Data Centre In The Shed Reduces Energy Bills To £40
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the sub-heading.
An Essex couple have become the first people in the country to trial a scheme that sees them heat their home using a data centre in their garden shed.
These three introductory paragraphs add some detail.
Terrence and Lesley Bridges have seen their energy bills drop dramatically, from £375 a month down to as low as £40, since they swapped their gas boiler for a HeatHub – a small data centre containing more than 500 computers.
Data centres are banks of computers which carry out digital tasks. As the computers process data, they generate lots of heat, which is captured by oil and then transferred into the Bridges’ hot water system.
Mr Bridges, 76, says keeping his two-bed bungalow near Braintree warm was a necessity as his wife has spinal stenosis and is in “a lot of pain” when it gets colder.
I think this simple idea is absolutely brilliant and very technically sound.
Here are some further thoughts.
It Would Be Ideal For A House Like Mine
My house is a modern three-bedroomed house with a garage and when I asked Google AI how many UK houses had garages, I received this answer.
Approximately 38% of dwellings in England have a garage, according to a 2020 report. While a specific UK-wide figure is not available, extrapolating this percentage to the total number of UK dwellings suggests there are over 10 million houses with garages, though the actual figure may vary across different regions.
Looking at the picture in the BBC article, I feel that this HeatHub could fit in my house.
I would expect that any house with a garage, a small garden or a big enough boiler space could accommodate a HeatHub.
Obviously, the house would need.
- A boiler, that provides heating and hot water.
- A good broadband connection.
My house has both.
Would My House’s Heating System Need To Be Modified?
It looks like it’s just a boiler replacement, so I don’t think so, but it may need to be moderbnised with digital controllers to get the best out of the system.
Will There Be Other Systems Like Thermify’s Heat Hub?
Some of our electricity suppliers seem very innovative and the market is very competitive.
Would they just sit back and let coompetitors take their customers? I doubt it!
So I suspect there will be other systems, each with their own features.
I have already, written about heata, which uses similar principles to give affordable hot water in British Gas Partners With heata On Trial To Reuse Waste Heat From Data Processing.
The BBC article gives some examples of data centres used to provide heating, so it is worth reading the full article.
I’m Getting A New Hydrogen-Ready Boiler
The pump in my current nine-year-old boiler has died and it needs to be replaced.
The plumber gave me two solutions.
- Put a new pump in the old boiler.
- Replace the boiler with the current version of the old boiler.
Note.
- The plumber said the new boiler would be hydrogen-ready.
- I seem to remember the same pump failed before.
- The pump had failed because of a water-leak into its electrics.
- Was the previous failure of the pump caused by the same water-leak?
- Fitting a heat pump in my house would probably cost more than I could afford.
- The new boiler would come with a ten-year guarantee.
As an engineer, I can see the following scenarios for heating my house and providing hot water.
1. Keeping Calm And Carrying On
This means that the current arrangements for energy continue.
- There would be no compulsory heat pumps.
- There would be no change to any of my hardware, after installing the new boiler.
- I would continue to get gas for heating and hot water delivered through the mains.
The new boiler solution should give me ten years of reasonably trouble free-running, so long as the gas was natural gas, hydrogen blend or hydrogen.
2. Keeping Calm And Carrying On But My Energy Supplier Switches My Gas To 20 % Hydrogen-Blend
This means that the current arrangements for energy continue.
- There would be no compulsory heat pumps.
- There would be no change to any of my hardware, after installing the new boiler.
- I would continue to get gas for heating and hot water delivered through the mains.
- The gas pipe into my house would have to be checked for compatibility with hydrogen-blend. But then I encountered no problems when switched from coal-gas to North Sea Gas around 1970.
The new boiler solution should give me ten years of reasonably trouble free-running, so long as the gas was natural gas, hydrogen-blend or hydrogen.
3. Keeping Calm And Carrying On But My Energy Supplier Switches My Gas To 100 % Hydrogen
This means that the current arrangements for energy continue.
- There would be no compulsory heat pumps.
- There would be no change to any of my hardware, after installing the new boiler.
- I would continue to get gas for heating and hot water delivered through the mains.
- The gas pipe into my house would have to be checked for compatibility with hydrogen.
The new boiler solution should give me ten years of reasonably trouble free-running, so long as the gas was natural gas, hydrogen blend or hydrogen.
