Fuel cells as one of the sources of energy for the data center

We, KingServers, have been following the work of Bloom Energy for a long time. The fact is that it offers an interesting option for supplying the data center with energy. Namely - fuel cells on biogas. Clients of this company use proprietary technology in their fuel cells, which allows to obtain energy from atmospheric air and biogas. Waste - water and a very small amount of carbon dioxide.

Many telecommunication companies are going to meet their customers, who express their wishes to abandon the traditional energy supply in favor of "green" energy. Why this happens is a different question, but the trend is becoming increasingly noticeable. This is not always possible, but a number of hardware developers went to meet such wishes.

Of course, for the sake of its own reputation and the original commercial company can go to great lengths. But there is another reason. The fact is that biogas in many regions is a much cheaper source of energy than all other sources. In particular, in California many companies switched to biogas, abandoning traditional sources.
')
The fuel elements of Bloom Energy are used in North Carolina by Apple, Ebay, CenturyLink.



Now, Bloom Energy has decided to combine efforts with Power Secure solutions. It offers customers Power Secure Energy Storage Systems. As a result, customers receive universal solutions that can be used in the most inaccessible regions. You can use the solution from Bloom energy in the most difficult situations. The fact is that such a system has a modular architecture, plus software that tries to optimize the operation of the station. As a result, customers of a data center with such a power supply scheme achieve strong savings, which would otherwise be associated with the use of electricity.

Among other tasks, both companies provide the following:

• Development and provision of power supply for all elements of distributed infrastructure;
• Ability to work with loads of different types;
• The level of reliability of data centers meets the requirements from the minimum to the needs of the most important elements of the infrastructure;
• Achieving the required level of reliability: from the minimum to the needs of critical infrastructure elements;
• Work with local fuel cell based generating facilities. According to some experts, the new car can provide effective work of sellers.

In addition, the developers aim to ensure, first of all, the provision of high-quality power supply to the distributed infrastructure elements;
Service of any degree of employment;
The need to achieve a level of reliability not lower than Tier III. There are plans to increase the level of protection of the system through the installation of solutions.

Now both companies are already taking pre-orders from customers. And the orders are not single. Soon it is planned to release the Bloom energy fuel cells from the finished warm water.

Bloom Energy and partners are already taking orders from potential customers. Bloom Energy offers this and other solutions to reduce data center costs, both direct and indirect.

Earlier, representatives of a similar project stated: “The main difference of our project from the traditional power supply scheme is the production of energy inside the data center, instead of connecting the data center to the energy infrastructure of a region. Quite a large amount of energy is now lost in the energy infrastructure of data centers, which entails financial losses, an increase in operating and capital costs. We show how the introduction of a small power source in the network infrastructure element of the data center allows reducing the complexity of the project of energy distribution between the elements of the entire system. ”

Bloom Energy believes that their fuel cells can replace most traditional sources of electricity. And many experts agree with this company.

Recently, Microsoft has proposed the use of biogas plants. And now the work of the system, which can be applied anywhere, supplying the ecosystem of the region with the necessary energy, is being tested in several states of the USA and various European countries.

Experts are convinced that soon operators and owners of data centers around the world will become customers of the commonwealth of both companies. Perhaps the current project will change the whole picture of the world, the vast majority of traditional IT systems. Well, it is possible that the fuel cells - the future.

---

Colleagues, we, Kingservers company, are now looking for IT authors for technical sites (not Habrahabr and not Geektimes, third-party Russian-language and English-language resources). A condition - a person who writes an article (it must be literate and technical) must also have the opportunity to publish it on such a resource. If you are such an author, write in a personal.