District heating for the AI age

Bryan Alexander sent me this, courtesy of PV Magazine.

Finnish state-owned energy company Fortum has commenced operations of two large-scale heat pump plants. The plants are located in Kolabacken, within the Kirkkonummi municipality, and Hepokorpi, Espoo municipality, both within the Helsinki Metropolitan Area of southern Finland.

Fortum has announced that that “production will increase significantly once the plants begin to utilize excess heat from Microsoft‘s two data centres located on the Kolabacken and Hepokorpi industrial sites, following an agreement between the two companies to implement an excess heat offtaker solution”.

Fortum has said for a long time in the Finnish media that data centers represent a largely unused source of heat. The article quotes Peter Strannegård, Fortum’s Executive Vice President, Renewables and Decarbonisation, as saying that in the near future data centre waste heat is expected to cover approximately 40% of the total 2 TWh annual district heating needed for the 250,000 heat users in the area.

Note:

Patrick Jowett wrote the original article, which PV Magazine published on May 7, 2026.