Tuesday 14 March 2023

Swimming pool heated by a data centre?

A Devon public swimming pool has found a unique way to save money on energy bills; heating itself with the help of a data centre.

The centre, provided by start-up Deep Green, is used to power artificial intelligence and machine learning and is not much bigger than a washing machine.

The heat generated by the computers is captured by surrounding them with oil and then it’s pumped into a heat exchanger to warm the water in the pool.

Exmouth Leisure Centre said the move is set to save it thousands; being able to heat the pool to 30°C for 60% of the time.

This is after an estimation that bills could rise by £100,000 this year.

For using the data centre for heating, Deep Green’s Founder Mark Bjornsgaard explained that the electricity costs of the leisure centre would be refunded – and that seven other pools in the UK have signed up to start doing the same.

This follows a period of many being forced to close during and after the pandemic, as energy costs made maintenance financially unviable.

Sean Day, who runs the leisure centre, said: “The partnership has really helped us reduce the costs of what has been astronomical over the last 12 months – our energy prices and gas prices have gone through the roof.”