Leveraging Fluidit Heat for strategic pre-planning.
Heat recycling from Microsoft’s data center to Fortum’s district heating network
”What are the best connection points in the existing grid? How will the entire system respond when major heat-supply directions change after the heat-capture facilities are connected to the grid?”
About the project
On the 17th of March 2022, Microsoft and Fortum announced a unique collaboration in which Microsoft will build new data centers in the capital region of Finland, which Fortum will connect to the district heating network through large-scale heat capture and recycling. The project will be the largest data center heat-recovery project in the world. It is estimated to provide carbon-neutral district heating for 250,000 people in the municipalities of Espoo, Kauniainen, and Kirkkonummi, and to reduce annual CO2 emissions by 400,000 tons. The data center plays a crucial role in the Espoo Clean Heat project, which aims to make the City of Espoo’s district heating carbon neutral in the 2020s.
The parties have been working on this project for some time, and we had an excellent opportunity to discuss the data center heat capture modeling process with Panu Kauniskallio, District Energy System Designer at Fortum. He is responsible for the network-related technical solutions of the project with Fluidit Heat.
“My work ranges from long-term techno-economic studies on a whole system level, to detailed planning of customer connections and maintenance operations”, Panu describes his daily activities at Fortum. “The most used software in my daily work is Fluidit Heat, and I also regularly use the network information system and customer information systems”, he continues. “I also do a lot of retrospective analysis on anomalies in the network with Fluidit Heat. For example, scenario modeling allowed us to find a closed valve in one of the main pipelines.”
Connecting new heat sources
Connecting new production sources of this magnitude to the district heating grid is no minor task. “I think that this type of investment cannot be undertaken without a proper and thorough modeling process. The effect of connecting new heat sources this size into the grid cannot be understood without scenario analyses”, Panu explains, when asked about the benefits of modeling in this project. The most important questions were: what are the best connection points in the existing grid? And how will the entire system respond when major heat-supply directions change after the heat-capture facilities are connected to the grid?
“In the system that will soon be replaced by AI-driven end-to-end solutions, heat production facilities compete to provide heat to the network. It can be very challenging to identify the overall optimal control points for each facility in every situation. Modeling heat production using the whole-network model is the only way to optimize everything at the system level.”
Leveraging the network model
Panu explains how they will use modeling in the project: “As a modeling paradigm, the data center heat recycling was not that complex a task, as it required adding just a couple of new production plants to the existing network model. My focus was on identifying the most important scenarios to model. For example, the production of these data centers needed to be modeled in two parts: first, with the heat pump facility providing the energy; and second, with the electric boiler, which operates only during very cold outdoor conditions, when the required supply temperature exceeds the maximum supply temperature of the heat pumps. The most complex scenario was not the peak consumption point of -26 degrees Celsius, but something warmer, which needed to be identified when modeling such facilities.”
“We will be using modeling also when the project advances into the construction phase, since not all the pipelines will be built at the same time, and the production facility will gradually build the heat capacity to the planned value. We need to make sure that during this ramp-up phase, everything works correctly.”
Future outlook
As global warming advances and all fields are rallied to finding solutions that reduce CO2 emissions, these types of projects are the ones that make a real difference in the big picture. “It is cool to be part of something remarkable and big, that really affects the CO2 emission goals on a city level,” Panu says excitedly. To those planning similar projects, he wants to emphasize that the district heating model must be up to date at all levels, and the input data must be as precise as possible.
If you’re interested in learning how Fluidit Heat can elevate your district heating or cooling projects, reach out to us at sales@fluidit.com or fill out the contact form.
