Ireland to develop datacenter powered by fuel cells
- Reference: 1699354988
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/11/07/ireland_to_develop_datacenter_powered/
- Source link:
SK Ecoplant said it signed a memorandum of understanding with Lumcloon Energy, a project development biz based in County Offaly to the west of Dublin that focuses on energy projects, to build a datacenter powered by solid oxide fuel cells.
The facility, claimed as the first of its kind in Europe, is planned to be sited approximately 80km (50 miles) to the west of Dublin, in Castlelost, County Westmeath.
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As part of the agreement, it is understood that [2]SK Ecoplant will supply the fuel cells, which will be manufactured by a third company, [3]Bloom Energy of San Jose, as well as undertaking “a comprehensive role” in the project.
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The pair signed their agreement at SK Ecoplant's headquarters in Seoul.
Ireland's minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Simon Coveney, said the deal is of "great strategic importance" to innovate the power supply system used by bit barns in order to reduce carbon emissions, and as Europe's first fuel cell-based datacenter, the planned facility will serve as a template for many others in the future.
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SK Ecoplant CEO Kyung-il Park said: "This partnership will establish the groundwork for us to offer green energy solutions in Ireland including our fuel cell operations."
Speaking to [7]The Irish Times , Coveney conceded that the energy demands of datacenters can put a lot of pressure on the electricity grid and this was a source of "a lot of political debate" over the past several years.
In fact, it was reported last year that the [8]total energy use by datacenters located in Ireland had surpassed the amount of electricity consumed by all the rural homes in the country, and a council in Dublin [9]attempted to prohibit any further facilities from being built within its boundaries.
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There are now said to be 82 datacenters operating in Ireland, which has a population of just over 5 million people, and all but five of those bit barns are located in the Dublin area.
It is not clear how large this new datacenter project is intended to be, or when it is expected to become operational. We asked both SK Ecoplant and Lumcloon for more details, and will update this article if we get answers.
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A bank of solid oxide fuel cells at Bloom's California HQ
Fuel cells provide power by converting the chemical energy of a fuel and an oxidizing agent into electricity. This is typically hydrogen as a fuel and oxygen as an oxidizer, but Coveney hinted the Castlelost datacenter may be powered initially by gas, moving to hydrogen in future.
There is already a great deal of interest in fuel cells to power IT infrastructure. Last year, [12]Dutch operator NorthC said it was deploying a hydrogen fuel cell module as a backup power source to replace diesel generator sets.
[13]Nukes, schmukes – fuel cells could power future datacenters
[14]Why can't datacenter operators stop thinking about atomic power?
[15]Virginia industrial park wants to power DCs with mini nuclear reactors, clean hydrogen
[16]Microsoft's Dublin DC power plant gets the, er, green light
Microsoft has also [17]tested out hydrogen fuel cells as replacements for generators, while Equinix said it was [18]trying out the technology as a potential primary power source in Singapore. Earlier this year, Amazon said it plans to switch some of its [19]Oregon datacenters over to natural gas fuel cells as their primary energy supply.
Bloom Energy announced in August that it had installed the first phase of a 10 megawatt fuel cell deployment at Unimicron Technology in Taiwan, providing power for the circuit board maker's clean rooms and mission-critical operations. ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZUptM0@KrPqYqJ2uXm1RGQAAAIM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.skecoplant.com/en/main
[3] https://www.bloomenergy.com/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZUptM0@KrPqYqJ2uXm1RGQAAAIM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[7] https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2023/11/02/offaly-firm-signs-south-korea-data-centre-deal/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/04/datacenters_in_ireland_energy_draw/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/15/irish_datacenter_ban_reversed/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZUptM0@KrPqYqJ2uXm1RGQAAAIM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/11/06/shutterstock_solid_oxide_fuel_cells.jpg
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/15/northc_hydrogen_power/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/04/fuel_cell_datacenter_power/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/27/datacenters_nuclear_power/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/17/virginia_datacenter_smr/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/22/microsoft_power_plant/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/01/microsoft_3mw_fuel_cell_test/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/22/equinix_fuel_cell_datacenter/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/06/amazon_datacenter_hydrogen_fuel/
[20] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Getting the hydrogen is easy: just an electrolysis plant close by, powered by a stationary diesel generator.
Oh, wait... perhaps it is just greenwashing then.
Ireland has plenty of wind generation potential on and near its coasts.
Since, off- and onshore wind parks have most probably more lead-time than a data center, even when it's powered by fuel cells, it may make sense to initially provide the hydrogen via the methane route and then switchover to electrolysis hydrogen when it becomes available.
On the other hand, it may be blatant green washing.
Only time can tell.
Wind would definitely be nicer - actual renewable power. However, I suspect that one of the big wins with the fuel cells will be the relatively short delivery timescale and the stability of the power supply - you can have as many wind turbines as you like, but if there's no wind then you'll be sharing the same very finite grid resources as everybody else.
"Time will tell"
That's quite long enough. It's green-washing, with perhaps a side-order of subsidy-farming.
GJC
Right now, that wind energy is used to power the grid, reducing the need to import from the UK most of the time, and exported to the UK when there is a surplus. I think that is the best way to do it.
If this reduces grid load/gives them grid stability then great. SOFCs are more efficient than gas turbine generators, and the transmisson loss from on-site generators will be minimal compared to power coming from the grid.
With SOFCs, there is also a lot of waste heat that needs disposing of (despite all the heat exchangers used to recover and reuse thermal energy). It would be great if that could go to some kind of a district heating project.
"SOFCs are more efficient than gas turbine generators, and the transmisson loss from on-site generators will be minimal compared to power coming from the grid."
Where does the hydrogen come from? If it's from electrolysis you have to consider the transmission losses to the electrolysis plant and the electrolysis itself. Where is the electrolysis plant? if it isn't on-site you have to factor in the energy needed to pump it and, hydrogen being hydrogen, the losses from the joints in the pipework, the replacement of the pipework due to embrittlement etc. If the plant is on-site the transmission losses are the same as you'd have had powering the data centre direct plus an addition to the second order effect of transmission losses incurred in transmitting the energy that's lost in the course of hydrolysis.
If a fuel cell facility helps stabilize the grid then surely this is a matter for the grid operator rather than a grid customer.
"is hardly decarbonising the operation compared to using the same gas to fuel a gas turbine-driven generator. "
Fuel cells don't produce incomplete combustion products and particulates though.
I don't agree. If you are producing the hydrogen from methane which is the most common way to do it, just burn the methane directly.
If you are producing it using electrolysis, the second most common way to do it, just use the electricity to charge a battery. One you consider the tank you need to store the hydrogen, the energy density works out about the same as batteries, the only advantage comes from charging / refueling time; and batteries are much more efficient.
Can they not cut costs with datacentres by taking the heat produced and turning that into power then feeding it back in?
"powered initially by gas, moving to hydrogen in future."
Leaving aside the fact that hydrogen is also a gas, powering the fuel cell by natural gas, i.e. methane, is hardly decarbonising the operation compared to using the same gas to fuel a gas turbine-driven generator. The significant question is how is the long-term hydrogen to be obtained? If that involves simply transferring electrical energy from some other source into chemical energy in the form of H2 why not use that electrical energy directly?
Fuel cells and hydrogen make sense (give or take the difficulties of handling hydrogen) where the energy is to be deployed in situations which are intrinsically disconnected from the grid such as vehicles. The only point I can see for a static installation such as a data centre is green-washing.