Westbank and PG&E to Heat San Jose Homes With Data Centers

Westbank, which has a slew of residential projects across Downtown San Jose, has teamed up with PG&E to build data centers to supply heat to as many as 4,100 homes.

The Vancouver-based developer and the San Francisco utility want to build environmentally sustainable housing towers heated by adjacent data centers, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

The extra heat spilling off the power-hungry data centers could warm the nearby homes, executives say. It’s not clear if the same energy could be used to power air conditioners.

“You could have an entire Downtown powered by data centers,” Ian Gillespie, founder and CEO of Westbank, told the newspaper.

Andrew Jacobson, vice president of the U.S. for Westbank, said the developer plans to build 4,100 homes in Downtown San Jose.

The idea of putting homes next to data centers that can supply excess energy has become part of a larger strategy for an eco-friendly Downtown, according to the Mercury News. Experts see it as an innovative way to combine the challenges of housing, energy and the environment.

“This can catalyze investment in housing,” PG&E CEO Patricia Poppe said during a presentation at an Innovation Summit that the investor-owned utility hosted in Downtown San Jose. “We’re excited to power all that.”

At least two of Westbank’s housing projects will include a stand-alone data center that would rise next to housing towers, using excess heat from the tech facilities used to crunch information and artificial intelligence.

Data centers need lots of juice, and employ cooling towers to keep equipment from overheating. Excess heat is often vented into the air and wasted.

“Our focus is very much going to be on the production of residential buildings and housing units in Downtown San Jose, and focusing heavily on the sustainability of those units,” Jacobson said.

San Jose has launched a development program designed to spur mixed-use housing, office, retail and entertainment projects.The creative twist is a data center next to housing.

“Westbank’s proposal is exciting because it tackles two of our biggest challenges in the same project: housing and energy conservation,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan told the newspaper. “This can be a net zero energy project through the computing power in the data center, then capturing excess heat to use it to heat the neighboring high-rise developments.”

The developer has proposed building data centers next to three, 30-story housing towers to contain 1,147 homes proposed in September at 300 South First Street and 345 South Second Street, in the SoFa District.

A data center could also rise next to the company’s proposed 17-story, 345-unit apartment highrise at 23 Terraine Street, in San Jose’s North San Pedro.

— Dana Bartholomew