Toward Sustainable Digital Infrastructure: Thermal and Economic Potential of Data Center Heat Reuse

Abstract

Data centers consume large amounts of electricity, with a significant fraction dissipated as low grade heat. Generally, this waste heat is released to the environment, but growing energy demands and decarbonization targets have emphasized the interest in its recovery and reuse. This study investigates the initial technoeconomic viability of heat reuse from a modeled system with varying effeciency and other key influencing parameters. By using the thermal approximations, we quantify the available temperature ranges and heat flows for several reuse pathways, including district heating, absorption cooling, and domestic hot water production. The results will reflect on the key parameters including the thermal efficiency of direct reuse of heat for low temperature applications, while higher temperature uses necessitate auxiliary upgrades that reduce overall system performance. A comparative techno-economic analysis highlights the trade-offs between capital investment, operating cost, and key data center parameters across reuse scenarios. In particular, coupling with district heating networks emerges can be one of the most scalable option, though decentralized applications (e.g., building heating) can offer faster payback under certain operating regimes. The findings underscore that while data center heat reuse is technically feasible, its practical deployment depends strongly on local infrastructure compatibility and economic drivers. This work contributes a structured framework for evaluating reuse pathways, providing both performance metrics and cost considerations to guide decision making for sustainable data center operation.