Summary
- Surplus heat from atNorth's planned 250MW DEN02 campus will supply a greenhouse development on neighbouring land.
- The heat-reuse scheme is intended to scale with the data centre, with its first greenhouse phase targeted for Q3 2028.
- The project moves heat reuse beyond efficiency reporting by creating a dedicated commercial offtaker next to the campus.
atNorth has agreed a heat-reuse partnership with Selected Group that will direct surplus heat from its planned DEN02 data centre campus in Ølgod, Denmark, into a large commercial greenhouse development on adjoining land.
The heat project is intended to expand alongside the data centre, with the first greenhouse phase planned for completion in the third quarter of 2028. DEN02 is being developed as a 250MW campus across approximately 176 hectares, with its first data centre capacity expected to energise in phases.
Selected Group specialises in greenhouse developments designed around recovered energy. Its existing RegEnergy project in Frövi, Sweden, uses a similar model, pairing large-scale horticulture with low-temperature surplus heat that would otherwise have limited commercial value.
Locating the greenhouse next to DEN02 reduces one of the persistent difficulties around data centre heat reuse: moving low-grade heat far enough to reach a useful customer. Long pipe runs, pumping requirements, heat losses, temperature differences, and the cost of district heating connections can weaken the economics of projects where the source and the offtaker are separated.
An offtaker designed around the data centre
The Ølgod proposal takes a different approach by developing the heat customer alongside the data centre itself. Rather than waiting for an existing district heating network or industrial consumer to absorb output, the parties intend to create a greenhouse load whose location and development timetable are deliberately coupled with DEN02.
That does not make the engineering automatic. The temperature of the recovered water, seasonal heat demand, heat-pump requirements, redundancy arrangements, maintenance outages, and changing server utilisation all affect how much useful energy can move from the data centre into agricultural production.
A large data centre can provide a relatively steady heat source compared with many industrial processes, but the greenhouse also requires dependable thermal conditions. The interface therefore has to accommodate periods when either facility is operating below normal output or undergoing maintenance.
The project is another step in atNorth’s broader heat-reuse strategy. The operator has previously agreed to supply recovered energy from its DEN01 campus around Copenhagen into district heating and has also developed reuse arrangements in Finland.
DataCentral recently examined a different model in Poland, where Citylink set out heat-recovery plans around its 24MW Wrocław facility. Both projects illustrate that useful heat recovery depends less on a generic sustainability claim than on the physical availability of an offtaker and infrastructure capable of accepting the energy.
Heat reuse is moving into project design
European reporting and efficiency requirements are bringing more attention to the energy leaving data centres as heat. Operators can improve server and cooling efficiency, but large campuses still reject significant thermal energy, particularly as rack densities rise and liquid cooling makes heat collection more concentrated.
Liquid-cooled systems can improve the practical case for reuse because they can produce warmer water than traditional room-level air cooling, reducing the temperature lift required before recovered energy becomes useful elsewhere. The final benefit depends on the specific cooling architecture at DEN02 and the thermal requirements of the greenhouse.
The greenhouse agreement is also notable because the reuse infrastructure will need to grow with a campus expected to reach 250MW. A heat network designed for an early phase may need additional exchangers, pumps, pipework, and control capacity as more data halls enter operation.
Agriculture creates a potentially flexible destination for that output. Greenhouses require substantial heating in northern European climates and can convert a waste stream from digital infrastructure into a direct input for local food production. The commercial case still depends on the cost of constructing and operating the heat-transfer system compared with alternative energy sources.
DEN02’s scale means that heat reuse will not eliminate the campus’s wider energy footprint. Electrical supply, grid impact, embodied carbon, cooling system design, water consumption, and the demand created by hundreds of megawatts of IT capacity remain separate questions.
The Selected Group agreement nevertheless gives the project a defined heat customer before the full campus is operational. That is materially different from designing a facility as merely capable of heat reuse and then searching for an offtaker afterwards.
The next test is delivery. The first greenhouse phase is not expected until 2028, leaving the parties to align construction, data centre energisation, thermal infrastructure, and commercial operation over several years. If those schedules remain aligned, DEN02 will provide a sizeable European example of heat reuse being treated as part of site planning rather than a retrofit added after commissioning.
