Thermify's HeatHub heats an Essex home with a shed full of paying customers' computers

An Essex couple, Terrence and Lesley Bridges, became the first in the UK to trial a HeatHub from Thermify, installed in their garden shed in place of a gas boiler. Each unit holds more than 500 mini-computers, up to 56 Raspberry Pis per module, which generate heat captured by oil and passed into the hot-water system.

The HeatHub is part of UK Power Networks' SHIELD project for low-income households, and the couple's home also got solar panels and a battery, which contributed to savings. Thermify's CEO says the units will eventually form a distributed data centre, with clients paying to process data such as apps and large-volume analysis, though not heavy AI work.

The CEO describes the heat as clean at a 'low-to-no price point' because the electricity generating it is paid for by somebody else.

Put the computers in the home and let paying data clients cover the power, so the heat is nearly free.

Processing data creates heat that a conventional data centre must pay to remove.

Customers' computing fees cover the electricity, so the household gets heat without paying for it.

Oil capture moves the heat into the existing hot-water system.

Social-housing landlords and a network operator share the pilot's cost and risk.

Pair a cost you can't avoid (computing power) with a need it can serve (heat), and let the payer of the first subsidize the second.

Per the BBC in November 2025, the couple's monthly energy bill fell from 375 pounds to as low as 40 pounds, with solar and battery contributing. Eastlight hopes the next phase will put HeatHubs in 50 homes. The project is still a pilot, and the clients who will pay to process data are a future plan, not yet in place.