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Borderlight AB, a leading supplier of advanced IT and Telecom services to the public sector and industry sectors, has decided to build a new data center with large scale heat reuse in cooperation with Europe’s leading district heating operator Fortum Värme in Stockholm, Sweden. With full IT load, the implementation will run at more than 5 MW and heat some 10,000 modern residential apartments.

Borderlight’s sister company GoGreenHost will provide the server blades and racks specifically optimized for heat recovery, with rack densities reaching up to 100 kW per 19″ rack. The cooperation between Borderlight, GoGreenHost and Fortum Värme is a strong validation of Stockholm Data Parks’ objective to attract and promote a data center industry where no heat is wasted.

The excess heat from the Datacenter will be captured, recovered and reused for heating of buildings in Stockholm. This is made possible by Fortum Värme’s district heating network which connects more than 10,000 buildings, representing an aggregated heating demand of 12 TWh per year.

“Borderlight’s and GoGreenHost’s target is to become a leading supplier of advanced IT services coupled with efficient heat recovery from data centers that reach close to 100% recovery of consumed electrical power. GoGreenHost technology creates a new potent heat energy source with a very low carbon foot print. Our plan is to contract installation of 30 MW in new data center capacity 2017 and another 60 MW 2018 in sizes from 1-6 MW per site, all connected to a redundant high capacity fiber backbone. GoGreenHost’s ramp up time to delivery of full heat capacity per new data center site is typically 6-12 months”, says Sten Oscarsson, CEO of Borderlight and GoGreenHost AB.

GoGreenHost’s solution uses new inventive heat recovery technology integrated directly in the server systems in combination with new heat pump design. Recovered heat energy is fed directly from the data center to the district heating network at the required temperature. Fortum Värme purchases this recovered heat from GoGreenHost.

“Borderlight and GoGreenHost will make a very significant contribution to Stockholm Data Parks’ objective to reuse data center excess heat on a large scale. It’s particularly exciting to see how the digitalization of our societies and GoGreenHost’s high-density technology can enrich one another to the benefit of all parties as well as the environment”, says Erik Rylander, Head of Stockholm Data Parks at Fortum Värme.

Close to ninety percent of all buildings in Stockholm are connected to the district heating network. The Swedish capital is one of the few cities in the world where large-scale heat reuse from major data centers is possible. The long-term objective is to meet ten percent of the city’s heating needs through data center waste heat reuse.

For more information, please contact:
Erik Rylander
Head of Stockholm Data Parks
Fortum Värme
erik.rylander@fortum.com
+46 70 693 51 84

Sten Oscarsson, CEO
Borderlight and GoGreenHost AB
sten.oscarsson@gogreenhost.se
+46 709 174 650

About Borderlight
Borderlight AB is a Telecom operator founded in 2001 focused on long term contracts in the public sector with Swedish government, regional hospitals and municipalities. Borderlight has been chosen as one of five suppliers in the Swedish Government procurement framework contract avropa that includes all government departments and approximately 50% of Sweden’s municipalities and regional hospitals. Borderlight´s revenue from public sector has reached over 500 million SEK ($60M) since start. Borderlight’s average annual revenue (including enterprise customers) the last years is 96 million SEK ($11M) with an average EBITDA of ca 45% for the past 10 years.

About GoGreenHost
GoGreenHost AB develops, builds and manages large volume of distributed data centers in sizes from 1-30 MW per site that are interconnected with optical fiber and new technology for highly efficient heat recovery of close to all used electrical power. This creates a new energy source for district heating with zero burn of fuel and very high reliability, since data centers is built for 99,6 – 99,999% uptime 24×365. Customers spans from public sector with government, municipalities, regional hospitals, to enterprise customers and export of large scale computing capacity.

About Fortum and Fortum Värme
Fortum is a leading Nordic energy company with the vision to be the forerunner in clean energy. The company has around 8,000 employees in the countries along the Baltic rim, Russia and India. Ninety-three percent of Fortum’s power generation in the EU is CO2-free. The Swedish associated company Fortum Värme, jointly owned with the City of Stockholm, is the Nordic leader in heat, cooling and heat recovery solutions. The company has more than 10,000 residential and real estate customers relying on its services in the Stockholm area.

About heat recovery and Stockholm Data Parks
Fortum Värme has been promoting heat recovery since 1979, with IBM’s data center as the first supplier of excess heat. Starting 2012, the work was intensified and a heat recovery offering and market place named Open District Heating (“Öppen Fjärrvärme”) was launched. In 2017, it was decided, in cooperation with the City of Stockholm, grid provider Ellevio and dark fiber operator Stokab, to launch Stockholm Data Parks to encourage major data center operators to locate in Stockholm with a view to performing heat recovery on a large scale. Examples of other data center operators already supplying excess heat to Fortum Värme are Interxion, Ericsson and Bahnhof.

For more information, visit Stockholm Data Parks

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Leading fashion retailer H&M has decided to build a new data center in Stockholm with cooling and heat recovery integrated from the start. Energy company Fortum Värme will reuse the data center excess heat by distributing it to customers throughout the city. The new H&M data center is designed to handle an IT load of 1 MW and can heat some 2,500 modern residential apartments at full load.

H&M’s decision is a validation of Fortum Värme’s and Stockholm Data Parks’ ambition to attract and promote a data center industry where no heat is wasted. H&M has recovered heat from its Stockholm data centers since 2013, and the new data center, which will be operational in 2018, significantly extends and multiplies H&M’s contribution to heating the city.

