Homes in east London could be heated by computers
Some homes in east London could be warmed by heat generated by computers.
That's part of a proposal to build a new massive tech centre in Newham, which has been dubbed London's answer to Silicon Valley.
A public consultations opened on the Canning Town project which would take six years to complete.
It's promising to generate £115 million for the local economy as well as hundreds of jobs.
The project is being brought forward by sineQN – a developer in the data centre sector.
It says on the consultation website:
“Once operational, it will provide hundreds of high-skilled jobs across the local workforce and further significant investment into the Newham economy.
“The development will provide significant environmental and public realm improvements – both along Bidder Street and by opening up the River Lea to complete the river walk linkage from Canning Town to Stratford.”
The development also promises to use computer heat to warm up residents’ homes and added: “It will also contribute to London’s net zero target, through proposals for a pilot district heating scheme using clean, recycled heat from the computer servers to provide heating for local homes.”
A planning application was submitted to Newham Council last month and shows what the proposed data centre could look like, and has already been compared to 33 Thomas Street in New York – a 170m tall windowless skyscraper that operates as a telephone exchange.
Building a huge data centre would benefit the council’s Newham Sparks programme, which was launched in September 2021 and aims to make Newham the heart of London’s data sector.
Cllr Areeq Chowdhury, whose ward is Canning Town North, tweeted about the public consultation last Tuesday (November 8).
He said: “There will be a public consultation between 14 & 27 November on proposals to build a hyper-scale data centre in Canning Town. There’ll also be an event at Canning Town Library on 16 November.”
Newham Council has been contacted for comment.
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