Telehouse has opened a fifth facility at its Frankfurt campus in Germany, dubbed ‘Building M’.

The data centre launched in October and has increased capacity at the campus by a total of 4.5 megawatts.

The building adds a further 2,200 sqm to the site, bringing the total to over 50,000 sqm of data centre space for all requirements, from single racks to dedicated data centre areas.

Building M is already fully leased and further expansion of the site is now in the planning phase.

According to Telehouse, the waste heat generated by all buildings on the Frankfurt campus will be used to supply the neighbouring ‘FRANKY’ residential quarter with district heating. The area offers space for around 3,000 people across 1,300 residential units, with the heat recovery process able to provide more than 60% of the annual energy requirement for heating homes and water in the community, using around 2% of the waste heat from the Telehouse data centres.

The additional demand is fed into the district heating network from the combined heat and power plant of the Frankfurt-based utility company Manova.

Telehouse Europe has said it is exploring similar opportunities in the UK and is already reusing heat at its Magny-Les-Hameaux campus in Paris.

“It’s particularly important for us to be able to combine efficiency, performance and safety with a contribution to environmental protection in the interest of our customers,” said Dr. Béla Waldhauser, Managing Director of Telehouse Deutschland GmbH.  “In this way, we are assuming responsibility both locally and globally.”