{"id":348,"date":"2022-01-10T13:12:37","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T12:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/?p=348"},"modified":"2022-01-12T14:27:44","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T13:27:44","slug":"tech-consortium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/tech-consortium\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Consortium to Lead Low-Carbon Fuel Cell Development for Data Centers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>Consortium of seven organizations chosen by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership to develop a next-<br>generation fuel cell platform to ensure a greener future for data centers across the world<\/em><\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was announced today that the Clean Hydrogen Partnership will provide EUR 2.5  million to help fund a project to develop low-carbon fuel cells to power data centers. It is hoped this  could reduce carbon emissions from operations by up to 100%. The EcoEdge PrimePower (E2P2)  project is a novel proof-of-concept initiative aiming to develop and demonstrate low environmental  impact fuel cells that provide economic and resilient prime power solutions for the data center  environment.<br><br>A consortium of seven companies\u2014<strong>Equinix, InfraPrime, RISE, Snam, SOLIDpower, TEC4FUELS  and Vertiv<\/strong>\u2014will explore an innovative integration of solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFC) with uninterruptible  power supply (UPS) technology and lithium-ion batteries to provide resilient and clean primary power  to data center deployments and other critical infrastructure. Implementing natural gas SOFC as a  prime power application will be instrumental to pave the way for the use of green hydrogen for fuel  cells application, for both backup and prime power systems.<br><br>As the world\u2019s digital infrastructure company with a future-first sustainability strategy, Equinix has a  long-term goal to become climate neutral globally by 2030 and achieve 100 percent renewable energy  across its global footprint. The E2P2 project is part of the company\u2019s effort to prioritize and support the  development of clean, sustainable and renewable power solutions for application across the data  center industry, while also targeting its own ambitious climate goals.<br><br>\u201cThe Office of the CTO at Equinix is chartered with driving the next-generation of technologies and  architectures to advance the vision of Platform Equinix\u201d adds <strong>Justin Dustzadeh, Chief Technology  Officer at Equinix<\/strong>. \u201cA key component of our vision is to deliver our solutions whilst meeting our  important sustainability commitments. The E2P2 project enables us to demonstrate a novel  architecture for power generation, distribution and storage; support a broader transition from natural  gas to sustainable hydrogen; and support our goal of operating a climate neutral business by 2030.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A greener future for the industry<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p>Fuel cells are recognized as a cleaner and quieter power solution that can alleviate demand on urban  power grids. They can be deployed on-site at a data center campus, and operate using natural gas,  biogas, LPG or green hydrogen\u2014which can be transported and distributed over existing gas networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The E2P2 project marks an exciting step toward significant carbon reduction, whilst still meeting  requirements for a highly resilient critical power supply to data centers. At the heart of this vision, is a  market-oriented approach that integrates innovation and stakeholder engagement to maximize  acceptance and uptake opportunities of stationary fuel cells as reliable, efficient and decentralized  prime power sources for other industrial scale applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>  <strong>The consortium hopes to develop the authoritative open standard for fuel cell applications <\/strong>to  pave the way toward commercialization of fuel cell energy for data centers in Europe, demonstrating  the industry\u2019s potential role in achieving EU carbon reduction targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Highlights\/Key Facts<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p><ul><li><p>E2P2 is a joint project from Equinix, InfraPrime, RISE, Snam, SOLIDpower, TEC4FUELS and  Vertiv, partially funded with a grant by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, from the Horizon 2020  program of the European Commission.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p>The consortium will engage with the organizations that work on developing European best  practices and standards to facilitate high-level concept design and interface definitions.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p>The E2P2 project goals are aligned to the objectives of the European Commission to rapidly accelerate the application of fuel cells to power the needs of energy intensive sectors while achieving a greener grid. E2P2 aims to achieve multiple environmental objectives, including showcasing a real-world proof of concept of 24\/7 low-carbon power that does not rely on diesel generators and supports the growing hydrogen and renewable energy economy across Europe. The intention is for the resulting units to replace the traditional power supply and generators, with additional redundancies built in to maintain uptime standards.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p>Equinix has significant experience leveraging large-scale fuel cell platforms in North America\u2014including powering 15 data centers with fuel cells across the Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and New York metros. Equinix will leverage its experience and team to deploy and test the experimental E2P2 fuel cell platform at a dedicated space within one of its Milan, Italy, data centers. The team expects to work to develop a commercially viable product that will  facilitate a greener future for data centers across Europe and the world.<\/p><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Quotes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><ul>\n<li><p>Bart Biebuyck, Executive Director, Clean Hydrogen Partnership: \u201cWith its ongoing support of research and development of fuel cells for stationary applications, the Clean Hydrogen Partnership (previously FCH JU) managed to set a strong basis for European industry to lead in the deployment of new technologies. We are proud to see that the E2P2 project will provide clean fuel cell-based applications for the decarbonization of data centers within a solid consortium gathering fuel cell providers, system integrators as well as data center operators and energy utilities. Projects such as E2P2 are absolutely essential in offering solutions to un-tap markets with great potential and contribute to our ambitious EU  climate targets.\u201d<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p>Eugene Bergen Henegouwen, President, EMEA, Equinix: \u201cThe E2P2 project hopes to be a breakthrough in making data centers more environmentally sustainable worldwide. Equinix has committed to mitigating our environmental impact, and this project provides a unique opportunity to demonstrate the use of an innovative, clean, primary energy source. We hope it will make a considerable impact towards reaching our global  commitment of 100% renewable energy and climate neutrality by 2030, as well as advancing our industry\u2019s sustainability goals. It\u2019s important we support the growth of the market in Europe  for clean and reliable on-site power.