For the first time in the world, hydrogen fuel cells powered the server racks of a Microsoft data center for 48 hours in a row. This could spur the development of a long-awaited clean energy economy built around the most abundant element in the universe.
This achievement is one of the steps towards fulfilling the company's commitments to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 . To achieve this goal and accelerate the global phase-out of fossil fuels, Microsoft also aims to eliminate its dependence on diesel by 2030 .
Diesel accounts for less than 1% of Microsoft's total emissions. Its use is mostly limited to Azure datacenters where, like most cloud providers around the world, diesel generators keep up with continuous operation in the event of power outages and other service disruptions.
"They are expensive. And for more than 99% of their lives, they are gathering dust and doing nothing, ”said Mark Monroe, chief infrastructure engineer for Microsoft's data center cutting edge development team.
Lucas Hoppa, Microsoft's Chief Environmental Officer, is Microsoft's spokesman for the Hydrogen Council, a global initiative of leading energy, transportation and industrial companies to foster the hydrogen economy. Photo: Roderigo De Medeiros.
In recent years, the cost of hydrogen fuel cells has dropped to the point that they have become a cost-effective alternative to diesel standby generators.
“The idea of using them on clean hydrogen fits into our overall carbon commitment,” Monroe said.
In addition, he added, the Azure data center, equipped with fuel cells, a hydrogen storage tank and an electrolyser that converts water molecules to hydrogen and oxygen, can be integrated with the power grid to provide load balancing services.
For example, an electrolytic cell can be turned on during periods of surplus wind or solar energy production to store renewable energy in the form of hydrogen. Then, during periods of high demand, Microsoft could launch hydrogen fuel cells to generate electricity for the grid. Long-distance hydrogen vehicles could pull up to data centers to refuel their tanks.
“All of this infrastructure represents an opportunity for Microsoft to play an important role in what will undoubtedly drive the overall energy optimization program that the world will implement in the coming years,” said Lucas Hoppa, Microsoft Chief Environmental Officer.
To further explore how Microsoft can optimize its investments in hydrogen fuel cells and related infrastructure, the company today appointed Hopp as its representative on the Hydrogen Council, a global initiative of leading energy, transportation and industrial companies to stimulate the hydrogen economy.
Scientists have already proven that fuel cells from the most abundant element in the Universe, hydrogen, can be used to generate energy free of greenhouse gases.
“We know how to do it,” he said. “But the Council exists because we do not always know exactly how to scale the production of hydrogen, its transportation and supply, and then consumption in the ways we would like. There is still a ton of work to be done. "
Mark Monroe, Chief Infrastructure Engineer for Microsoft's Advanced Data Center Development team, is leading a project to explore the potential of hydrogen fuel cells to power standby generators in data centers. Photo: Mark Monroe / Microsoft.
Diesel replacement
Microsoft is committed to providing Azure datacenter consumers with a "five nines" of service availability, which means the datacenter is up 99.999% of the time. Standby generators start up during power outages or other service disruptions.
“We don't use diesel generators very often,” Monroe said. “We run them once a month to make sure they work. We do load testing once a year to verify that we can transfer the load to them correctly, but on average they cover power outages less than once a year. ”
According to Brian Jenus, general manager of the Microsoft Energy and Sustainable Data Center Strategy Team, Microsoft is exploring diesel replacement technologies that would support or improve service availability, and sees the promise in hydrogen fuel cells and batteries.
“The work that the team is doing today is really about trying to assess the feasibility of different solutions,” he says.
The batteries already provide short-term backup power, filling the 30-second gap between mains disconnection and the time needed to power the diesel generators. More modern batteries have a longer life.
“If you happen to be in a situation where the required run times are so long that the batteries are no longer efficient, then you’re going to switch to something like fuel cells,” said Jenus.
Proof of concept
The seeds of the idea of using hydrogen fuel cells for backup power were sown back in the spring of 2018, when researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado powered a rack of computers using a hydrogen proton exchange membrane fuel cell, or PEM. Monroe and his colleagues attended a demonstration of the system.
Power Innovations built a 250-kilowatt fuel cell system to help Microsoft investigate the potential for using hydrogen fuel cells for backup power generation in data centers. For proof of concept, the system powered a number of data center servers for 48 consecutive hours. Photo: Power Innovations.
“We were intrigued because we knew they were using an automotive fuel cell,” Monroe said. - An automotive fuel cell has the same response time as a diesel generator. It can turn on quickly. It can be ready for full load within seconds. You can cover it up, let it go, let it stand idle. "
The process of combining hydrogen and oxygen in PEM fuel cells results in the production of water vapor and electricity. Automotive companies are developing technologies to power cars, trucks, and other vehicles. After the demo, Microsoft started thinking about using fuel cells to back up data centers.
The Monroe team purchased a 250-kilowatt fuel cell system, which is enough to power a full row (about 10 racks) of data center servers. Testing began at Power Innovations, a system developer, outside Salt Lake City in September 2019. The system passed a 24-hour strength test in December and a 48-hour test in June.
“This is the largest computer back-up system we know runs on hydrogen and has passed the longest continuous test,” said Monroe.
The next step for the team is to acquire and test a 3MW fuel cell system that is as large as the diesel standby generators in Azure datacenters.
Fuel cell research
Even before this 2018 demo, Microsoft was looking for ways to use fuel cells. The company began exploring fuel cell technology in 2013 with the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California, Irvine, where they tested the idea of powering server racks with solid oxide fuel cells, or SOFCs, that run on natural gas.
“They have the ability to produce their own hydrogen from the natural gas they produce,” Monroe explained. "They take natural gas, some water, heat it up to 600 degrees C, which is the temperature of hot coal."
This is hot enough for a process called steam methane conversion, which generates a stream of hydrogen atoms to generate electricity.
Microsoft continues to explore the potential of SOFC fuel cell technology to provide a base load that can free data centers from the electrical grid, making them 8-10 times more energy efficient. However, this technology is currently too expensive for widespread adoption.
“The SOFC process also produces carbon dioxide, which is another reason Microsoft is looking into PEM fuel cells,” said Monroe.
In addition, since the demonstration at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the estimated costs of PEM fuel cell systems for standby power generation in data centers have dropped by more than 75%. If the trend continues, then in a year or two, the capital cost of fuel cell generators could be competitively priced with diesel generators.
He added that increasing production of fuel cells to meet demand from the data center industry could potentially lead to further cost savings.
“We see ourselves as the catalyst for this entire hydrogen economy,” Monroe said.
Hydrogen Economy
From Microsoft's perspective, other parts of this economy include the infrastructure for purchasing, storing and maintaining enough environmentally friendly hydrogen to power standby generators for 12-48 hours, which is the industry standard for a five-nines in service availability. ...
For example, for 48 hours of standby power, each data center would need up to 100,000 kilograms of hydrogen to fuel standby generators in the event of a prolonged power outage, Monroe explained.
“Further conversations within the company about how to secure this infrastructure led to discussions on Microsoft's role in driving the hydrogen economy,” Jenus said.
“What if you could take all of these assets in the datacenter and integrate them into the network in a way that further accelerates network decarbonization in a broader sense, rather than just as a point solution for the datacenter itself? he said. "This is where I think the real discoveries lie."
Header image: Microsoft used hydrogen stored in tanks on trailers parked outside a laboratory near Salt Lake City, Utah to fuel hydrogen fuel cells that power a number of data center servers for 48 consecutive hours. Photo: Power Innovations.