District Energy Supported by Excess Heat from Data Centers
For the period January 30-31, 2025, a team from the Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC) visited the Equinix “TR5” data center campus at the Markham District Energy system, in Markham, Ontario, in Canada. The purpose of the study tour was to observe the development, operations and performance of the data center within the broader Markham District Energy system and to assess the potential applications of equivalent systems to Northern Virginia.
NVRC met with and discussed the relationship between data centers and district energy with officials from Equinix, the City of Markham, FVB Energy, Noventa Energy and Huber.
Learning from Equinix’s experiences at Markham about thermal energy conveyance from data centers through district energy is especially relevant for the Northern Virginia region.
Northern Virginia hosts the largest concentration of data centers in the world. There are currently over 265 existing data centers (including 16 from Equinix) and approximately 100 are planned over the next decade.
For the next 6-12 months, NVRC will undertake a range of activities to accelerate further understanding about the transfer and application of policy and technical innovations related to district energy and data centers from projects such as Markham (and other pioneering regions in the U.S. and abroad) to Northern Virginia.
You can learn more about the study tour and its findings by clicking on the button.
About the Northern Virginia Regional Commission
NVRC is a consortium of thirteen local governments representing more than 2.5 million residents. While only 3% of Virginia's land mass, Northern Virginia has a GDP of $302 Billion which is 42% of the GDP of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Northern Virginia’s GDP is larger than 24 states and the District of Columbia and if a country would be the 48th largest economy in the world.