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Amazon adopting RenewIT-like heat-reuse tech for US HQ

September 17, 2014

A rendering of Amazon’s new campus north of downtown Seattle. (Credit: NBBJ)

Reports suggest that Amazon may be planning a significant datacenter heat-reuse project at its US HQ in Seattle.

Geekwire is reporting that Amazon is planning to direct waste heat from its Seattle datacenters to some of its office buildings in the city.

“Amazon is moving ahead with a unique plan to use heat generated from data centers in the nearby Westin Building to warm some of its new buildings downtown. The system transfers the heat from the data centers via water piped underground to the Amazon buildings. The water is then returned to the Westin Building once it’s cooled down to help cool the data centers,” the site reports.

Amazon has yet to confirm the reports but if they are true they are further evidence of the validity of projects such as RenewIT which were exploring how datacenters can be better integrated into smart cities, as well as make better use of renewable energy. The project is actively investigating the potential of heat-reuse – in particular how the use of direct liquid cooled servers can improve the efficiency of this kind of approach.