Performance analysis of condensing heat recovery from data centers for heating in northern China

The heating energy consumption in northern China is huge, meanwhile, with the rapid development of data centers, a large amount of exhausted heat from data centers is usually emitted directly into the ambient. Based on a steadystate hourly energy model, adopts the thermal siphon / vapor compression integrated air conditioning system, and analyses the heating effect in typical cities in northern China. The results show that the condensing heat recovery from a common data center of 1 000 square meters could provide heating for a residential building of 13 000 square meters in Harbin or 16 000 square meters in Beijing. Furthermore, the heating area would increase by more than 60% and the payback period be no longer than two years if 10% of the total amount of heating could be provided with assisted heating system.