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Struggling to heat your home? Try 500 Raspberry Pi units (www.theregister.com)

submitted 1 day ago by MHLoppy@fedia.io to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

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UK Power Networks trials Thermify's HeatHub boilers, swapping gas flames for clustered compute

Reusing heat from servers has gained momentum recent years, but UK Power Networks (UKPN) is taking an unusual approach: installing mini datacenters powered by Raspberry Pi hardware in customers homes to provide heating for families struggling with energy costs.

UKPN, which manages the "last mile" of cables and substations delivering electricity from the National Grid to customers in the South East of England, is piloting the project as part of its SHIELD (Smart Heat and Intelligent Energy in Low-income Districts) program.

This will equip participating households with solar and battery systems, while one-third will also receive the "HeatHub" system - a compact datacenter roughly the size of a large heat pump that replaces traditional gas boilers. [...]

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[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Well sure, if the electricity is powering something you already need and the waste heat is beneficial, then awesome, I guess that's free heat. But it's actually pretty rare that people need to be using that much electricity for anything as consistently as you would need for heating a home. And if you don't actually need to be using that electricity, there's really no way around the fact that electric heating is really pretty expensive.

I guess if you are stuck with electric heating as your only option and a heat pump is out of your price range, then mining crypto could be a nice way to offset the cost of electric heating... But then the equipment costs would add up and you'd probably be better off with a heat pump anyway.