European data center developer atNorth has signed a heat-reuse agreement with Kesko Corporation, a Finnish retail conglomerate.

The agreement will see waste heat generated from atNorth’s FIN02 data center in Sinimäki, Espoo, provided to a neighboring Kesko store. The recycled heat is expected to cover almost all of the Kesko store’s heating requirements.

“One of the key goals of our ambitious sustainability strategy is to reduce CO2 emissions resulting from the heating of our properties,” said Antti Kokkonen, Kesko’s director of energy. “By collaborating with atNorth in just one store, we reduce Kesko’s emissions from district heating use by 0.9 percent, saving approximately 200 tons CO2 equivalent per year.”

The agreement will support Kesko’s goals of 50 percent reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions, with a large portion of the emissions tied to the heating of its retail buildings.

In addition to the heat-reuse agreement, atNorth also signed an energy supply agreement for 45MW of power with Caruna Networks Oy, a Finnish electrical utility that supplies energy to the Espoo region. The energy will be used to power its FIN02 data center.

“By collaborating with like-minded businesses, we can not only mitigate our own carbon consumption but assist others. At the same time, supporting the investment in local power networks facilitates long-term power availability that benefits the local community as a whole,” said Eyjólfur Magnús Kristinsson, CEO of atNorth.

atNorth has had a presence in the Finnish market since 2023, following the acquisition of two data centers, FIN01 and FIN03, from Advania. atNorth was formed out of Advania Data Centers in 2012.

The company has two other data centers in the country. The FIN02 data center was first announced in February 2023 and reached commercial operations this year. It has a total power capacity of 40MW.

Its fourth data center in the region, FIN04, was announced in December 2023. Expected to be completed in the second half of 2025, the data center will have an immediate power supply of 60MW during its first phase, with the potential to expand to “several hundred megawatts” when fully built. It is the company’s first hyperscale campus in the country and is located in Myllykoski, Kouvola, about 139km (86.3 miles) northeast of Helsinki.

Heat reuse is a central tenet of atNorth’s strategy, with all of its Finnish data centers having heat reuse capabilities.

Last November, it partnered with AgTech startup Hringvarmi to recycle excess heat from its ICE03 data center in Iceland for use in food production.