leaf sites

No upfront costs and no hardware expenses - we own all equipment. You provide the space (10-50 m²), power connection, and water loop access. The power consumed by the servers is metered and paid by Leafcloud.

From application approval to heat delivery: 3-6 months typically. This includes technical assessment (2-4 weeks), permits and approvals (varies by municipality), equipment delivery (6-8 weeks), and installation (1-2 weeks). The actual installation is minimally disruptive - our team works closely with your facility manager to schedule work during convenient times. Most of the plumbing and electrical connections happen in technical areas, not occupied spaces.

Absolutely safe. Leaf sites use a closed-loop heat exchanger - think of it like a radiator in a car. The server cooling water never mixes with the building's hot water system. Heat energy transfers through metal plates in the heat exchanger, keeping both systems completely separate. This is standard HVAC technology used worldwide, certified to Dutch building codes and European safety standards.

Leafcloud handles 100% of maintenance. Our engineers remotely monitor all Leaf sites 24/7 and perform scheduled maintenance visits. If hardware needs replacement, we do it at no cost to you. Your facility team doesn't need any special training - the Leafsite connects to your existing systems like any other heating unit. We provide basic documentation and emergency contacts, but day-to-day operations are fully automated.

Ideal candidates have year-round hot water demand (minimum 500 GJ/year), available technical space (10-50 m²), three-phase power, and existing hot water heating infrastructure. Perfect fits include swimming pools, nursing homes, apartment buildings, hospitals, office complexes, and buildings with ATES (underground thermal storage) systems. We evaluate each building individually - apply through our form and we'll conduct a free technical assessment to determine feasibility and sizing.

Yes, it's safe. Data is never stored at a Leaf site and no data can be stolen from a compute instance at a Leaf site. You can find out more about Leafcloud security on our Data Security page.

Leaf sites are designed as supplemental heat sources, not primary heating systems. We recommend sizing them at 5-20% of your total thermal load. Your existing boiler, heat pump, or district heating continues to handle the base load. If a Leafsite goes offline (rare, but possible during maintenance), your primary system automatically compensates. You won't notice any temperature changes. The Leafsite is an efficiency booster, not a critical dependency.

A Leaf site is a small, distributed data center installed inside existing buildings. It runs enterprise cloud workloads (virtual machines, Kubernetes, GPUs) and uses advanced liquid cooling to capture 95%+ of the heat generated. This heat is then pumped into the building's existing hot water system, providing free heating to residents or facility users. It's sustainable computing that benefits the community directly.