If you’ve followed me over the past few years (or watched Now Go Build), you’ll know that I’m very interested in the role that technology can play in helping solve global socioeconomic and environmental challenges. On a recent trip to Ireland, I had the opportunity to visit Tallaght, a growing area in south Dublin that has recently been undergoing significant revitalization efforts. Here, community leaders, local energy agencies, and AWS came together to reimagine how heating and hot water are delivered to everything from hospitals and government buildings to college campuses and public housing. The program is called the Tallaght District Heating Scheme, a collaboration between Codema (Dublin’s energy agency), South Dublin County Council, AWS and Heat Works, Ireland’s first not-for-profit energy utility to operate the network. The program is the first of its kind in the Emerald Isle, but it could be the first of many, with recent estimates suggesting district heating could supply more than 87% of Dublin’s heating needs by 2050.
District heating itself is not a new idea. People have been using heat to centrally produce and distribute heat for thousands of years, from the genocide of ancient Rome and the ondol (floor heating system) in Korea to the steam projects in 20th-century New York that heated and cooled much of Lower Manhattan (nearly 1,500 buildings in the city). I’ve found a way. still gets heat from the vapor). Although these solutions have been around for a long time, they are not always sustainable. Many of these heating systems relied on burning coal and other fossil fuels to produce heat, which we now know is a significant source of emissions and a contributor to climate change. More recently, cogeneration facilities such as CopenHill in Copenhagen have provided a model for capturing heat from critical infrastructure such as waste incineration and using it to heat communities. Back in Tallaght, let’s take a look at why the new district heating program is so important to Ireland’s energy future.
Today, Ireland is undergoing a significant energy transition away from fossil fuels and has an ambitious target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 51% by the end of 2010. To accomplish this, local leaders are finding new solutions to old problems. For example, Amazon has invested in three Irish wind farms to supply clean energy to the country’s power grid. And in the Dublin region, there are new opportunities to tap into renewable and underutilized energy sources, including deep geothermal heat and waste heat from industrial and municipal processes (e.g. data centres, waste treatment facilities and even breweries). Codema estimates that these untapped resources could produce about 19 TWh. This is enough energy to heat the equivalent of approximately 1.6 million homes and plays a key role in Ireland’s decarbonisation efforts.
How district heating works
Simply put, district heating is the distribution of heat generated in a centralized location (e.g. hot water) to the community using insulated pipes. Here, heat is extracted from homes and businesses, and in many cases, like Tallaght, 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 independent. Power and heat can be harnessed 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 switch from biofuels to capturing recycled heat from waste incineration. It also reduces a home’s infrastructure overhead by eliminating the need for individual boilers and water heaters. The ability to select and change energy sources future-proofs these systems and provides flexibility to municipalities and residents that is not possible with other heating solutions.
From hot air to warm water and heat
Servers generate heat. And to operate efficiently and protect their servers, data centers are typically cooled with large air handling units. But if you look at the by-products of server operations as opportunities, you can see how the excitement can be leveraged positively. At the Tallaght data center, hot air from the servers is captured by heat exchangers in the air conditioning units, raising the temperature of the water flowing through the building by approximately 23 to 28° Celsius (73 to 82° Fahrenheit for US readers). ) before being pumped through insulated pipes to the Energy Center at Heat Works. The system takes this warm water, passes it through the first of two heat pumps, and condenses it until the temperature is around 45°C (113°F). The hot water then passes through a second heat pump, where the water temperature increases again to between 70° and 85°C (158 and 185°F), depending on the season. At this point, piped hot water leaves the energy center through insulated pipes and is delivered to customers connected to the heating system.
Where a typical home uses an individual water heater or boiler, in a district heating system this is replaced by a thermal interface device that delivers the system’s hot water to the building or home as needed. It also acts as a pressure shutoff device to prevent backflow from occurring.
As heat is consumed in homes and businesses, the water that loses heat during the energy transfer process is returned to Heat Work energy centers. It then passes through pumps and is further cooled to up to 15°C (59°F) before moving to an AWS data center where the heating process begins again.
observability
Monitoring plays a critical role in all large-scale systems, including data centers, distributed applications, and district heating programs. You can design with fault tolerance in mind. This means you know something will go wrong at some point, but it gives you the ability to quickly identify problems and maintain operations when a component goes down. The Tallaght District Heating Scheme is monitored 24/7 by Heat Works. You can view the water and air temperature, pressure, flow rate and energy production of each heat pump at any time, and even detect leaks in the system within a few meters. This last part is a big deal, considering that in the past repairmen often relied on visual indicators like steam to identify leaks (very difficult in warmer months).
If you need an example of how important monitoring and grid modernization projects are, look no further than the UK, where 3 billion liters of water are lost per day. The latest plastic pipes in the system.
What’s next?
AWS and Heat Works are now working together to supply Tallaght with 3MW of energy previously produced from gas or fossil fuels from local data centres. This is enough to heat approximately 43,000 m2 of public buildings, including local universities, libraries and innovation centres, reducing the region’s carbon emissions by almost 1,500 metric tons per year. This corresponds to the mass of 7.5 adult blue whales, or an average of 730 whales. size of car). We plan to double our energy production in the next two years and expand the program to residential buildings and other critical infrastructure in the community.
The Tallaght District Heating Scheme demonstrates the enormous potential for a sustainable community energy system in Ireland. This is a great example of how government agencies, energy suppliers and domestic industry can work together on large-scale projects that not only work towards decarbonization goals, but also revitalize communities and ensure reliable access to energy and energy. heat.
And just as important as the district heating program itself are the changes underway in Tallaght. They have welcomed industries such as cloud computing, are investing in young people through educational programs that run from elementary school through college, and local hospitals have adopted machine learning and other cloud technologies to improve patient outcomes in their communities. Like many components of the network that transports heat, this model of cross-industry collaboration shows that if everyone does their part, everyone benefits. Give and take, input and output. In a world seeking to balance sustainability, connectivity and consumption, Tallaght is a blueprint for how industry and communities can work together to achieve amazing results. It’s a model we hope will see widespread adoption in the coming years.
Build it now!