\u201d<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p>Susanna Kass and Dr. Alberto Ravagni, Co-Founders, InfraPrime: \u201cThe E2P2 clean energy standard is an inflection point for clean cloud providers to achieve Carbon Neutral (Positive) cloud infrastructure on a global scale. InfraPrime is proud to lead in  this project on the creation of an open industry standard to support the global adoption of eco  edge prime power solutions with fuel cells across clean cloud infrastructure, to support industries and applications at hyperscale.\u201d<\/p><\/li>\n<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p> Dr Jon Summers, Scientific Lead in Data Centers, RISE:  \u201cThis decade is undeniably focused on building a future that is environmentally sustainable.  We all know that digitization and data centers are key elements of this future, where innovation  is at the heart of our journey to our global 2030 goals. As researchers at RISE, we are invested  to be a strong part of the E2P2 team, to push the technology envelope and to transparently  demonstrate new sustainable approaches of prime power for the future digital infrastructure.\u201d  \uf0b7 Cosma Panzacchi, Executive Vice President Hydrogen, Snam:  \u201cWe are happy to contribute our know-how to the E2P2 alliance to help tackle the issue of  powering urban data centers with clean and competitive energy solutions. The concept of  connecting fuel cells to gas networks to power resilient urban and edge data centers  overcomes the need to have backup generation in such areas, thus reducing emissions as well  as noise impact. This project is part of Snam&#8217;s efforts to foster the use of hydrogen to  decarbonize economic sectors, leveraging existing gas networks and sustainable technologies  like hydrogen-ready fuel cells.\u201d<\/p><\/li><li><p>Massimo Bertoldi, CTO, SOLIDpower:  \u201cSOLIDpower is proud to contribute to the E2P2 project with its proprietary Solid Oxide Fuel  Cell technology and systems. We strongly believe in the use of fuel cell generators for prime  power in data centers, offering a unique combination of energy savings and high power  reliability. Particularly, the E2P2 project is part of our efforts aimed to support the development  of clean, sustainable and renewable power solutions for application across the data center  industry, contributing to reach ambitious climate goals and carbon neutrality by 2050 as  committed by Europe. We are excited to join the E2P2 consortium and kick-off this project.\u201d  \uf0b7 Dr. Klaus Lucka, Managing Director, TEC4FUELS:  \u201cTEC4FUELS is a competence center for sustainable liquid and gaseous energy carriers  (fuels) and operating fluids in technical systems. For the operation of the fuel cells, the  company contributes its know-how to the research project in the supply and purification of the  process gas medium and water. In addition, TEC4FUELS is developing a sensor-based fluid  condition monitoring system to monitor gas and water quality. The aim is to help reduce  system-related greenhouse gas emissions by optimizing the operational reliability and service  life of technical components and increasing the efficiency of this subsystem.\u201d  \uf0b7 Giordano Albertazzi, President, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Vertiv:  \u201cDigitization and the data center industry are growing at an increasing pace and thus it is even  more vital to fast-track our journey towards an environmentally sustainable future. This can  only be made possible by developing clean, innovative technologies such as fuel-cell solutions  to provide sustainable power for the digital world. Vertiv is proud to actively contribute to the  E2P2 proof-of-concept initiative and looks forward to providing next-generation power solutions  to its global customers\u201d.<\/p><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\">About the Clean Hydrogen Partnership<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p>The Clean Hydrogen Partnership\u2014the successor of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking  (FCH JU)\u2014aims to accelerate the development and improvement of advanced clean hydrogen  technologies. It builds on 13 years of cooperation between public and private sectors through the FCH  JU to help innovative technologies graduate from the experimental phases to be exploited by industry,  businesses and consumers for the benefit of Europe. The three members of the partnership are the  European Commission, fuel cell and hydrogen industries represented by Hydrogen Europe and the  research community represented by Hydrogen Europe Research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Forward-Looking Statements<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p><i>This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual  results may differ materially from expectations discussed in such forward-looking statements. Factors  that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, the challenges of acquiring, operating  and constructing IBX\u00ae data centers and developing, deploying and delivering Equinix products and  solutions; unanticipated costs or difficulties relating to the integration of companies we have acquired  or will acquire into Equinix; a failure to receive significant revenues from customers in recently built out  or acquired data centers; a failure to complete any financing arrangements contemplated from time to  time; competition from existing and new competitors; the ability to generate sufficient cash flow or  otherwise obtain funds to repay new or outstanding indebtedness; the loss or decline in business from  our key customers; risks related to our taxation as a REIT; and other risks described from time to time  in Equinix filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular, see recent Equinix  quarterly and annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies of which are  available upon request from Equinix. Equinix does not assume any obligation to update the forward-  looking information contained in this press release.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Consortium of seven organizations chosen by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership to develop a next-generation fuel cell platform to ensure a greener future for data centers across the world It was announced today that the Clean Hydrogen Partnership will provide EUR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-project-news"],"wbAuthor":{"name":"E2P2","link":"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/author\/e2p2aendraren\/"},"wbDate":"Jan 10, 2022","wbCategories":{"space":"<a href=\"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/category\/project-news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Project news<\/a>","coma":"<a href=\"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/category\/project-news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Project news<\/a>"},"wbComment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":605,"href":"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions\/605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e2p2.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}