Jul 10, 2026 | Posted by Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji
Equinix has partnered with Italian energy company A2A to recover waste heat from its data center campus in Settimo Milanese and feed it into Milan’s district heating network. Under the agreement, Equinix will design and operate the heat recovery system, while A2A will use four large-scale heat pumps with a combined 72MW capacity, thermal storage, and new infrastructure to distribute the recovered energy across the city.
Once fully operational, the project is expected to recover around 225GWh of waste heat annually, increasing the amount of heat distributed through A2A’s Milan district heating network by about 20 percent. The recovered energy is expected to heat more than 21,000 homes while avoiding over 345,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions. Equinix said the initiative is set to become one of Europe's largest data center heat reuse projects outside the Nordic region, while A2A said the partnership supports its strategy of integrating energy, infrastructure, and innovation.
Data centers generate an estimated 70–170TWh of waste heat globally each year, with around 35–85TWh considered recoverable—roughly equivalent to Singapore’s annual electricity consumption, according to research published in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. Waste heat reuse is gaining traction across Europe, with projects underway in Sweden and Finland, while Germany now requires data centers to make excess heat available for local district heating networks where feasible.
