Abstract
Global demand for data and data access has spurred the rapid growth of the data center industry. To meet demands, data centers must provide uninterrupted service even during the loss of primary power. Service providers seeking ways to eliminate their carbon footprint are increasingly looking to clean and sustainable energy solutions, such as hydrogen technologies, as alternatives to traditional backup generators. In this viewpoint, a survey of the current state of data centers and hydrogen-based technologies is provided along with a discussion of the hydrogen storage and infrastructure requirements needed for large-scale backup power applications at data centers.
Highlights
Hydrogen continues to garner increasing interest to help address climate challenges, especially in hard to decarbonize applications such as heavy duty transportation and industrial applications, and to enable a clean electric grid through long duration energy storage [1,2]
Metal hydrides (MH) and liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) provide the highest hydrogen density, up to 100 kg/m3, requiring approximately 8.64 million liters for 72 h of backup power, in typical hyper-scale data center, and the volume of hydrogen-based energy medium required to sustain such a system for 72 h based on 50% fuel cell efficiency [56]
This necessitates the use of bulky and expensive insulation, and/or expensive cryogenic refrigeration systems to minimize the amount of liquid hydrogen that evaporates, which can be as much as 5% per day [10,58,59,65,66], and requires periodic replenishment regardless of whether or not there is a demand for backup power
Summary
For example, need to be able to maintain water pressure to fight devastating fires Nonattainment zones, such as industrial areas, ports, and airports, do not meet primary air pollutant standards and represent another area where hydrogen can address emission reductions. There are multiple options available for carbon neutral or carbon zero data center backup power systems, including the use of lithium-ion batteries, biofuel generators, and hydrogen fuel cells. Using renewably sourced hydrogen and scaling up to primary power could realize significant carbon footprint reduction for data centers of various sizes. These factors highlight a prime opportunity for hydrogen fuel cell systems to enter the market and replace but surpass the performance of currently used systems
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