Mark Bjornsgaard, Founder and CEO of Deep Green
Covered extensively in the national media over the last month, Deep Green’s technology uses waste heat from its edge data centres to provide free heating for swimming pools, heat networks and beyond. Lucy Dixon spoke to CEO Mark Bjornsgaard about Deep Green’s recent fame and project with Exmouth Leisure Centre.
Tell us about Deep Green
We’ve been developing the solution for five years with increasingly sophisticated prototypes until we got to the first commercial version, which is the unit in Exmouth Leisure Centre. The media coverage has been amazing and very unexpected, but is the result of five years of work – a five-year overnight success!
How did the project with Exmouth get started?
We needed a pool, and so I ranted to my network on LinkedIn until I was connected with Swim England. Once they realised we were serious and what the technology was capable of , they have been so supportive and allowed us to talk to a number of swimming pool operators and potential hosts. It’s not a hard proposition to sell for the pool: “I’m going to cut your energy bill and reduce your carbon emissions, for free.” From the host’s point of view, it’s a relatively short conversation. Since the BBC covered it and then all the TV appearances, I think we’ve been contacted by just about every swimming pool in the northern hemisphere, which is amazing. It illustrates the economic distress.
And can your technology help all these pools?
Every swimming pool could use it. There are there are issues of connectivity – we need to put a great big broadband pipe in – so there are some areas of the country where that is quite challenging. But there are all sorts of fixes to get around this. But what’s even more interesting than swimming pools is you can apply it to district heating systems, for instance by heating a block of flats with a centralised boiler. It is exciting to think that we could actually heat people’s homes for free.
Are data centres typically built in the right places for these projects?
Not yet. They’re often built in the middle of nowhere where they will use million litres of water a year evaporating all the heat that the computers generate (97% of the electricity that goes into computer comes out as heat). You do get data centres that connected to greenhouses or are plugged into district heating systems, but as a percentage of all data centres world-wide it’s very low. The point is if we can recapture the heat then we should do it. If we were sitting here fifty years ago designing the data centre industry from scratch, it would be agreed in less than a minute about putting data centres where the heat’s needed, but, in reality, we have this legacy to deal with.
How does the technology work?
It is super simple, that’s the brilliant thing about it – it’s really old technology that we’re applying to a new problem. We submerge the computers in oil, which is pumped around and heats up, then you flow that into a heat exchanger, which extracts the heat and pushes it into water. Super simple and takes us three days to fit.
What difference is it making to Exmouth Leisure Centre?
At the moment we are reducing the amount of gas they use to heat the pool by 60%. This means both a reduction in costs and a reduction in their carbon footprint. We have got a bit more capacity that we can put in so we hope to get to 70 or 80%. There is an issue with old pools that are flushed with cold water every week to clean the filters, and for that to happen and then heat up again you need a lot of hot water very quickly. But newer pools, they don’t have that system, so for them we could probably do about 90% or even more.
Exmouth Leisure Centre is operated by LED Leisure
Chief Executive Peter Gilpin has said:
Deep Green’s innovative technology will dramatically reduce our energy bills and carbon footprint, meaning we will continue to be a key asset for the local community. We are already seeing the benefit. I’m certain this will transform leisure centres up and down the country for the better.
LED is now applying for ASHPs – from the recently announced decarbonisation funding for pools.
