Data Centre's Heat Could Warm 33,000 Homes!

Proposals for a new data centre in Reading could generate enough surplus heat to warm up to 33,000 homes, a climate scientist says. Plans for a 72MW facility, being advanced by a consortium including BCS Consultancy, Hilson Moran, Twelve Architects, Arup and Alpaca Communications, are promoted as a major economic investment and could sit near a new Royal Berkshire Hospital.

The developers say the site would support critical national infrastructure and reinforce the Thames Valley's role as a technology hub, but environmental questions remain.

Climate scientist Katrin Harding will raise concerns at a council meeting about the scale of energy use and the proposed reliance on natural gas, and she is expected to highlight a missed opportunity to capture and reuse waste heat. She said: "That heat could power 32,741 homes,"

Wokingham Borough Council leader Stephen Conway suggested a so-called Local Heat Network as one option and acknowledged growing public concern, while stressing no formal planning application has yet been submitted.

He said: "reflects public concern about the environmental impacts of data centres."

He said: "If and when one is submitted it will be judged by national and local policies and there will be a thorough examination of environmental impacts and how they may be mitigated."

He said: "In more general terms, I should say that data centres are part of the modern world; we therefore have to find ways of managing their downsides," he said.

"A lot of good work is going on to develop local heat networks, which use surplus heat generated by buildings such as data centres to power other local buildings.

"The local heat network approach may be the way forward, not necessarily in this particular case, but in other instances that are bound to arise in the future."

While developers point to jobs and investment, questions remain over how carbon emissions and excess heat would be addressed. With no application yet lodged, councillors have the opportunity to influence how this big heat source is managed close to the town centre.

Ted O'Neill, Local Democracy Reporter