District heating is considered as an alternative heating system for the natural gas heating systems for households. The ability to heat and supply hot water to buildings of households is essential in cities. Moreover, the transition to an alternative is necessary due to the depletion of fossil fuels and limits on carbon dioxide per country and cities since the Paris Climate Agreement. Fundamental in district heating is the conscious choice for the usage of local heat resources that would otherwise be wasted.
As a result of the operation of data servers, datacenters have a constant production of heat. Therefore datacenters are a local heat source that could potentially be a heat supplying source for district heating. An important factor to take into consideration when considering the potential of residual heat supply from datacenters for district heating for residential neighbourhoods is that datacenters are considered as a sustainable heat source for district heating when the electricity use of the DC is supplied from renewable energy sources.
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