Microsoft is testing hydrogen fuel cell powering its data centers

Recently, in the context of hydrogen, we wrote about further serious investments in Japan, which is to lead the country into a greener future, and Australia, where thanks to the same manufacturer, emission-free hydrogen production was launched and the first charging station of this type in the homeland of kangaroos.

Today, however, it turns out that Microsoft is also interested in this technology, which has just announced that hydrogen fuel cells have powered a number of its data centers for 48 hours continuously, bringing the company closer to its ultimate goal of carbon neutrality in the next 10 years.

how clean energy can be used to power more aspects of its operations.

All thanks to the January commitment, in which Microsoft wrote that it wants to completely remove its carbon footprint by 2030, because while the company has already eliminated most of its dependence on fossil fuels, it still has a lot of diesel-powered generators in Azure data centers.

And since diesel is expensive and the prices of hydrogen cells have dropped significantly, the owners of the giant decided to test them as a replacement, especially since they are also more environmentally friendly.

The idea of ​​using hydrogen cells in this way was born at Microsoft in 2018, when scientists from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden demonstrated this way of powering a number of computers.

Mark Monroe, one of Microsoft's infrastructure engineers responsible for the modern development of data centers, was intrigued by the show and the technology, which he decided to try out also at home.

Consequently, Monroe's team developed a 250-kilowatt fuel cell system sufficient to power a full range of servers in data centers, and last September installed it at an Azure datacenter near Salt Lake City, Utah. Now, in June this year.

year, the system has passed its 48-hour test of non-stop operation, and the team is planning the next step, a complete 3-megawatt system that will match the size and power of existing diesel generators.

So it is possible that the Azure datacenter will be fully powered in this way in the future, and the whole can be integrated into the power grid to provide many balanced services.

Furthermore, in the future, Microsoft is even anticipating charging hydrogen-powered vehicles with its system, setting an example for other giants and proving that hydrogen cells can be very versatile.