Telecom Italia (TIM) has connected its data center outside Milan to a local district heating scheme.

The Italian telco this week announced waste heat from its TIM Enterprise data center in Rozzano will be used to warm more than 5,000 homes in the ALER district.

Elio Schiavo, TIM's chief enterprise and innovative solutions officer, said: “A milestone achieved first in Italy, thanks to the collaboration with GETEC and the Municipality of Rozzano, which testifies how TIM Enterprise is able to guarantee sustainable growth, making the operation of our plants even more efficient also from the energy consumption point of view.”

The project was done in partnership with GETEC and its subsidiary Atmos. TIM said it is the first such heat reuse project in the country and will save 3,500 tons of CO2 emissions annually.

“The partnership between us and TIM is a concrete step in the energy transition of our cities,” added Giovanni Pontrelli, CEO of GETEC. “The initiative, concretely unique in its kind, confirms our commitment to industrial development in Italy, promoting innovative and tailor-made solutions that accelerate decarbonization with more efficient energy models."

The heat generated by the facility is captured and redirected through the use of heat exchangers and pumps, as heated water, to GETEC's local district heating network, where it is used as domestic hot water.

“Rozzano is the first municipality in Italy to use an innovative energy source for district heating,” said Maria Laura Guido, deputy mayor of Rozzano. “Using heat that would otherwise be lost is a useful and responsible choice. With this initiative, Rozzano is one of the municipalities that adopts technologies capable of reducing CO2 emissions and bringing concrete benefits to the community.”

Companies including Equinix, Beyond.PL, Penta Infra, Google, Microsoft, and have or are set to connect data centers to district heating schemes. Such projects are more common in northern Europe, especially in Germany, the Netherlands, and the Nordics.