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This new network is one of several initiatives that CERN is introducing to help it move towards more “environmentally responsible” research and to help reduce CO2 emissions. The LHC, the jewel in CERN’s crown, is otherwise better known for its large-scale research around the building blocks of the universe, including the discovery of the Higgs boson particle in 2012.
Active since mid-January, the new setup has been made possible by the introduction of a new heat exchange system. The system draws the heat from the LHC’s cooling system, which stretches all around the 16-mile accelerator, and funnels it directly into Ferney-Voltaire’s new district heating network.
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The equipment at point eight requires extensive water cooling. Rather than pass this through a cooling tower, with the energy then lost, the new setup instead pushes the hot water through two 5 MW heat exchanges, housed in a new building that links CERN’s exchange with the new Ferney-Voltaire heating system. However, CERN confirms that this 5 MW output could “theoretically” double when CERN is fully operational, as long as it doesn’t impact the LHC’s main research mission.
The residents of Ferney-Voltaire might have to wait a while before they can take full advantage of CERN’s waste heat, however. The Large Hadron Collider is expected to shut down as part of its Long Shutdown 3 process for several years of upgrades and maintenance from mid-2026. This will reduce CERN’s output to the new heating system to “between 1 and 5 MW,” excluding several months while the system isn’t operational. CERN has other plans to capture waste heat, including at its Prévessin data center, where it expects to use heat recovery to warm most of the on-site buildings from late 2026.
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