Turning Waste Heat into Power — and Power into Progress
Advisory-led feasibility and heat-balance strategy for a 10 MW data center using open-loop geothermal cooling, ORC power regeneration, and district heat reuse (buildings + domestic hot water + snowmelt), winter-balanced with dry coolers.
Project Overview
A 10 MW data center is being designed to replace conventional chillers with a large open-loop geothermal system as the primary heat sink. Fassbender Energy Advisory guided feasibility, thermal balance, and integration decisions to turn “waste” heat into a strategic resource.
Challenge
Data centers reject nearly as much heat as the power they consume. The objective: maintain 24/7 reliability while reducing cooling energy, recovering useful power, and repurposing thermal output for nearby infrastructure.
Advisory Role & Approach
- Geothermal Cooling Wells: Open-loop wells provide a stable, high-capacity thermal sink.
- ORC Heat Recovery: Organic Rankine Cycle regenerates a portion of low-grade heat into on-site electricity.
- Thermal Reuse: Remaining warm water is routed to buildings, domestic hot water, and snowmelt systems.
- Winter Balance (Dry Coolers): High-efficiency dry coolers offload excess heat in cold months to keep the aquifer in equilibrium.
Principle: Balance the wells, recover the heat, and reuse the energy — a regenerative loop instead of linear waste.
Projected Outcomes
- Cooling Energy: Up to ~60% lower than baseline chiller systems.
- Power Regeneration: ORC recovers ~1–5% of waste heat as usable electricity.
- Carbon Reduction: Significant CO₂e avoidance from reduced mechanical cooling and fossil-fuel displacement.
- Reliability: Dual-mode geothermal + dry coolers deliver resilient, year-round operation with no evaporative loss.
- Community Value: Reclaimed heat supports buildings and snowmelt, easing local utility demand.
Next Phase: Scaling to 150 MW
The 10 MW framework is being prepared for scale to a 150 MW campus — among the largest geothermal-integrated data ecosystems in North America.
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