back to article Equinix pilots use of fuel cell in 'shipping container' outside datacenter

Equinix is moving forward with trials of fuel cell technology as an alternative backup power source, revealing it has a demonstration unit at one of its facilities in Dublin, Ireland. county clare , ireland Datacenters guzzled more than a fifth of Ireland's electricity in 2023 READ MORE The global datacenter and colocation …

  1. DJO Silver badge

    Is hydrogen a good fuel for back-up generators?

    It's impossible make a 100% leak proof container for hydrogen and it will embrittle many materials including stainless steel.

    There does not seem to be a good fiscal reason for this, it'll have higher purchase and running costs than a diesel or gas generator so the only reason to go this way is either if it is subsidised or good old fashioned green-washing. (Which doesn't work because there is only a tiny amount of "green hydrogen" available now and for the foreseeable future),

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And in the future

      About right for now. But in 5-10 years the peak solar/wind generation seems likely to exceed demand - so using it for green hydrogen could be cheap. Or spare nuke overnight for example.

      So in the long run it’s probably a win even if its impact today is small scale and primarily PR.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: And in the future

        "and primarily PR."

        On that note, I do wish they'd stop using "zero carbon" as if that means anything useful. At the very least, it's not a close manufacturing cycle, so there;s "carbon" emissions all the way from mining the materiels to assembling and delivering the fuel-cell unit. Not to mention the trucks delivering the H2. If they stuck to "zero emissions" I might find it more believable. And lets not go near the "carbon" vs Carbon Dioxide" short-hand mis-nomer :-)

        Of course, they may be afraid of stating "zero emissions" because it may be "clean" in terms of CO2, but emitting all sorts of other toxins :-)

    2. John Robson Silver badge

      Green washing...

      Is that what you call research? This is clearly not a currently commercial project, but one that is testing what is possible, and how it would be possible - with a view to future supplies, not today's supplies.

      Hydrogen is difficult to store, but this would be another static storage environment, with a power load high enough to count as basically grid scale.

      It's of course possible that technologies around hydrogen storage will make it much easier (there seems to be substantial interest in using ammonia as a carrier - and whilst I assume there will be some RTE penalty it's entirely possible that that's a penalty which is acceptable (given the relatively low efficiency of hydrogen storage)

      1. DJO Silver badge

        testing what is possible

        Fuel cell technology is very mature, there's not a lot left to work out - possibly some fine tuning with improved or cheaper anodes, cathodes or catalysts but nothing groundbreaking.

        The only thing to work out is safe and secure bulk hydrogen storage and transport. This is where it all falls apart, if you are going to store pressurised gaseous hydrogen you'll need huge tanks, if you go for liquid hydrogen smaller tanks will suffice but they need to be double walled cryogenic tanks and you'll need to absorb the high expense of compressing the hydrogen to a liquid in the first place.

        Hydrogen has a place in the energy economy but I'm not sure this will be of any use except in the few cases where a datacentre is close to a hydrogen production facility.

        The biggest problem is energy efficiency. The chain Electricity -> Hydrogen -> Electricity has an overall efficiency of around 30% which is appallingly bad.

        1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

          The chain Electricity -> Hydrogen -> Electricity has an overall efficiency of around 30% which is appallingly bad.

          That depends on what you pay for the electricity. If it's, say, from a wind turbine that would otherwise be paid not to run (as can happen in some areas of the UK because the grid can't handle the flow) then it doesn't really matter if that efficiency is pitiful, it's still a positive outcome, and the same is true for solar or hydro. Any time the supply of cheap electricity exceeds the demand, being able to use the surplus somehow is always a win.

          1. DJO Silver badge

            True, but flow batteries would probably be more efficient way to store surplus electricity.

            1. John Robson Silver badge

              Might well be - That's why both need more research and, more importantly, development.

        2. John Robson Silver badge

          It's appallingly inefficient, but still better than zero.

          I envisage anything this scale being it's own H2 facility during times when they're not running off the backup system - so they only need to import water and electricity - both of which are easily transported.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Diesel cannot be stored long term either. Approx 12 months is the limit. This might be considered to be like 10% leakage per month. You need an active fuel rotation plan, or significant generator use.

      With (compressed) hydrogen, you could potentially have a small electrolyser continuously run at a low rate, and keep up with leakage at low cost, and more importantly, without doing anything.

      Online backup generator have a long and inglorious history of not starting when needed. Well organised active maintenance is needed for them to actually work every time. The costs of keeping a 100% reliable diesel back online, likely exceed the cost of leaked hydrogen.

  2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "hydrogen fuel cell technology"

    That will only be green if the hydrogen is produced by nuclear reactors (Thorium being my preference), and delivered by battery-powered trucks (no, not CyberTruck).

    But, in the absolute, good idea. We need power-production alternatives that don't use coal or fossil fuels.

    1. Ken G Silver badge
      Windows

      Re: "hydrogen fuel cell technology"

      Why do you say only nuclear is green?

      Ireland doesn't have any nuclear reactors and probably won't in the next 5 to 10 years. It does have about 70% energy produced from renewable sources with wind being the largest.

      Wind capacity can easily go to over 100% of demand in the same time period but obviously is weather dependent. Waves are a better source but not there yet.

      Hydrogen could store the excess for the times it isn't blowing.

  3. Sparkus

    So.....

    hydrogen wells are plentiful in Ireland then?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: So.....

      Ah, to be sure, there's 1000's of them! Been digging them for years. Trouble is, every time we get to the good stuff it seems to disappear.

  4. claimed Silver badge

    Come on

    This thread is very pessimistic. The technology for diesel generators didn’t exist when we started pissing about with oil. Demand and capability develop hand in hand. I don’t doubt hydrogen is hard to store today, but the same has been true for other things in the past. First there is a problem, then we solve it. This seems much easier to solve than global conflict and poverty so I have high hopes for the hydrogen fuel cell future. It’ll get there.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: Come on

      Hydrogen fuel cells are a very mature technology, but it is incredibly difficult to store and transport, and has almost no "green" sources. This project is not even attempting to improve any of those things.

      There are already far better technologies for stationary use, some of which could probably be significantly improved relatively easily.

      Hydrogen makes very little sense if you've got a shipping container - the volume is small, there's nowhere to store the fuel!

  5. EricB123 Silver badge

    Is it Just Me Or...

    I read somewhere that there is enough stored hydrogen somewhere underground to supply the energy needs of industrial countries for over a century. I think the source was creditable, but I also remember not reading how much energy would be required to mine it. Of course, fossil fuels aren't exact very efficient in this regard either.

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