A first-of-its-kind system in the UK is being trialled in Edinburgh to see if waste heat from a large computing facility can be stored in disused mine workings and used to warm homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The large amounts of energy needed to power the University of Edinburgh\u2019s Advanced Computing Facility (ACF) could be recycled to heat at least 5,000 households in Scotland\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The facility, home to the national supercomputer and used for research such as national climate modelling and health data modelling, currently releases up to 70 GWh of excess heat per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is projected to rise to 272 GWh once the UK Government\u2019s recently announced next-generation Exascale supercomputer is installed at the University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \u00a32.6 million feasibility study will examine how the water in old mine workings near the computing facility could be harnessed to heat people\u2019s homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The process of cooling the supercomputers would be augmented to transfer the captured heat into the mine water \u2013 up to a maximum temperature of 40\u00b0C \u2013 which would then be transported by natural ground water flow in the mine workings and made available to warm people\u2019s homes via heat pump technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If successful, the study could provide a global blueprint for converting abandoned flooded coal, shale and mineral mine networks into underground heat storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With a quarter of UK homes sitting above former mines, potentially seven million households could have their heating needs met this way, researchers say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Edinburgh Geobattery project \u2013 led by Edinburgh-based geothermal company TownRock Energy \u2013 is being spearheaded by industry and academic partners from Scotland, the US and Ireland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The University of Edinburgh is the lead research partner on the project and is providing \u00a3500k of funding as part of its own net zero objectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scottish Enterprise has awarded a \u00a31 million grant to the project through the Joint Programming Platform Smart Energy Systems (JPP SES) and Geothermica \u2013 two networks that have co-funded projects developing innovative heat and cooling solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A further US$1 million from the US Department of Energy will fund researchers from the Idaho National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lead academic on the project, Professor Christopher McDermott, from the University of Edinburgh\u2019s School of Geosciences, said: \u201cThis project opens up the potential for extracting heat stored in mine water more broadly. Most disused coalmines are flooded with water, making them ideal heat sources for heat pumps. With more than 800,000 households in Scotland in fuel poverty, bringing energy costs down in a sustainable way is critical and using waste heat could be a game-changer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professor Sir Peter Mathieson, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, said: \u201cThe University\u2019s own climate and sustainability targets mean that we need to look at a wide range of ways to address the challenges of the climate crisis. This project brings together these commitments alongside our own innovative research to find solutions to tackle climate change that deliver direct benefits to people and influence positive change locally and globally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A first-of-its-kind system in the UK is being trialled in Edinburgh to see if waste heat from a large computing facility can be stored in disused mine workings and used to warm homes. The large amounts of energy needed to power the University of Edinburgh\u2019s Advanced Computing Facility (ACF) could be recycled to heat at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":103762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[608,36,62,93,23,24],"tags":[1458,15170,5006,2375],"class_list":["post-103761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-green","category-regional-news-newsletter","category-top-stories","category-united-kingdom","category-used","tag-edinburgh","tag-supercomputer","tag-uk","tag-university-of-edinburgh"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104222,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103761\/revisions\/104222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}