Helsinki’s heart going under

By Floriane Bernardot on 23 March 2011

The heart of Helsinki is now beating under the surface.

The Finnish capital, Energy Cities member since 1996, has been the first city in the world to develop an underground master plan, aimed at “avoiding urban sprawl, freeing up the land, and maintaining a nice cityscape”. Among others, a few sport infrastructures and a data center can be found several meters under the city pavement.

A “relatively inexpensive solution” according to the city Mayor, Jusso Pajunen, allowed by the hard rock that constitutes Helsinki’s underground.

And it doesn’t stop here. In addition to this initiative, two Finnish firms built in this unusual space the greenest data center of its time. Usually, only half the energy consumed in data centers is used by the computers themselves, the other half being used to cool them down (!). In Helsinki’s underground, “we use sea water, which is obviously very cold here, to cool the computer down, not electricity”, says Matti Roto, from the firm Academica.

Last but not least, thanks to an underground tunnelling network and the world’s largest heat pumps, all excess heat is re-used to warm Helsinki homes and water. As you say in Finland, hyvä!*

*Well done!

Read the Underground Master Plan of Helsinki

Photo credit : City of Helsinki

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