3MW hydrogen fuel cell backup power plant built by Microsoft

Microsoft has demonstrated a 3MW power generation system powered by hydrogen – the latest step in its project to move towards zero-carbon backup power for data centers.

The system was built by Plug Power, and uses hydrogen fuel cells in two 40ft shipping containers in a parking lot at Plug’s headquarters in Latham, New York. Microsoft has added a simulated data center load, and run it through the same acceptance tests it normally applies to diesel generators, proving that it can keep the load running when the grid power fails.

According to Microsoft, the fuel cell implementation is a potential replacement for the large diesel gensets that most data centers use to provide backup power.

Backup generators are used infrequently, in tests and very rare grid outages, but are virtually all powered by diesel, producing carbon emissions. Although this is a tiny fraction of its energy use, Microsoft has promised to eliminate diesel from its backup systems by 2030.

Microsoft has a long-standing goal to be carbon-neutral by 2030, and even to become carbon negative, so it can cancel out its historical emissions. It has many power purchase agreements so that electricity supplied to its data centers is balanced by carbon-neutral generation on the grid, and has made moves towards matching energy hour-by-hour electricity.