If you’ve been following me for the past few years (or watched Now Go Build), I’m very interested in the role technology can play in addressing global socio-economic and environmental challenges. You know that. On a recent trip to Ireland, I had the opportunity to visit Tallaght, a growing area in south Dublin that has recently undergone a major revitalization effort. Here, community leaders, local energy agencies, and AWS are coming together to reimagine how we deliver heat and hot water to everything from hospitals and government buildings to university campuses and public housing. The program is called the Tallaght District Heating Scheme and is a collaboration between Codema (Dublin Energy Agency), South Dublin County Council, AWS and Heat Works, Ireland’s first not-for-profit energy company, which operates the network. The program is the first of its kind on the Emerald Isle, but among many others, with the latest estimates showing district heating could supply more than 87% of Dublin’s heating needs by 2050. could be the first of many.
District heating itself is not a new idea. People have been using heat for thousands of years, from the Ondol bombings of ancient Rome and Korea to the 20th-century New York steam industry that heated and cooled large portions of Lower Manhattan (about 1,500 buildings in the city). We have found ways to centrally produce and distribute it. still getting heat from the steam). These solutions have been around for a long time, but they weren’t always sustainable. Many of these heating systems relied on burning coal and other fossil fuels to produce heat, which now generates large amounts of emissions and contributes to climate change. I know there are. More recently, cogeneration facilities such as Copenhagen’s Copenhill offer a model for capturing heat produced by critical infrastructure such as waste incineration and using it to heat local communities. Now back to Tara and why their new district heating program is so important to Ireland’s energy future.
Ireland is currently undergoing a major energy transition away from fossil fuels, with an ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 51% by the end of 2010. To get there, local leaders are trying to find new solutions to old problems. For example, Amazon is investing in three wind farms in Ireland to provide clean energy to the country’s power grid. Greater Dublin is also developing new energy sources that harness renewable and underutilized energy sources, such as deep geothermal heat and waste heat from industrial and urban processes (such as data centres, waste treatment facilities and breweries). opportunities exist. Codema estimates that these untapped resources can produce approximately 19 TWh. This is enough energy to heat the equivalent of around 1.6 million homes and could play a key role in Ireland’s decarbonisation efforts.
District heating system
Simply put, district heating is heat (e.g. hot water) produced at a centralized site and distributed to local communities using insulated pipes, where the heat is extracted by homes and businesses. The cooled by-product is returned to the system and reheated.
District heating systems are an attractive option for communities looking to reduce their carbon footprint. These systems are energy source agnostic and can utilize power and heat from a variety of sources, including renewable energy. This flexibility allows these networks to adapt over time as new technologies emerge and climate goals evolve. For example, we can move from biofuels to recycling heat recovery from waste incineration. It also reduces home infrastructure overhead by eliminating the need for individual boilers and water heaters. The ability to choose and change the energy source makes these systems future-proof, providing municipalities and residents with flexibility that is not always possible with other heating solutions.
From hot air to hot water and heat
Servers generate heat. And to run efficiently and protect servers, data centers are typically cooled with huge air conditioning units. But if you look at the byproduct of server operation as an opportunity, you can see how the heat can be used positively. In our Talat data center, hot air from the servers is captured by heat exchangers in air handling units, increasing the temperature of the water flowing through the building to approximately 23-28°C (73-82°F for US readers) rise. ) before being sent to the Heatworks energy center via insulated pipes. The system passes this hot water through the first of two heat pumps and condenses it until the temperature is approximately 45°C (113°F). The hot water then passes through her second heat pump, where the water temperature rises again to 70°-85°C (158-185°F) depending on the season. At this point, the piped hot water leaves the energy center in insulated pipes and is made available to customers connected to the heating system.
In a typical home, separate hot water heaters or boilers are used, but in district heating systems these are replaced by thermal interface units, which transfer hot water from the system to buildings and homes on demand. It also acts as a pressure shut-off to prevent backflow from occurring.
As heat is consumed in homes and businesses, water that has lost heat during energy transfer is returned to the Heat Work energy center. It then passes through a pump for further cooling to approximately 15°C (59°F) before being sent to an AWS data center where the heating process begins again.
observability
Monitoring plays a critical role in large systems such as data centers, distributed applications, and district heating programs. This allows you to design with fault tolerance in mind. This means you have the ability to quickly identify problems and maintain operations when a component goes down, knowing that failure will occur at some point. Tallaght District Heating Scheme is monitored 24/7 by Heat Works. You can check the water and air temperature, pressure, flow rate and energy production at each heat pump at any time, and even detect leaks in the system within a few meters. This last part is very important considering that in the past repair personnel relied on visual indicators such as steam to identify leaks (which can be very difficult in warm weather).
If you want an example of how important monitoring and grid modernization projects are, look no further than the UK. The UK loses 3 billion liters of water every day. This is because hydrophones designed for metal pipes have difficulty detecting leaks in the pipes. New plastic pipes in the system.
What’s next?
Now, thanks to a collaboration between AWS and Heat Works, 3 MW of energy, previously sourced from gas or fossil fuels, is being delivered to Talaat from a local data center. This was enough to heat around 43,000 square meters of public buildings, including the local university, library and innovation centre, and reduced the region’s carbon footprint by around 1,500 tonnes per year (which is equivalent to around 7.5 adult blue whales). minute, or equivalent to the mass of an average of 730 heads) – size car). Over the next two years, he plans to double his energy generation and expand the program to residential buildings and other critical infrastructure in the community.
The Tara District Heating Scheme demonstrates the immense potential of sustainable district energy systems in Ireland. It will also help the nation’s government agencies, energy suppliers and industry not only work towards decarbonization goals, but also help revitalize local communities and ensure energy and reliable access to energy. A great example of how we can work together on scale projects. heat.
And just as important as the district heating program itself is the transformation underway in Talaat. They embrace industries like cloud computing, invest in youth with educational programs from grade school to college, and local hospitals use machine learning and other cloud technologies to improve outcomes for patients in their communities. We embrace technology. As with many components of the heating network, this model of cross-industry collaboration shows that when everyone plays their part, everyone benefits. Give and take, input and output. In a world seeking to balance sustainability with connectivity and consumption, Talaat is a blueprint for how industry and communities can work together to achieve amazing results. This is a model that we hope will become popular in the future.
Let’s build!
