Tech behemoth Microsoft in a recent blog post stated that there is a zero-carbon-emissions replacement for diesel-powered generators that can be used in data centres for backups in case of power outages and other service disruptions.
Sean James, Microsoft’s director of data centre research, in the blog post stated: “What we just witnessed was, for the data centre industry, a moon landing moment. We have a generator that produces no emissions. It’s mind-blowing.”
Data centres are the physical infrastructure that lies beneath the cloud computing cloak. They enable organisations all over the world to digitally transform, allowing them to respond to client requests swiftly and securely, as well as manage supply chain logistics.
At their core, data centres are purposefully unassuming warehouses crammed with tens of thousands of computer servers and the technology required to keep the computers running and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This includes equipment that keeps the servers at t-shirt temperatures and batteries, as well as generators that keep the power on even during power outages.
In the blog post, James noted: “What makes a data centre a ‘data centre’ is that it can operate even though the grid is not. When there’s a blackout, the servers stay up. That’s the difference between a data centre and a warehouse chock full of computers.”
However, data centre sustainability is a big deal. According to research from the International Energy Agency, nearly 1% of the world’s electrical demand, or 200 terawatt-hours (TWh), is consumed by data centres, which accounts for 0.3 % of all CO2 emissions worldwide.
So, it is understood that these numbers are only anticipated to increase as big data explodes and processing needs to increase quickly if there are no proactive measures to lower data centres’ energy use. But, according to Microsoft, they have found a perfect solution.
How it works
A hydrogen fuel cell generates electricity using the chemical energy of hydrogen. It is a clean kind of energy, producing just electricity, heat, and water as waste.
Experts believe that these types of fuel cells may power systems as big as a power plant or as small as a laptop, and they have many uses, including transportation and emergency backup power.
Compared to conventional combustion-based solutions, fuel cells provide benefits including higher efficiency and reduced pollutants.
Notably, there are no CO2 emissions or other pollutants emitted into the atmosphere because hydrogen fuel cells only emit water. Due to the fact that they have fewer moving parts than combustion technologies, fuel cells are also silent when in use.
Deepak Singh Thakur, Business Head— UPS, PQC and Data Centres— India & SAARC Region, Delta Electronics India Pvt Ltd, told News18: “With the demand increasing for hyperscale data centres and edge data centres, the world is in a dilemma to maintain the fine balance of business demand and the need to be sustainable and environmentally sustainable too.”
“With the need to provide emission-free backup power a lot of research is directed towards replacing fossil fuel dependency with more environmentally friendly technologies. Hydrogen fuel cells are the best alternative to provide emission-free backup power at data centres,” he added.
Thakur further explained that the significant expense and technology necessary to separate hydrogen—which only occurs naturally in compound form with other elements—from natural molecules, store it, transport it, and extract power from it on a large scale have limited its application.
But, he said that during the last decade, things have begun to alter. The shift is being driven by advancements in the hydrogen ecosystem, as well as a growing interest in and dedication to sustainability.
According to the expert, a vibrant green hydrogen economy could also aid cities in their transition to 100% renewable energy.
“That’s because excess energy produced by wind and solar farms can be used to run electrolyzers, in effect storing this excess energy in hydrogen. Then, when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing, this green hydrogen can power fuel cells without generating any carbon emissions,” he noted.
The future of power supply
Microsoft began to explore fuel cell technology in 2013 and has committed to becoming carbon negative by 2030.
According to the blog post, in 2018, Microsoft engineers worked with engineers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, to power a rack of PCs with a 65-kilowatt PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cell generator.
PEM fuel cells are widely utilised in the automotive sector because, like diesel engines, they can turn on and off quickly and can follow a load up and down.
However, the firm then recruited Power Innovations in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2020, to design and test a system capable of powering 10 racks — a row — of data centre servers for 48 consecutive hours using a 250-kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell system.
Following the success of the proof-of-concept demonstration, the team set out to demonstrate the practicality of a 3-megawatt system, which is large enough to replace a diesel generator in a data centre.
But the problem was that nobody developed PEM fuel cell systems that huge; 3 megawatts is more than 10 times larger than the system the business tested in Utah.
Then engineers at Latham-based Plug, a pioneer in the commercial development of fuel cell and green hydrogen technologies, were drawn to the task of building the massive system.
The 125-kilowatt fuel cells – 18 of which are crammed into each shipping container – are the largest that Plug has ever produced, and the 3-megawatt fuel cell system is the company’s most important application.
So after the engineers assembled to build the system, the fuel cell generator successfully hit the 3-megawatt milestone.
Then, in Latham, the team of engineers selected by the director of engineering for Plug put the 3-megawatt hydrogen fuel cell system through the same testing Microsoft employs to qualify diesel generators, including simulated power failures and hours-long runs.
After completing prototype testing and proving the concept, Plug is concentrating on commercialising an optimised commercial version of high-power stationary fuel cell devices with a smaller footprint and a more streamlined and polished appearance.
Microsoft has decided to install one of these second-generation fuel cell systems in a research data centre where engineers will learn how to work with and deploy the new technology, including the development of hydrogen safety measures.
The date of the first deployment in a live data centre is unknown, however, it will most likely take place at a new data centre in a region where diesel generators are prohibited due to air quality restrictions.
Separately, Tokyo-based Fujitsu is also working to find a similar alternative.
In an effort to replace the severely polluting Haber-Bosch process— a technique of directly producing ammonia by absorbing naturally occurring nitrogen in the environment and reacting it with hydrogen, while leading to eutrophication and biodiversity loss—Fujitsu is collaborating with the Icelandic start-up Atmonia to create sustainable Ammonia, which could be burned to efficiently power data centres.
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