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JAPAN TO TEST DATACENTER POWERED BY REUSED HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS

13


THE SOURCE? REPURPOSED PARTS FROM ELECTRIC VEHICLES

Dan Robinson
Wed 3 Jan 2024 // 14:45 UTC




Honda and Mitsubishi are to test the feasibility of powering a datacenter with
fuel cells taken from electric vehicles, using hydrogen produced as a byproduct
of an industrial process.

The project is scheduled to run for two years from March 31 in Shunan City,
Japan. It aims to assess any reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from
datacenter ops by powering a "distributed datacenter" run by Mitsubishi from a
stationary fuel cell power station that Honda is developing, using fuel cells
repurposed from the EVs.

Hydrogen for the fuel cell power station will be provided by a third Japanese
company, Tokuyama Corporation, as a byproduct from its salt water electrolysis
business, which manufactures about 50,000 tons of sodium hypochlorite each year.



The project was proposed by Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organization (NEDO), which promotes the research, development and
adoption of industrial, energy and environmental technologies.




The objective is to consider ways of reducing costs for organizations to install
and operate stationary fuel cell systems, which could ultimately contribute to
the decarbonization of the electric power supply.

No details were disclosed of the kind of datacenter infrastructure that
Mitsubishi will operate as part of this project, so it is unknown how much power
the fuel cell power station will be required to supply. We have asked that
question.



Hydrogen and fuel cells have been in the news frequently over the past few years
as a potential way of providing greener power for datacenters, either as a
backup power source in place of diesel generators or as the primary power source
itself.

In 2022, Dutch datacenter operator NorthC claimed to be the first in Europe to
deploy a hydrogen-powered fuel cell module to replace backup power generators at
its site at Groningen.

Last year, Korean outfit SK Group disclosed plans for a datacenter in Ireland
powered entirely by fuel cells, although in this case the site may be run
initially by gas and move to hydrogen as fuel in future.



An October report produced by datacenter company Equinix and the National
University of Singapore (NUS) concluded that fuel cells are more efficient than
other alternative generator technologies.

Hydrogen can be considered a clean fuel because it produces only water as a
byproduct when consumed in a fuel cell. But the problem is in sourcing the
hydrogen. Much commercially produced hydrogen is extracted from methane gas via
an energy-intensive process typically powered by fossil fuels.

It is likely that the process Tokuyama uses in its salt water electrolysis is
ultimately powered by fossil fuels, but the hydrogen is produced as a byproduct
and this is currently just a demonstration project to evaluate the feasibility
of integrated hydrogen business models.

In addition to verifying the use of fuel cells for primary and backup power
sources in datacenters, the project will also look at the potential for
grid-balancing applications.

 * US fusion energy dreams edge closer to reality, Congress permitting
 * England's village green hydrogen dream in tatters
 * GM, Komatsu partner to build hydrogen-powered monster mining truck
 * World's largest nuclear fusion reactor comes online in Japan

This is an area that was also explored by Microsoft at its datacenter in Dublin,
which implemented "grid-interactive UPS technology" to allow its facility to
supply energy back to the grid if necessary, with the goal of smoothing out any
variability in the power supply due to the unpredictability of renewable energy
sources.

Honda and Mitsubishi said they hope to use the knowledge gleaned from the
project to expand the number of bit barns in the region that run on cleaner
power, as well as explore business opportunities for the technology elsewhere. ®

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