Shared and district heat reuse: What to track
Watch hours, heat payments and EU enforcement
What this tab covers The attributes worth tracking regularly, with the latest value, the direction of travel and why each matters.Watch running hours, payments for heat, EU enforcement and carbon prices that set the value of displaced boiler heat.
| Category | Attribute | Latest | Trend | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operational | Capacity factor and operating hours | Katri Vala about 6,250 h; Odense design about 4,000 h (both calculated)59 | ↗ improving | Selling cooling in summer lifts hours. |
| Operational | Thermal efficiency or COP over time | Not published for these plants; Eiranranta (2026) recovers heat from water at about 5 C12 | ↗ improving | Warmer liquid-cooled server heat should lift COP; ask operators for metered data. |
| Counterparty | Host counterparty credit and utilisation rate | Stockholm pays about EUR 190,000 per MW per year for delivered heat6 | → stable | Payment only for delivered heat shifts utilisation risk to the source. |
| Impact | t CO2e avoided per dollar invested | Fortum: about 400,000 t CO2/yr for about EUR 225 million of heat-plant investment, roughly 1.8 kg CO2 a year per euro (calculated; excludes data centre-side costs)714 | → stable | Per-euro abatement looks strong where coal or gas heat is displaced. |
| Operational | Heat exchanger fouling and cleaning frequency | Minor for data centres; treated wastewater used at Katri Vala to limit fouling8 | → stable | Sets availability of sewage and river schemes. |
| Policy | Local carbon pricing and penalties | EU ETS EUR 82-88/t in October 2026 (82.40 on 5 Oct, 88.3 on 12 Oct); India's CCTS covers seven industrial sectors (about 490 entities) from FY2025-26, not heat networks181920 | ↕ volatile | Carbon prices raise the cost of the gas or coal heat being displaced. |
| Technology-specific | EED Article 26 data centre waste heat duty | Member States had to transpose by 11 October 2025 (as reported); applies above 1 MW23 | ↗ improving | Turns heat reuse from optional to expected in the EU. |
| Technology-specific | German reused-energy share for new data centres | 10% for sites commissioned from July 2026, rising to 20% for sites from July 2028; June 2026 draft amendment adds heat-network exemptions416 | ↗ improving | First hard national quota. |
Sources
- The EU's Energy Efficiency Directive and its impact on datacenters Covington & Burling (law firm briefing), 2025
- Centros de datos: obligations under Directive (EU) 2023/1791, Articles 12 and 26 Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition (MITECO), 2025
- Data centres and waste heat: an overview of the legal requirements for waste heat utilisation (Germany) Bird & Bird, 2024
- Odense Data Center 2 Meta (Facebook Engineering), 2020
- Stockholm, Sweden: heat recovery from data centres (Covenant of Mayors case study) EU Covenant of Mayors, 2023
- Fortum and Microsoft announce world's largest collaboration to heat homes, services and businesses with sustainable waste heat from new data centre region Fortum, 2022
- Katri Vala heating and cooling plant Helen, 2025
- Waste heat plays a significant role in a sustainable energy system Helen, 2023
- New-technology heat pump plant starts at Eiranranta, recovering heat from water as cold as 5 C Helen, 2026
- Fortum has started heat production at two large data centre sites in Finland Fortum, 2026
- Data centre update: draft bill to amend the Energy Efficiency Act Gleiss Lutz, 2026
- European carbon prices drop to 7-week low as market eyes upcoming policy agenda S&P Global Commodity Insights, 2026
- European carbon prices rose to EUR 88/t in October GMK Center (ICE data), 2026
- Compliance obligations under India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme enter force for seven sectors ICAP, 2026