4. Switching To Some Form Of Heat Pump
- This would mean that I would go all electric.
- My house is a concrete lump and a guy I trust, said it would be difficult to fit a heat pump.
- I am suspicious of scientific and technical solutions proposed by politicians.
I’m not saying, I’d never use a heat pump, but I will take a lot of convincing.
5. Switching To Some New Form Of Electric Heating
I have seen two companies, which use the excess heat from a data centre to heat water for central heating and/or hot water for domestic needs.
- heata is a spin out from Centrica, that provides hot water and saves you money on your utility bill.
- thermify is a startup from Wales, that replaces the gas boiler, with an electric one.
There are probably other similar systems under development.
From my knowledge of computing and electrical engineering, I believe devices like this could be new form of cost-efficient electric heating.
Because my house has three-bedrooms, I would need a thermify, for both heating and hot water, but a heata working in tandem with my gas boiler could probably keep me in hot water.
I would feel that large blocks of flats or offices could have a data centre in the basement to provide heat for the building.
I would also suspect, that there are other devices out there, that work on different principles.
My Decision
I’m fitting a new boiler, as that should give me ten years’guarantee-backed and trouble free running and future-proof me for all possible government decisions, except saying that everybody must fit a heat pump.
When, this new boiler pops its clogs, i would hope, that some clever engineers have come up with a plug-compatible electric replacement for the new boiler I am about to have fitted.
British Gas Partners With heata On Trial To Reuse Waste Heat From Data Processing
The title of this post, is the same as that of this news item from Centrica.
This is the sub-heading.
British Gas has partnered with sustainable cloud computing provider, heata, on an innovative trial to explore how harnessing waste heat generated by computer servers can save households money on their bills.
These two paragraphs describe heata’s system.
heata’s innovative model distributes cloud computing workloads to servers in homes. In a data centre, the heat generated during processing is a waste product, and energy-intensive cooling systems are required to stop the servers from overheating.
To overcome this, heata has created a ‘virtual data centre’ – a network of servers distributed in people’s homes. Each server is attached to the home’s hot water cylinder, and as they process data, the heat they generate is transferred into the water. This reduces the energy needed to heat water in the home, and as this is typically provided by gas boilers, it reduces the amount of gas used, lowering the carbon impact as a result. heata pays for the electricity the heata unit uses, which means the household pays less to heat their hot water.
Note.
- I would expect that future systems would also heat the house.
- I would be an ideal system for my house, as I have an unusual skin, that is better with a daily bath.
- I also wash my eyes most days with clean warm water, as they are often full of sleep.
- heata has a web site.
- heata has an about page, which describes the company and the technology.
- heata is supported by British Gas, Innovate UK and Sustainable Futures.
- Thermify is a similar system.
These three paragraphs describe the trial.
As part of a three-month trial, 10 heata units will be installed in the homes of British Gas employees, and the energy provider’s computing workloads will be processed on these units. As a result British Gas will be providing free hot water for its own employees as a byproduct of their own cloud compute.
The trial will provide feedback around performance and customer experience, as well as demonstrating the associated CO2 and energy cost savings to further co-develop customer propositions in 2025.
According to heata, the devices can provide up to 4kWh of hot water per day, with the technology expected to save households up to £340 per year when offsetting electrically heated hot water, and up to £120 when offsetting gas heated hot water.
I shall certainly think about fitting one.
Is Thermify The Ultimate Zero-Carbon Boiler?
In The Sunday Times today, there is an article, which is entitled Tech Is Putting Net Zero Within Reach, which lists several ideas to help us achieve net zero.
The first is the best idea, that I’ve seen this year.
When you talk using a phone, tablet or computer to your family, preferred social network, bank or company, you are probably talking to or through a server somewhere on the Internet.
These servers are often a bank of computers and they use a lot of electricity and give out a lot of heat. So they are often located in unusual places like Iceland. Someone has even suggested putting them deep under the sea.
Under a section entitled Computer Power, the article in The Times introduces Thermify.
The Welsh company has combined a computer server with a heat exchanger to replace your gas-fired boiler.
I suspect all of these servers fit together just like data centres do all over the world.
It would be ideal for my house, as I only use gas for heating and hot water and I have solar panels on the roof and under-floor heating using hot water.
I shall be contacting the company next week.
The Anonymous Widower 