Four enthusiastic Watergraafsmeer inhabitants want to reuse waste heat from a nearby datacenter to heat 5.000 houses in their neighborhood.

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Waste heat could heat 5.000 households in Watergraafsmeer

Imagine, getting your central heating and warm water from the datacenters in your own neighborhood? Warmth that, at this moment, is being wasted, every single day.

Four enthusiastic Watergraafsmeer neighbors, knowledgeable in technology and sustainability, started the MeerEnergie initiative to reuse waste heat coming from datacenters in their neighborhood and provide this to 5.000 households in the Watergraafsmeer. By doing this now, the first big quarter of existing houses in The Netherlands will exit the gas network, organised & owned by the inhabitants themselves. Thereby showing the way for many communities and policy makers that it is indeed possible to ‘leave the grid’ and add to the ambitious Amsterdam CO₂ targets.   Technically, we need to add a heat pump, to create the infrastructure to deliver the warmth to the houses, and to make households ready to use the warmth.   Financially we need to finetune the businesscase and determine how much public and private funding is required in order to succeed, and how we can organize the financing.   Governmental issues are (amongst others) the legal structure of the cooperation, the operational management structure, relations we uphold with the local government, infrastructure – and technical partners.   Communication with prospective and existing cooperation members requires a diverse strategy, since the variety in population and housing is substantial. 80% of the houses in this neighbourhood are privately owned, or privately rented out, and 20% of houses are owned by housing corporations.

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