On-site PV and renewable integration
Roof and perimeter photovoltaics, direct PPAs and on-site battery buffering reduce grid dependency and stabilize cost. Designed for Nordic, Atlantic and Continental climate zones alike.
Open project · Europe & world
The data center
The data center
that gives energy back.
A reference blueprint for the data center of the AI era — on-site photovoltaics, advanced liquid cooling and waste-heat recovery into district networks. Designed to be replicated in any digital hub from the Nordics to the Mediterranean and beyond.
~460 TWh
global DC electricity demand today · IEA
~1,000 TWh
projected annual demand by 2030
~40%
share of DC energy used for cooling today
PUE < 1.2
target vs. 1.55 industry average
Stage · Reference concept
Scope · 1 – 100 MW+ modular
Lead · ITC Europe
Open to partners
A data center should not be a black box that burns electricity and dumps heat. It should be a district-scale energy asset — producing its own power where it can, and returning the rest as usable heat to the city next door.Wolfgang Beick · President, ITC Europe
01 — Why this, why now
Compute is the new industry. Energy is its bottleneck.
The data center industry is entering a step change. AI workloads, the cloud and edge processing will push global data-center electricity consumption from roughly 460 TWh today toward 1,000 TWh by 2030 (IEA). In parts of Europe — Ireland, the Nordics, Frankfurt — data centers already consume more than 15% of national grid capacity.
The question is no longer can we build more. It is how we build them — so that compute growth does not cancel out Europe's climate progress. Every new facility built to the old playbook locks in decades of inefficient cooling and wasted heat.
~2%
Share of global electricity consumed by data centers today
~4%
Projected share by 2030 without efficiency gains
25–40%
Efficiency gain achievable with integrated design
~50 °C
Typical waste-heat temperature — usable in district networks
Site · Modular · 1 – 100 MW+
One design language. Three scales. Infinite sites.
The same architectural principles — renewable integration, liquid cooling, heat recovery — scale from an edge node to a regional hub to a hyperscale campus.
02 — The concept
Three engineering moves, one integrated facility.
Most of the efficiency gap between today's average data center and the theoretical optimum comes down to three engineering decisions — usually made in isolation. We design them as a single system.
Advanced liquid & free cooling
Direct-to-chip liquid cooling, rear-door heat exchangers and climate-appropriate free cooling bring PUE below 1.2 while enabling much higher rack densities for AI workloads.
Waste-heat recovery into district networks
Low-grade heat (35–55 °C) is captured and fed into local district heating, industrial pre-heating or greenhouse clusters — turning a thermal loss into a contracted revenue stream.
03 — Scenarios
One architecture, three deployment scales.
Indicative figures based on current European typologies. All numbers are order-of-magnitude guides for early conversations, not engineering commitments.
| Scale | IT load | Target PUE | Heat export potential | Typical context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A · Edge | 1 – 5 MW | ≤ 1.25 | 5 – 25 GWh/yr | Urban edge node, local district heating link |
| B · Regional | 5 – 30 MW | ≤ 1.20 | 25 – 150 GWh/yr | Regional cloud hub, industrial park symbiosis |
| C · Hyperscale | 30 – 100 MW+ | ≤ 1.15 | 150 – 500+ GWh/yr | Full PV + wind PPA, metropolitan heat off-take |
04 — Who this is for
Four kinds of partners shape this programme.
Hyperscalers & colocation
Operators building the next generation of facilities, willing to commit to PUE < 1.2 and heat-export from day one.
- Cloud
- Colo
- Edge
District heating operators
Municipal and industrial heat network operators looking for a stable, low-carbon base-load input of recovered heat.
- Municipal
- Industrial
- Greenhouses
Utilities & renewables
Utility partners, PV and wind developers, storage providers and PPA structurers that can match a 24/7 data load.
- PV
- Wind
- Storage
Investors & developers
Infrastructure funds, project developers and EPC partners co-leading the engineering phase alongside ITC Europe.
- Infra funds
- EPC
- Dev partners
Detail · PV + Cooling
A rooftop that earns its electrons.
Integrated PV canopies, adiabatic coolers and heat exchangers sized for the local climate — no two sites are the same.
05 — How we work together
A staged path from concept to investment decision.
Exploration call
A 30-minute conversation to see if the scope, geography and timeline fit your organisation.
Scoped workshop
We map the parts of the programme you can operate, co-fund, off-take or supply. Technical leads from both sides take part.
Joint pre-feasibility
A bounded study (3–6 months) producing the numbers needed for an investment decision or a public funding bid.
Consortium
If the pre-feasibility lands, the partners form a consortium to carry engineering, permitting and financing.
On the ground
Real facilities, real measurements. Now looking for partners.
20+ years of energy audits in banking, industrial and data-center environments inform every parameter in this concept.
06 — Join our vision
Write to us. Bring a question, a capacity, or a site.
We treat every serious message as a conversation, not a pitch. Tell us briefly who you represent and what part of the programme you are curious about — we will come back with a short, specific reply.
Project inquiries
info@itc-europe.com
Working languages: English · German · Polish.