There is an old bit of wisdom that asserts in every problem there is an opportunity.
The wave of accelerated compute and artificial intelligence (AI) adoption is seeing massive scale build out of increasingly sophisticated digital infrastructure that features equipment densities, energy demands and cooling needs unlike anything seen before.
Equipment has become heavier with implications for racks and row architecture and configuration, energy draw has gone from double digits of kilowatts per rack to a hundred, with multiples of that on development road maps in the near future. New cooling techniques and equipment have been developed to cope, with direct to chip liquid cooling now a leading methodology.
All of this has impacted sustainability efforts, with many data centre owners and operators left struggling meet both regulations and goals.
Amid this challenge to meet demand and maintain sustainability standards, there is a growing opportunity to not only maintain sustainability ambitions, but to contribute to communities: heat reuse.
What is data centre reuse?
As data centre equipment densities grew, cooling techniques developed to cope with the increased the volume of heat produced. Techniques such as hot aisle/cold aisle configurations, along with more efficient heat extraction and exhaust, allowed data centre owners and operators to keep equipment within a specified window of optimal operation.
However, despite recognising there was an energy value in the heat extracted, heat reuse was technically challenging and with uncertain reward. The advent of greater regulatory supervision, with examples such as the European Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), refocused the industry on the issue and the potential opportunity.
The needs of accelerated compute and AI brought further attention, but also opportunity. Firstly, the sophisticated new architectures offered greater insight and intelligence than ever before through unprecedented levels of instrumentation and monitoring. Further, the extensive use of liquid cooling meant that the extraction medium for the heat presented a higher quality than previously, making heat reuse more practical and requiring less conditioning.
Why heat reuse matters
Data centres consume significant amounts of electricity, and much of that energy ultimately becomes heat. Historically, operators focused on removing this heat as efficiently as possible. Today, the industry is increasingly recognising that waste heat can be repurposed as a valuable energy source.
With this new opportunity, digital infrastructure vendors and operators realised that heat reuse was another valuable strand in their comprehensive efforts to achieve net zero. And this is reflected in industry statistics. For 2024, the State of European Data Centres report found that 31% of data centres had an actively measured Energy Reuse Factor (ERF) fully supported by data. For 2025, this had risen to 39%. The report also found that the greatest challenge for heat reuse, distance from heat distribution networks, had fallen by 15% from the previous year, and uncertainty on legal responsibility and requirements had fallen by 13%.
There are now many good examples of data centre heat reuse, with district or municipal heating schemes being among the best.
Putting heat reuse into practice
A great example of heat reuse in practice is the project delivered at Queen Mary University of London in collaboration with Schneider Electric and Advanced Power Technology (APT).
Queen Mary University of London is ranked in the world’s top 100, serving over 31,000 students and 5,700 staff. A modernisation programme tackled its outdated data centre that suffered limited high-density computing functionality, inefficient cooling, reliability and availability issues and no heat recovery methodology.
Schneider Electric implemented an EcoStruxure Row Data Center solution with a Hot Aisle Containment system (HCAS), and EcoStruxure IT Expert Data Centre Infrastructure Management system. This produced a more reliable data centre with enhanced high-performance compute (HPC) capabilities and future scalability. Recovered heat could now be used for heating and hot water across the main campus. Data centre infrastructure now meets current and future research computing needs, while supporting sustainability.
The heat reuse system leverages the HCAS arrangements and feeds heat pumps and heat exchangers providing 75c water for both storage and supply for heating. The system can provide 2.8 million back-to-back showers for students, up to 52 simultaneously.
When EcoDataCenter in Sweden wanted to build an exemplary sustainable data centre at the heart of its HPC colocation in Falun, the company needed safe and reliable power management that would ensure customer-server uptime and energy efficiency, with the opportunity for heat reuse to contribute to a low Power Usage Effectivesness (PUE) score.
EcoDataCenter partnered with Schneider Electric for an integrated EcoStruxure for Cloud & Service Providers and EcoStruxure IT Advisor solution accessing Schneider’s Connected Services Hub with dedicated 24/7 troubleshooting. The result, leveraging four 99%-efficient Galaxy VX UPSs, is a facility that can support 3,750 kW of customer load, with connected sensor and meter monitoring for granular facility temperature control. The data centre achieves new levels of efficiency, with an EER of 132 and a PUE of 1.15 by reusing low-grade waste heat.
The Queen Mary University and EcoDataCenter Falun examples sit alongside other schemes in Clondalkin and Tallaght in Ireland, Frankfurt in Germany, Hamina in Finland, and Odense in Denmark, indicating the growing opportunity for net zero efforts and support and contribution to locales and communities.
From waste to value: End-to-end heat reuse powered by Schneider Electric
Cooling sits at the centre of any effective heat reuse strategy. In support of heat reuse in achieving net zero, Schneider Electric provides a full solution set of technologies, services and expertise to allow facilities to capitalise on this opportunity.
Schneider Electric is uniquely positioned to deliver heat-recovery-ready infrastructure at every layer of the stack from co-engineered NVIDIA GB200 reference designs and Motivair direct liquid cooling units, to EcoStruxure™ for Data Centres solutions bring power, cooling, management, and security to aid IT deployments in all environment – enables organisations to optimise cooling performance while unlocking opportunities for heat capture and reuse. Technologies such as InRow cooling, hot aisle containment, high-efficiency chilled water systems, intelligent environmental monitoring, liquid cooling readiness, and precision cooling systems help operators maintain highly efficient thermal environments while supporting heat recovery initiatives.
End-to end Power train, such as the 99% efficient Galaxy VXL UPS, in combination with Masterpact MTZ Breakers & Smart Panels, reduce electrical losses with less waste heat in electrical rooms meaning more predictable heat‑capture from IT loads.
Schneider Electric’s modular, prefabricated data centre solutions also support future-ready facilities. They deliver adaptable, high-performance designs that meet complex infrastructure needs across diverse locations and environments. These scalable architectures enable organisations to increase compute density, integrate liquid cooling technologies, expand heat recovery systems, connect with district heating networks, and adapt to evolving sustainability requirements. This flexibility is critical as organisations modernise to support AI-driven workloads and growing compute demand.
As AI and HPC workloads drive higher rack densities, these technologies become even more essential. Denser environments generate more concentrated heat, making reuse more effective when properly managed. However, successful heat reuse depends on operational intelligence. With EcoStruxure IT DCIM software, organisations can gain real-time visibility into power, cooling, and environmental performance. Integrated monitoring ensures the consistent and controlled thermal conditions required for efficient heat recovery.
All of this is supported by comprehensive professional services, covering design and engineering, a connected services hub for 24/7 monitoring and supported by EcoXpert Partner Network leveraging the deep knowledge of local integrators.
This integrated approach means organisations don’t have to stitch together point solutions from multiple vendors.
Heat reuse at the intersection of demand, design & sustainability
As demand for greater capacity and complexity of digital infrastructure grows, sustainability obligations and ambitions do not have to suffer. The defining characteristics of equipment and systems that make accelerated compute and AI possible are providing new opportunities to work meaningfully towards net zero while also presenting opportunities to support and contribute to communities and locales.
Ready to make waste heat into value for your facility? Discover how our end-to-end AI ready data centre solutions including Liquid cooling can help to make heat reuse a practical, high-impact pathway to net zero while providing benefit from a previously underutilised resource for the benefit of society.
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