Databoilers

It sounds like a paradox, but the intuition of using computer-generated heat to provide free hot water was not born in a sophisticated high-tech laboratory, but is rooted in the mind of a scientist in a battered country shop nestled in the woods of Godalming in England.
«The idea of using the wasted heat of computing to do something else with it has been hovering in the air for some time, but only now does technology allow us to do it adequately. This is where I prototyped the thermal conductor that carries heat from computer processors to the cylinder filled with water. Then we ran the first tests, and we understood that it could work».
It is the voice of Chris Jordan, a 48-year-old physicist, one of the founders of Heata, an English start-up that has created an innovative cloud computing network where the computers that process data reside in people’s homes, are attached to their water heater and actively contribute to their heating.
As he recalls the born of this intuition he opens a wooden door. There is a very ordinary ninety-litre electric boiler inside, but it has a computer installed on it. There is a sticker pasted on it that reads: “This powerful server is transferring the heat generated by its processes to the water in your cylinder”.

The Heata unit prototype attached to a vented hot water cylinder at the Heata lab in Godalming, Surrey, UK. Batch workloads such as 3D rendering, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Finite Element Analysis and Medical Research are sent to the unit and the waste heat from the processing is transferred into the water in the cylinder via a patented thermal bridge.

Andrew during the installation process of the trial heata unit in an apartment in Woking, Surrey, UK. Temperature sensors are installed to measure the temperature at different points in the cylinder, along with a billing accredited submeter which records the power consumption.

The Heata unit is running in an apartment in Woking, Surrey, UK. At 75% utilisation the Heata unit will provide around 80% of an average UK household’s hot water (~3.6kWh).

Dave, a 64-year-old radio engineer, tests the operation of the Heata unit at the Heata Lab in Godalming, Surrey, UK.

It’s look like a parasite attached to its host. However, this calculator draws no energy; on the contrary, it conveys the heat generated inside it towards the boiler, heating the water. «The green LED indicates that it is operating» explains the physicist, «the machine receives data from our server and processes them. Thanks to this system we are able to transfer the equivalent of 4.8kW/h of hot water, which corresponds to the daily amount used by an average English family».
This is not an isolated case or the pioneering realization of a prototype. A trial funded by the British government has been underway for about a year and includes various towns in the county of Surrey, about 40km south-east of London, and involves numerous families who have installed the unit in their apartments, benefiting from domestic water free. Heata proposes a new sustainable datacenter model, where the computers that process data don’t reside in a single cooled physical place, but are scattered around people’s apartments, attached to their electric water heaters.

A batch of heat pipe at Heata Labs in Godalming, Surrey, Uk. Heat pipe assemblies take the high grade heat from the CPUs and transfer it to the thermal bridges which are attached to the hot water cylinders as part of the installation process. These are designed to match the motherboard and processor combination specified.

View of Godalming, Surrey, UK. This ancient city of about 21,000 inhabitants and the surrounding area has become the site of this world first energy saving and sustainability trial.

Campbell and Helen in their flat in Camberley, Surrey, UK. «We started reducing our carbon footprint many years ago by installing photovoltaic panels on the roof. We recently bought batteries to store the energy we produce. It didn't seem possible to us that a computer could generate hot water and keep running!».

Stuart, a 47 year old HGV driver, outside his home in Guildford, Surrey, UK.

Heata works as an intermediary for big data processing: it receives workloads from companies and private entities and sends them to the computational units installed in Surrey county homes for processing.
Mike Paisley, designer and co-founder of Heata, illustrates the advantages of their approach: «Rather than cooling a room or a hangar, our model moves data processing where there is need for heat, exploiting thermal energy waste to provide free hot water to those who need it, transforming a calculation problem into a social and climatic advantage. Heata’s servers receive the data to be processed and instead of operating in one place in unison, they “work from home”, on a secure network, just like an employee of a smart-working company would do. Our unit rests only on the external surface of the boiler and transfers heat by contact, constantly. It does not alter the original functioning of the cylinder, but prevents the water inside from becoming cold, preventing automatic ignition. Therefore, if our unit were to stop working due to a breakdown or a technical problem, the host family will still have hot water available as it works in synergy with their boiler».

