Low-Carbon Fuel Cell Development for Data Centres

A consortium of seven organisations was chosen by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership to develop a next-generation fuel cell platform to ensure a greener future for data centres across the world.

Vertiv (NYSE: VRT), a global provider of critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions, announced the Clean Hydrogen Partnership will provide €2.5 million to help fund a project to develop low-carbon fuel cells to power data centres.

The EcoEdge PrimePower (E2P2) project is a novel proof-of-concept initiative aiming to develop and demonstrate low environmental impact fuel cells that provide economic and resilient prime power solutions for the data centre environment. Their goals are aligned to the objectives of the European Commission to rapidly accelerate the application of fuel cells to power the needs of energy-intensive sectors while achieving a greener grid.

Low-Carbon Fuel Cell

E2P2 aims to achieve multiple environmental objectives, including showcasing a real-world proof of concept of 24/7 low-carbon power that does not rely on diesel generators and supports the growing hydrogen and renewable energy economy across Europe. The intention is for the resulting units to replace the traditional power supply and generators, with additional redundancies built in to maintain uptime standards and reduce carbon emissions from operations by up to 100%.

The consortium of seven companies—Equinix, InfraPrime, RISE, Snam, SolidPower, TEC4FUELS and Vertiv—will explore an innovative integration of solid-oxide fuel cells with uninterruptible power supply (UPS) technology and lithium-ion batteries to provide resilient and clean primary power to data centre deployments and other critical infrastructure.

The companies will engage with the organisations that work on developing European best practices and standards to facilitate high-level concept design and interface definitions.

“Digitalisation and the data centre industry are growing at an increasing pace and thus it is even more vital to fast-track our journey towards an environmentally sustainable future,” said Giordano Albertazzi, president for Vertiv in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

“This can only be made possible by developing clean, innovative technologies such as fuel-cell solutions to provide sustainable power for the digital world. Vertiv is proud to actively contribute to the E2P2 proof-of-concept initiative and looks forward to providing next-generation power solutions to its global customers”.

Vertiv will leverage its extensive experience in AC power systems as well as in prefabricated modular solutions for data centres to design and develop an integrated fuel-cell power module, including the Vertiv™ Liebert® EXL S1 uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and Vertiv™ HPL lithium-ion batteries.

Close collaboration between the Vertiv™ AC Power line of business based in Italy and its Integrated Modular Solutions line of business based in Croatia will be key to engineering an all-in-one 100 kW module as a proof-of-concept by 2023, with the final goal of developing a commercially viable product that can support multiple MWs of critical load and facilitate a greener future for data centres worldwide. Vertiv is also working with key global customers to develop new hydrogen-based generators that will help replace diesel generators.

The E2P2 project is the latest in a series of initiatives Vertiv has conducted around sustainability and the wider Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) arena. Vertiv is also part of the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance (SDIA) and the European Data Centre Association (EUDCA) and contributes to the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact to meet the European Commission’s goal for climate-neutral data centres by 2030. The E2P2 project is part of the company’s effort to prioritise and support the development of clean, sustainable and renewable power solutions for application across the data centre industry.

A greener future for data centres

Fuel cells are recognised as a cleaner and quieter power solution that can alleviate demand on urban power grids. They can be deployed on-site at a data centre campus, and operate using natural gas, biogas, LPG or green hydrogen—which can be transported and distributed over existing gas networks.

The E2P2 project marks an exciting step toward significant carbon reduction, whilst still meeting requirements for a highly resilient critical power supply to data centres.

At the heart of this vision, is a market-oriented approach that integrates innovation and stakeholder engagement to maximise acceptance and uptake opportunities of stationary fuel cells as reliable, efficient and decentralised prime power sources for other industrial-scale applications.

The consortium hopes to develop the authoritative open standard for fuel cell applications to pave the way toward the commercialisation of fuel cell energy for data centres in Europe, demonstrating the industry’s potential role in achieving EU carbon reduction targets.

“With its ongoing support of research and development of fuel cells for stationary applications, the Clean Hydrogen Partnership (previously FCH JU) managed to set a strong basis for European industry to lead in the deployment of new technologies.

We are proud to see that the E2P2 project will provide clean fuel cell-based applications for the decarbonisation of data centres within a solid consortium gathering fuel cell providers, system integrators as well as data centre operators and energy utilities. Projects such as E2P2 are absolutely essential in offering solutions to un-tap markets with great potential and contribute to our ambitious EU climate targets”, said Bart Biebuyck, Executive Director, Clean Hydrogen Partnership.

Eugene Bergen Henegouwen, President, EMEA, Equinix, commented:

“The E2P2 project hopes to be a breakthrough in making data centres more environmentally sustainable worldwide. Equinix has committed to mitigating our environmental impact, and this project provides a unique opportunity to demonstrate the use of an innovative, clean, primary energy source.

We hope it will make a considerable impact towards reaching our global commitment of 100% renewable energy and climate neutrality by 2030, as well as advancing our industry’s sustainability goals. It’s important we support the growth of the market in Europe for clean and reliable on-site power.”

The other companies that will be taking part in the project also commented that they are happy to be contributing to the E2P2 alliance and help tackle the issue of powering urban data centres with clean and competitive energy solutions.

About Vertiv

Vertiv (NYSE: VRT) brings together hardware, software, analytics and ongoing services to ensure its customers’ vital applications run continuously, perform optimally and grow with their business needs. Vertiv solves the most important challenges facing today’s data centres, communication networks and commercial and industrial facilities with a portfolio of power, cooling and IT infrastructure solutions and services that extends from the cloud to the edge of the network.

About the Clean Hydrogen Partnership

The Clean Hydrogen Partnership—the successor of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU)—aims to accelerate the development and improvement of advanced clean hydrogen technologies. It builds on 13 years of cooperation between public and private sectors through the FCH JU to help innovative technologies graduate from the experimental phases to be exploited by industry, businesses and consumers for the benefit of Europe. The three members of the partnership are the European Commission, fuel cell and hydrogen industries represented by Hydrogen Europe and the research community represented by Hydrogen Europe Research.