When we broke ground on the Odense Data Center in January 2017, we made a commitment to build one of the most advanced, energy-efficient data centers in the world. The facility — located in the third-largest city in Denmark — will capture the excess heat generated by our servers and recycle it into the local district heating system operated by Fjernvarme Fyn.

The heat recovery infrastructure will enable the recovery of 100,000 MWh of energy per year, which could produce enough heat to warm 6,900 homes. The energy will be recovered from our servers, and then recycled by a newly constructed heat pump facility powered by 100 percent clean and renewable energy.

The process to deliver heat to the community begins with a wind turbine. Multiple wind turbines create and add renewable energy to the electric grid powering our facility, including our servers. We will direct air heated by the servers over water coils which recover the heat by raising the temperature of the water. A heat pump facility powered by renewable energy raises the temperature of the water even more. The hot water is then delivered to the district heating network and distributed to the local community.

At all of our data centers, we look to make our operations as sustainable as possible. The facility will also feature our latest hyper-efficient hardware, will be cooled using outdoor air, and powered by clean and renewable wind energy. But our ability to recycle heat from our servers is unique to our Odense data center. This was made possible due to our close collaboration with the local district heating company Fjernvarme Fyn and its existing district heating network. The new data center is scheduled to open in 2020.

For more about Facebook's commitment to environmental stewardship, visit https://sustainability.fb.com/.