Finnish Energy and Tech Firms Integrate Data Center Waste Heat into District Network

Finnish Energy and Tech Firms Integrate Data Center Waste Heat into District Network January 2, 2026 In a significant step for sustainable infrastructure, a new containerized data center in Western Finland has begun supplying waste heat to a local district heating network. The project, a collaboration between Finnish energy company Vatajankoski and technology firm E-Heat, exemplifies the growing industry trend of capturing and repurposing the substantial thermal energy generated by computing facilities, thereby improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions. The 1-megawatt (MW) modular data center was recently completed within the Kirkkokallio eco-industrial park in Honkajoki, a municipality in the Satakunta region. According to Vatajankoski, the facility's waste heat, supplemented by additional heating, will warm water to nearly 80 degrees Celsius (176°F) before feeding it into the utility's district heating network for the Honkajoki urban area. This integration has allowed the company to shut down its primary Puistotie grate boiler, which will now serve as a backup system. Ari Niemi, district heating manager at Vatajankoski, stated, "The majority of the district heating in the Honkajoki agglomeration will be produced using data heat without combustion in the future. I would like to thank everyone involved in the project, especially E-Heat, Priatech, Sähkö-Domino, and the Vatajankoski team for their good cooperation." This initiative is part of a series of similar deployments by the partners. In 2024, Vatajankoski launched a 2MW data center at its Kankaanpää power plant, which now meets approximately 20 percent of local heating demand. Another 1.5MW module was deployed in Merikarvia last year. E-Heat, which specializes in these integrated systems, reported a substantial project pipeline last summer. A financial report from its then-investor, real estate firm Toivo, indicated E-Heat had eight projects under negotiation totaling 20MW, alongside seven completed projects (8.5MW) and four more (10MW) under construction. Following a brief ownership change in late 2025, E-Heat continues its expansion, with plans to deploy an 80-square-meter, 1.8MW module in Ivalo, Lapland, in spring 2026. That project, in partnership with local provider Inergia Lämpö Oy, is expected to cover about half of the area's heating network requirements. The project underscores a viable model for the data center industry to address its environmental impact by transforming a major operational byproduct—waste heat—into a valuable community resource. As energy costs and sustainability mandates intensify globally, such symbiotic integrations between digital infrastructure and municipal utilities are likely to become increasingly critical for the sector's social license to operate and its path to net-zero emissions. Source: datacenterdynamics