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

submitted 5 days 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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[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 14 points 5 days ago

That's only true if we're comparing GPU mining to resistive heating. Both are equally efficient at converting electrical energy to heat: 100%.

The numbers don't look nearly as good when we compare GPU mining to a heat pump. Heat pumps utilize an additional, uncounted source of free energy (outdoor heat). Since we aren't counting that additional energy, the electrical efficiency of the heat pump is much greater than 100%.