British Gas gives away free hot water in trial to help cut bills by up to £340 a year. (Image: Getty)
has launched a trial aimed at helping households reduce their by utilising waste heat from computer servers. The three-month trial, in collaboration with sustainable cloud computing provider heata, will see water heating units installed in the homes of 10 British Gas employees.
These units will capture heat generated by the energy provider’s computing workloads and convert it into free hot water for the participating households. The technology, developed by heata, is said to provide up to 4kWh of hot water daily, potentially families up to £340 a year by reducing the need for electricity to heat water, or £120 annually if their hot water is currently heated by gas.
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Households may save hundreds of pounds a year with this technology. (Image: Getty)
The project is designed to not only help households save money but also reduce the environmental impact of energy consumption.
Chris Jordan, co-founder of heata, said: “We’ve created a solution that reuses waste heat from cloud computing to provide free hot water for families in our communities.
“Our reliance on data centres is only going to grow, as they are fundamental to training and running artificial intelligence. By thinking differently about how we build and use data processing infrastructure, we can use a byproduct of this boom to help support our communities and reduce the carbon impact of computing at the same time.”
Paul Lodwidge, head of energy product and propositions at British Gas, added: “Innovative projects like this are another example of how the UK is becoming a leader in cutting carbon emissions. We’re proud to be able to support [heata] with this latest trial and will work together to share insights and learnings that will enable the business to scale up its offering.”
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Heata’s technology works by distributing computing workloads to servers located in people’s homes.
In a traditional data centre, the heat generated from processing data is wasted, requiring cooling systems to prevent servers from overheating. By placing servers in homes and connecting them to hot water cylinders, the heat generated during data processing is transferred into the water, reducing the need for additional heating.
Heata covers the cost of the electricity used by the units, allowing households to pay less for their hot water.
The trial will help British Gas and heata determine how effective mini data centres at home could be in heating water and reducing energy bills.