Apple's upcoming Danish data center will help warm area homes

Once complete, Apple's data center in Viborg, Denmark will actually redirect heat to warm homes in the surrounding Jutland region, Apple noted this week.

The center will "capture excess heat from its equipment and conduct it into the local district heating system," Apple explained in its 2017 Environmental Responsibility Report. Apple in turn will receive some power from the landscape — in a system designed with help from Aarhus University, agricultural waste will be converted into methane used to generate energy, with a fertilizer byproduct going to local farmers.

Apple is promising that like its other data centers, the Viborg complex will rely entirely on renewable energy in most circumstances. As a backup, the facility will draw from the regional power grid instead of diesel generators.

The company didn't say when construction in Viborg might be complete.

Apple is building two data centers in Europe, the other a long-delayed project near Athenry, Ireland. In its environmental report, Apple noted that it has partnered with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland on "innovative new ways of capturing [coastal] wave energy," and will use some of this electricity to power its buildings.

As with Apple's new Cupertino headquarters, the Irish data center will also rely on natural ventilation instead of artificial air conditioning.

Together the European centers should cost Apple $1.8 billion or more. They may be essential though given Apple's growing reliance on cloud services such as Siri, iMessage, FaceTime, Apple Music, and iCloud Drive.

15 Comments

cali 10 Years · 3494 comments

About 7 years ago

A lot of Apple's new innovations are for the environment and not even available to the consumer.

a selfless company.

zoetmb 17 Years · 2655 comments

cali said:

A lot of Apple's new innovations are for the environment and not even available to the consumer.

a selfless company.

It's great what Apple is doing in terms of environmental responsibility in its buildings, but to say that Apple is a "selfless" company is absurd. If Apple was really "selfless" and really cared about its environmental impact, they would make computers in which end users could change the battery, memory and storage, as they used to. Instead, many of those computers wind up in landfill as people are forced to buy another computer. Would you buy a car in which only the car company could change the battery, tires and belts?

suddenly newton 14 Years · 13819 comments

I've often wondered about the efficiency of using waste heat from old Nvidia GeForce graphics cards to heat a small room during the winter months, while enjoying my favorite PC games. Glad to see someone else take the idea and scale it.

boltsfan17 12 Years · 2294 comments

zoetmb said:

cali said:

A lot of Apple's new innovations are for the environment and not even available to the consumer.

a selfless company.

It's great what Apple is doing in terms of environmental responsibility in its buildings, but to say that Apple is a "selfless" company is absurd. If Apple was really "selfless" and really cared about its environmental impact, they would make computers in which end users could change the battery, memory and storage, as they used to. Instead, many of those computers wind up in landfill as people are forced to buy another computer. Would you buy a car in which only the car company could change the battery, tires and belts?

You can recycle your old computer through Apple. If its worth anything, you get money. If not, Apple recycles it for free. With regards to landfills, that's not Apple's fault if people are too lazy to recycle something and instead just throw it away.

patsu 20 Years · 430 comments

zoetmb said:

cali said:

A lot of Apple's new innovations are for the environment and not even available to the consumer.

a selfless company.

It's great what Apple is doing in terms of environmental responsibility in its buildings, but to say that Apple is a "selfless" company is absurd. If Apple was really "selfless" and really cared about its environmental impact, they would make computers in which end users could change the battery, memory and storage, as they used to. Instead, many of those computers wind up in landfill as people are forced to buy another computer. Would you buy a car in which only the car company could change the battery, tires and belts?

That's over-simplification, and a bit of strawman argument.

They may have misread the pro market. For all we know, the next Mac Pro will have what you need (replaceable parts). It's about what the customers want, and how to deliver them reliably.

People like me don't upgrade computers. I also don't like third parties touching my machines and replacing parts, especially after all the hardware malware and battery explosion news in recent years. Then again, I know people who like to save money bargain hunting for parts.

I do care about too many products going to landfill, so I typically sell my devices and laptops away in usable conditions. Interesting that Apple wants to recycle their products completely now to tackle this issue, but it's probably many years away.

The car analogy is not so appropriate because they have been lacking privacy and security considerations since the beginning. So they are perceived more like a dumb heater or washing machine. But as car becomes smarter, begin to handle our information, tracking our lives, and hold us ransom, then yes I will consider the most secure car vs a car with all the parts replaceable. Heck, for all we know, cars may become fully rental or service based. So you don't need to own a car anymore.