“IT is at the core of H&M’s business, and it’s important for us to be as sustainable as possible in everything we do. Just as we collect second hand clothes for reuse and recycling, it will be imperative for future data centers to recover excess heat,” says Jan Lundin, head of H&M data centers.

The solution chosen by H&M uses heat pumps in an N+1 configuration. Excess energy is fed directly from the data center to the district heating network at the required temperature.

“It’s fantastic that a growing number of companies are connecting their systems to our district heating network and stop wasting data center excess heat. I’m particularly thrilled that H&M, which has been gaining experience of heat recovery in recent years, has decided to design its data center with a redundant cooling and heat recovery solution from the outset. It’s smart and profitable, and together we can make Stockholm even more sustainable,” says Erik Rylander, Head of Stockholm Data Parks at Fortum Värme.

Close to ninety percent of all buildings in Stockholm are connected to the district heating network. The Swedish capital is one of the few cities in the world where large-scale heat reuse from major data centers is possible. The objective is to meet ten percent of the city’s heating needs through heat recovery.

For more information, please contact:

Erik Rylander
Head of Stockholm Data Parks
Fortum Värme
erik.rylander@fortum.com
+46 70 693 51 84

For more information, visit Stockholm Data Parks. You can also follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter

Stockholm Data Parks recently had the opportunity to speak about PPAs with Charlotte Unger Larson at the Swedish Wind Energy Association and Paul Stormoen from wind farm developer OX2.

Wind power in Sweden took a surprising step in the second quarter of 2017, with 232 MW of wind power being committed for new projects. In recent years, Sweden has seen growing interest in traditional and renewable PPAs with large corporations such as Google and IKEA driving development of capacity and business models.

Charlotte and Paul, what is a Power Purchasing Agreement (PPA)?
– It’s an agreement between a buyer and a producer of electricity. These contracts are outside Nordpool, the standard market for electricity in the Nordic region. They are typically used for large contracts over longer time periods: anything from seven to 20 years. For these types of time frames, it is difficult to secure predictable prices on the standard market. PPAs can be based on any type of energy source, but their recent surge in popularity has been driven by renewables and primarily wind power.

Different companies have different reasons for concluding PPAs. All companies engaging in a PPA want to get a predictable price over a longer time period than what is typically available on Nordpool. Some companies, like Google and IKEA, are also focused on sustainability and want to ensure that their consumption is matched by additional renewable capacity in the system.

In the build out of renewable wind power, the data center industry, notably Google, has been playing a key role. Since 2012, Google has contracted around 450 MW of renewable wind PPAs in Sweden. In energy terms, that corresponds to close to 1% of Sweden’s total electricity consumption.

How are PPAs connected to Sweden’s system to promote renewable energy?
– In Sweden, new renewable energy production is promoted through a market-based mechanism where producers of renewable energy receive a tradeable certificate for every MWh they produce. Electricity consumers are required to purchase such certificates in proportion to their usage. Price is determined by demand and supply on SKM (Svensk Kraftmäkling), an independent marketplace. By regulating the amount of certificates that consumers need to acquire, the Swedish Parliament influences the price and, thus, the subsidy to renewable energy.

The current scheme aims to make some 28.4 TWh of renewable energy available to 2020, most of which will be wind power, including capacity in Norway. Counting on-going wind projects, this objective has already been reached, corresponding to a capacity of around 9 GW. For 2030, the ambition is that the system should generate an additional 18 TWh.

The increase of renewable PPAs tend to accelerate the build out of wind energy, leveraging the tradeable certificates as part of the PPAs. PPAs reduce the risk for the parties involved and, thus, lower the threshold for a positive investment decision.

Paul, how are PPAs structured?
– Over the past year, the structure of PPAs has developed significantly. They have become longer and involve more parties to handle different types of risks. OX2 acts as a combination of broker and producer. We bring all parties to the table and match demand, financing, finance structure and ownership, and ensure construction as well as operation and maintenance. Typical ownership would be a pension fund with the support of bank loans in what could be a 50/50 mix.

To handle the intermittency of renewable energy, the deals most often require a third-party energy provider of some sort, with responsibility to ensure the energy balance when there is insufficient wind to fulfill delivery obligations.

In these deals, demand and price are fixed, and contract terms will determine how price risk is divided between the producer and the balancing party. To get an idea of price, the Nordpool forward market gives an indication, even though the timeframe and volume traded on Nordpool is shorter and lower, respectively.

Note from Stockholm Data Parks: prices are confidential, but considering Nordpool forward prices and current fierce competition, it can be assumed that long-term PPAs come in below EUR 30/MWh.

Sometimes, even an insurance company can become involved to handle counterparty risk, in case a consumer or producer would be unable to fulfil their obligations over a contract period.

For a customer who wants to ensure renewable energy for all volumes under the PPA, deals can be complemented with Guarantees of Origin for all electrical power that originates from other sources than wind.

Charlotte and Paul, in conclusion, what should we expect for wind and PPAs in the future?
– Now that the new framework for reaching an additional 18 TWh of renewable energy has been agreed, we are set for a continued expansion of wind power in Sweden, as evidenced by the strong figures for the second quarter. With the energy transformation going on in Europe and global warming looming, predicting energy prices for the future will remain a challenge. With that background, and wind power production costs expected to continue to decrease, it is likely that renewable PPAs will increase in significance in the years ahead.