Pilot site at EMPA – Switzerland
The HEATWISE Empa pilot demonstrates holistic energy management and thermal waste integrated energy management system for energy management and integration of edge data center at Empa’s NEST building.
EMPA’s NEST building is a modular and highly instrumented living lab designed to demonstrate real-world scenarios for thermal energy management and waste heat recovery. It is a mixed-use vertical energy district that can be flexibly configured to emulate different use cases in terms of waste heat utilization. It can emulate tertiary buildings (commercial or residential). EMPA’s NEST building is a central pilot in the HEATWISE project for demonstrating medium to high IT density configurations.
The building offers long-term monitoring of 3 units of rented residential apartments (shared flats), office units, meeting rooms, and a gym, allowing researchers to monitor energy use and human activity in parallel. The site allows flexible emulation of both commercial and residential buildings.
Key Features:
- Hybrid cooled (liquid and air) 20 kW Edge data center
- 6 heat pumps and 3 thermal buffer storage
- 1 ice storage system for thermal management
- 2 batteries, 7 PV/thermal collectors, and 1 EV charging station
- 4 thermal Networks and 4 Electric Networks
- Over 1300 sensors and 30,000 data points for granular system monitoring.
Empa pilot is a cornerstone of HEATWISE’s mission to enable high-efficiency, zero-waste energy systems through integrated building and IT infrastructure solutions. The EMPA pilot serves as a dynamic and advanced demonstrator for medium to high IT density scenarios.
The objective of the Empa pilot is:
- To quantify waste heat potential and multi-vector interactions.
- To demonstrate recovery of 20 kW waste heat from the edge data centers using hybrid (air and liquid) cooling technologies, both at medium (30- 35 °C) and high temperature levels.
- Develop and implement optimal control strategies and thermal energy management systems.
The Empa pilot has been live since the end of May 2025. We will keep you updated with the latest results.