Abstract
Data centers are the backbone of the modern economy-from the server rooms that power small- to medium-sized organizations, to the enterprise-class data centers that support American corporations, and the server farms that run cloud computing services. Rather than a traditional grid-centric data center approach, work under the CRADA will be directed towards implementing a proof-of-concept "hydrogen-based" data center utilizing hydrogen fuel cells, electrolyzers, and solar photovoltaics as key building blocks. This integrated proof-of-concept builds on preliminary work done by HPE and its partners Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America, Inc. (MBRDNA) and Power Innovations, to dramatically simplify the electrical infrastructure in the data center, leverage the latest automotive-scale hydrogen fuel cell technologies, and tightly couple renewably generated DC power directly to the Information Technology (IT). While some limited aspects of this concept have been demonstrated previously the entire integrated proof of concept proposed here has not yet been realized.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 18 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2022 |
NREL Publication Number
- NREL/TP-5400-82486
Keywords
- backup power
- business case analysis
- carbon-free data center
- CRADA
- data center
- direct energy conversion
- fuel cell technologies
- fuel cells
- H2@Scale
- high performance computing
- hydrogen
- power transmission and distribution
- renewable hydrogen
- renewable power
- sustainability