Tom, a 41-year-old software engineer, follows the installation of the unit in his flat in Godalming, Surrey, UK.

Fluff, 7 years old, in his flat in Camberley, Surrey, Uk.

Steve, a 38 year old builder and musician, at home in Witley, Surrey, UK.

Companies or institutions that need to process data use Heata’s network as a sustainable alternative to existing cloud computing options. These are architecture and engineering studios that need to generate realistic images of their projects, film studios and video game publishers that need to process 3D animations and complex virtual scenes, but also large amounts of data of various types that come from computational fluid dynamics, from Risk Management analyzes and from medical and scientific research. «Our cloud network consists solely of computing units connected to our network. There are no input/output devices to interact with. No keyboards, no mice or monitors. The family that hosts the computer has no way of using it, they only benefit from the heat it generates» specifies Paisley.
Each Heata unit prevents a ton of CO2 from entering the atmosphere and saves around 250 pounds of hot water a year, a considerable discount given the current energy crisis in a region of the country where around 13 % of the inhabitants live in conditions of “fuel poverty”, i.e. they are unable to heat themselves adequately and at a reasonable cost, given their income. Furthermore, the costs of the electricity necessary to operate the unit are paid directly into the bill by Innovate UK, an incubator of UK Research and Innovation, the government funding agency that invests in science and research in the United Kingdom.
To date, 80 units have been installed and another 30 will have a boiler to heat by May. The trial had an excellent response from citizens: in addition to the participants, there are about a thousand families enrolled in the program but who are located outside the catchment area of the trial centered in Surrey. Furthermore, the company already has another 150 modified units ready to adapt to the latest generation boilers, for a similar experiment that will start in the coming months.

James, a 46 year old computer engineer, at work in his house in Woking, Surrey, UK. «I've spent the last ten years or so as a software engineer, enjoying making things and helping others to make them. I decided to be part of Heata trial because it seems such a natural idea. The world expends vast amounts of energy on cooling in data centres, and if we can put the excess heat to use rather than fighting it, that's a much better use of resources. The unit saves energy twice over. We no longer need the energy for cooling the compute units in data centres, and we don't need the energy for heating our hot water either, because we're using the waste heat from the compute unit to do it. It's a superb optimisation!».

Naomi play on the trampoline in her garden in Woking, Surrey, Uk.

Kevin, a 44 years old wellness specialist, in his flat in Godalming, Surrey, Uk.

Houses in Godalming, Surrey, UK. Over 4 million people in the UK live in fuel poverty, a number which has risen significantly with recent increases in energy costs. A goal of the Heata network is to make the unit accessible to people living in social housing, so the waste heat byproduct of compute can help reduce their hot water bills.

James Heather’s family was one of the first applicants. He is a manager of Google Play and is well aware of the environmental problems associated with digital: «I have spent the last ten years working as a software engineer, enjoying creating projects and helping others to create them. I decided to be part of the trial because it seemed like such a natural idea. The world spends huge amounts of energy cooling data centers, and if we can use that excess heat instead of fighting it, that’s a better use of resources and technology. The unit saves energy twice: we no longer need electricity to cool the computing units and we don’t even need electricity to heat the water, because we use the unit’s waste heat to do so. It’s a very clever optimization».
But the trial involves heterogeneous users in terms of age and household composition: there are singles, young families and elderly people with adult children. The reasons why they accepted embrace different plans: saving on bills, love for the environment, the desire to contribute to the climate challenge and the extravagant fascination of seeing a computer heat the water. Among them is Helen Whitcroft, mayor of Surrey Heat: “We started reducing our carbon footprint many years ago by installing a group of photovoltaic panels on the roof. We recently bought batteries to store the energy we produce. You also aroused our curiosity: it didn’t seem possible that a computer could heat water and continue to function ». Instead it works.