II · Economics
The price doubles with the network.
Waste heat has no exchange and no standard price — but where it can be sold, the economics hinge on one thing: co-locating with a modern low-temperature heat network. That, and the connection cost everyone quietly excludes.
What heat sells for
Low-temperature networks are the whole game.
Heat price into a legacy 95-120°C network.8
Heat price into a modern 48-70°C low-temp network — roughly double.8
Large district-heating heat-pump capex (a 5 MW project ~ 4-5.5 M€).6
The heat pump's share of project cost — the rest is source-side & connection.6
Warm, concentrated sources — 60-80°C liquid coolant — are the cheapest to exploit, which makes liquid-cooled AI campuses structurally the lowest-cost heat source in the market.6
Payback — with the asterisk that decides it
The rosy numbers exclude the hard part.
<2-year payback
A 10 MW data center producing ~75°C hot water in Philadelphia hits sub-2-year payback — but only with carbon credits included and customer-connection infrastructure excluded. The excluded connection cost is the deal's true make-or-break.7
Storage doesn't pay
Direct reuse already covers ~70% of a campus's heating/cooling demand; seasonal storage adds only ~20% more and breaks even only if storage capex falls 35% and the heat/electricity price ratio rises 2.5x. Avoid “store summer heat for winter” models.8