Heat Waste — ‘Not just a net-taker’
A BABLE Podcast Write-up
Missed the third episode of Smart in the City — the BABLE Podcast? Catch up here on key highlights of our conversation with Michael Oghia exploring the topic of heat waste and how to turn such waste into urban benefit and gain.
Together we can really look at some of the existing problems in the world today… and think where do we need more tech? Where do we need policy? Where do we need advocacy? Where do we need citizen groups coming out and saying “This is how I want my community to look, and this is how I want to interact with it. This is how I want to exist within it”…. And I think a lot of that needs to be citizen-driven. So understanding this interaction… understanding these dynamics, is really important and there’s so many ways we can continue to do that together. — Micheal Oghia
For the third episode of Smart in the City — the BABLE Podcast, host Tamlyn Shimizu sat down with Micheal Oghia, former Director of External Relations for the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance (SDIA), and Miguel Mósca, Smart Cities Consultant at BABLE, to explore the important topic of reducing heat waste, how networks are tackling such challenges and where there is potential to create positive benefits out of seemingly negative impacts.
Networks for good: About SDIA
The SDIA strives to bring together companies, individuals and governments to advocate for and realise key initiatives such as heat reuse, smarter power consumption and efficient use of resources.
As further explained by Micheal, ‘SDIA is a nonprofit network co-based in the Netherlands and Germany that brings together more than 65 members and partners to essentially create a sustainable digital economy. And the way we are trying to do that is obviously we focus on sustainable digital infrastructure, the idea being that if you look at the entire value chain underpinning the digital economy, there’s 30+ industries from all across the sector, from energy provision and generation all the way up to software. So the idea we have is that if we really want to make an impact and make the sector sustainable, we need to bring all these sectors together to work in a much more collaborative, systems-based collaborative way’.
Sustainability initiatives would ideally aim to be as holistic as possible to achieve the greatest impact, but currently, many initiatives are quite ‘piecemeal’. One of the biggest value adds of an organisation like SDIA is focusing very strongly on making the business case for sustainability by demonstrating how it can be economically viable and, therefore, sustainable in the long term.
Data centres, heat and waste — oh my!
Dorothy in the Land of Oz had her ‘lions, tigers and bears’ to confront, but when it comes to achieving sustainable digital infrastructure and a broader sustainable digital economy, heat waste — particularly from data centres — remains one of the greatest challenges to tackle.
But just as Dorothy ended up befriending her ‘lions, tigers and bears’ (or at least the Cowardly Lion!), data centres are necessary digital infrastructure and heat waste isn’t merely all it seems on the surface; rather, there can be ways to ensure that such digital infrastructure is ‘not just a net-taker’.
So then, where do we focus in terms of heat waste and heat waste reuse?
Data centres take quite a lot of energy to run and cool, and there is a large amount of heat created as a waste byproduct through such processes. The idea of heat waste reuse explores how to capture this heat that is being generated and repurpose it to, e.g. support local businesses, schools and other facilities in fulfilling basic needs — activities that would otherwise often need to be fulfilled through the use of fossil fuels.
While we talk about many different energy topics and issues related to municipalities of all sizes, there is still a lot to work on. Data centre heat waste reuse (or heat waste reuse also from other industrial applications) is a topic deserving of more attention, particularly its potential as part of holistic approaches to promote sustainable community development and policies. There are great possibilities within this area to ‘take our idea of waste and transform it into something very useful’.
Supporting smaller municipalities and areas facing energy poverty
The ones struggling with the most energy poverty are the ones that are not urban but more rural, and these can also take the same advantage as other from heat waste reuse… but sometimes they lack the basic infrastructures to do it. — Miguel Mósca
The Nordics have many strong examples of municipalities using district heating and cooling (e.g. in Stockholm) and demonstrate the promise of what can be done at a more local level toward capitalising on heat waste reuse.
But what prevents many smaller municipalities from pursuing the same?
According to Oghia, a key issue can be stakeholder engagement and ensuring buy-in from all stakeholders — related to policy, pricing and more. The ecosystem around this issue is complex, and there needs to be will both at a political and financial level as well as from the community. Added by Mósca, on top of stakeholder engagement, investment in this area is also quite critical, ‘not just to be profitable but also for the wellbeing of the people’ — something which is often easier stated than accomplished with these types of projects.
Roll with the Punches: your turn!
In this episode, during a fun wrap-up in our ‘Roll with the Punches’ segment, we asked our two guests to choose from several ‘this or that’ option pairings.
And now it’s your turn! Leave us a comment to let us know which you prefer:
- Walking or Cycling?
- Heat pumps or District heating and cooling?
- Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk?
- Past or Future?
Want to learn more about heat waste reuse and other Smart City topics?
Be sure to listen to the full podcast episode for more insights — some more factual and some more fun — including:
- If SDIA and BABLE were superheroes, what would their powers be?
- How is SDIA making the business case for sustainability? What actions most need to be taken and advocated for?
- Where are data centres and regulations most heavily relevant in Europe and having the greatest impact with regards to heat waste and reuse?
- What ideas are there for concrete value-adding actions for reusing heat waste? And which stakeholders can be engaged?
- Which stakeholders are most important to heat waste reuse and what are the key issues often facing stakeholder engagement in this area?
- How did Michael and Miguel respond to our ‘Roll with the Punches’ segment? And our ending question ‘To you, what is a Smart City’?
And if you are reading (or listening) as a representative of a city or network, we’d love to have you join us on a future episode. Reach out to our host Tamlyn Shimizu with your interest.
And for even more insights, join our Smart City community
Make sure to also take a look at our other energy-related Medium articles, and always feel free to reach out to us for any inquiry.
