Research Uses Computation to Heat Homes

Many times corporations isolate their data centers because of the amount of heat the servers generate and use air conditioning to cool those areas. Instead, researchers have proposed creating smaller servers that are just as powerful and distributing them to individuals to heat homes and businesses. 

Lawrence Orsini, Founder of Project Exergy, a New York-based organization with the goal of changing how we use energy for the better, launched a Kick Starter Campaign Sunday to raise $500,000 to develop a protype.

Orsini's team is made up of energy professionals, mechanical engineers, software developers and makers who already have created a prototype of a powerful high performance computer designed to run as hot as possible to store heat and apply it to a home's space, water heating and air conditioning needs.

Exergy want to combine the largest energy consuming end use in the United States, heating and cooling, with the fastest growing consumer of energy today, computation, according to Orsini.

"We've just figured out a way of using existing technologies to do something new and novel," said Orsini.

The current prototype captures and stores the heat generated by computation and then applies that heat as needed in order to heat and eventually cool a home. The funding phase is to develop a more efficient, consumer-friendly model, and carry out field and lab tests with a team of researchers at the National Renewable Energy Lab.

"We're trying to build a community around the idea, so that people start thinking differently about computers and heat and the way that we're using these resources," Orsini said.

He added, "It's only a benefit if we actually just shift a few things. Nobody's really losing anything in the process. We're just gaining efficiency."

Project Exergy will only receive funding when they reach their goal amount.

For more information go to projectexergy.com