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| Mon, 27th Jul 2020 16:40:00 |
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Microsoft Eyes New Tool in Decarbonization Quest: Green Hydrogen |
Microsoft has a new weapon for killing off diesel at its expanding global fleet of data centers: green hydrogen.
The tech giant announced Monday that it recently powered a row of data center servers for 48 hours using nothing but hydrogen fuel cells, which it believes to be the longest such test in the world for a data center operator at that scale.
Microsoft is expanding its hydrogen testing and intends to leverage its vast size and energy consumption to help the green hydrogen industry scale up, Brian Janous, the company’s general manager for environmental sustainability, said in an interview.
Green hydrogen could one day play a role similar to batteries for Microsoft, Janous said, keeping data centers online and running smoothly amid a rising tide of intermittent renewables or in parts of the world where the electric grid is unreliable.
And there’s potential to go even further: Rather than simply consuming hydrogen to power its data centers, Microsoft could install electrolyzers and storage tanks on-site to produce and stockpile green hydrogen — integrating with the grid to provide load-balancing services, or even acting as a filling station for hydrogen-powered long-haul vehicles in the area.
Microsoft is already experimenting with using its on-site batteries to sell services to the grid. “We see hydrogen creating the same sort of opportunity,” Janous said.
Green hydrogen is produced using solar and wind power to electrolyze water; the resulting hydrogen can later be converted back into electricity by fuel cells.
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