Canaan wins Nordic heating bid, turns bitcoin mining waste heat into residential hot water.

Canaan has deployed 920 Avalon A1566HA miners to heat 2,800 homes in the Nordic district network.

The project uses Canaan's (Nasdaq: CAN) water chiller Avalon A1566HA series, which produces high-quality hot water at around 80 degrees Celsius. That heat is fed directly into the customer's existing heating infrastructure, replacing the traditional heating solutions the supplier previously relied on.

The total distribution capacity is approximately 8MW. The first 2MW phase comprising 228 A1566HA units is operational in the region and providing hot water to local residents. Following that performance, the unnamed Nordic heating service provider added 692 units to its network in March 2026 for an additional 6MW.

At full capacity, the 8MW installation is expected to provide reliable heating for around 2,800 homes.

Canaan CEO Nangeng Zhang said he was personally involved in designing the system's form factor and led thermal and cooling optimization. “Heat reuse is no longer a side effect of computing,” Zhang said in the release. “Building a more efficient, sustainable energy future is a key part of how we think about system design at Canaan.”

One technical advantage of the Canaan highlights is the parallel architecture of the A1566HA components. Because each heating node consists of multiple miners working side-by-side with dynamic overload and underclocking support, the system provides a more consistent output than single-source heating devices such as boilers. That architecture simplifies maintenance and reduces the risk of supply interruptions.

The Nordic region has long led Europe in the adoption of district heating, with centralized hot water networks serving many urban and rural residents. Governments there regularly encourage district heating projects because they efficiently distribute heat energy over large areas.

Delivering usable heat at high temperatures is a constant technical challenge in the hash-heating space. Most landfills have low temperatures that allow them to be directly mixed into district systems. In the release, Canaan said its semiconductor and system design technology will address the gap, providing products at temperatures that meet district heating requirements.

Canaan sees the competition's push into power-intensive computing infrastructure as a broad vindication. The company attributes the win to the fact that hash-to-heat solutions are positioned to displace outdated fossil fuel-based heating systems, particularly in regions with favorable regulatory conditions.

The Nordic hash-to-heat project represents one of the more concrete examples of bitcoin's mining infrastructure being used for dual purposes.