy bills and carbon footprint, meaning we will continue to be a key asset for the local community. We are already seeing the benefit.
"I’m certain this will transform leisure centres up and down the country for the better."
Mark Bjornsgaard, CEO of Deep Green, said: "Data is critical to modern society and demand for data centers is growing exponentially. However, this comes at a cost. Current data center infrastructure is inefficient, using a huge amount of energy and generating a vast amount of waste heat.
"Yet, at the same time, there are many businesses that need heat and face increasing energy bills.
"By moving data centres from industrial warehouses into the hearts of communities, our ‘digital boilers’ put waste heat to good use, saving local businesses thousands of pounds on energy bills and reducing their carbon footprint.
"Pools are just the start and around 30% of all industrial and commercial heat needs could be provided by this technology."
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