Waste Heat Recovery from Servers Using an Air to Water Heat Pump

Abstract

The analysis of advisability and profitability of using an air to water heat pump for the purpose of waste heat recovery from servers being used as cryptocurrency mining rigs, was performed. To carry out such an analysis, the cooling unit of the computing server was connected to the heat pump, and the entire system was adequately equipped with devices measuring parameters of the process. Performed experiments proves that the heat pump coefficient of performance (COP) reaches satisfactory values (i.e., an average of 4.21), what is the result of stable and high-temperature source of heat at the pump inlet (i.e., in the range of 29.9-34.1). Economic analysis shows a significant reduction in the cost of heating domestic hot water (by nearly 59-61%). The main conclusion which can be drawn from the paper, is that in a case of having a waste heat source in a form of a server or similar, it is advisable to consider the purchase of air-to-water heat pump for the purpose of domestic hot water heating.