• Citylink and Kogeneracja signed a 28 July letter of intent to develop waste-heat recovery from the 24MW Wrocław Stadion data centre
  • The facility is still under construction, and the heat-recovery system has no published cost, completion date or usable heat volume

The fact

Citylink and Zespół Elektrociepłowni Wrocławskich Kogeneracja signed a letter of intent on 28 July to explore the use of waste heat from the Wrocław Stadion data centre in the city’s district-heating network. The 24MW facility is still under construction, and Citylink says it has been designed to allow heat recovery to expand if the site grows.

Citylink, a Warsaw-based property developer with business parks across Poland, said the agreement will begin work on the technical solutions needed to recover and supply the heat. Further engineering and operational analysis is still required. Data Center Dynamics reported that the heat-recovery system remains in design and development, with no estimated cost or completion date disclosed.

The assessment

Because the data centre is still under construction, Citylink and Kogeneracja can work on the heat-recovery connection while the rest of the site is being built. The agreement gives both sides a chance to define how waste heat would be transferred into Wrocław’s district-heating network before any final supply arrangement is signed.

Several important details are still unresolved. Neither company has said how much heat could be delivered, what the final system will look like, what it will cost or when it could start operating. For BTW readers, the 24MW figure describes the data centre’s capacity, not the heat Wrocław will receive. The agreement moves the idea into technical development, but a usable heat volume and binding supply arrangement are still needed before it becomes a defined infrastructure project.

What to watch

The next step is to see whether Citylink and Kogeneracja agree on a final heat-recovery design and how much heat the system could supply. A binding agreement and a timetable would move the project closer to delivery. Citylink has not said when the system could enter service.