ROLLS-ROYCE HOLDINGS PLC Tobias Bertler, Senior Manager Direct Sales, Power Systems discusses the pathway to climate-neutral data centres
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How concerned are data centre operators about sustainabilty when it comes to their back up power solutions?
Data centre operators are very interested in sustainable backup power solutions. This is partly because the entire data centre market is dominated by the large technology companies, which are very much in the public eye, and therefore feel a social responsibility to reduce their carbon footprint.. Although the backup power solutions only have a few operating hours, gigantic capacities with a very high available power are being built for these data centres.
Is there still a big demand for diesel gensets from data centre operators?
Definitely. Today every mission-critical data centre has backup power systems built into it that typically run on diesel fuel. The pandemic showed once again how important it is to ensure an uninterrupted power supply for sensitive and critical infrastructures such as global continuous Internet traffic. This was also demonstrated in our diesel emergency power systems business. We have also further expanded our range of power supply systems for mission-critical applications with the acquisition of Kinolt as a leading company for dynamic UPS systems. Diesel gensets currently offer the highest safety and most coherent technical characteristics for mission-critical energy systems.
How do you reduce emissions from your diesel generators?
We have different ways of reducing emissions from diesel gensets: we continue to work on reducing exhaust emissions through internal engine measures and we offer exhaust gas aftertreatment systems. We provide different, flexible and project-specific solutions for the very heterogeneous market, where there are different directives and legislation depending on the region.
What is the path towards sustainability for data centre backup power supply?
We see it as important to expand renewable energies and Power-to-X technologies, making alternative fuels available, preparing combustion engines for alternative fuels, and developing alternative energy and propulsion systems. We see great potential in hydrogen as a fuel. The numerous initiatives by various countries to further expand the infrastructure are also encouraging. In addition to hydrogen, we are working on other fuels produced from renewable energies such as e-diesel, e-methanol and e-methane. Accordingly, we are expanding our portfolio to include fuel cells and are currently testing hydrogen engines for energy supply.
In what ways can fuel cells be used for data centres?
High reliability, scalability and the ability to reduce both pollutant and climate-damaging gas emissions to zero are the main reasons to use and promote fuel cell technology for data centres. With their modular design, fuel cell systems are easily adaptable to match output with demand, and their low maintenance requirements and low running costs also make them attractive. The greatest plus point arises when the fuel used is regeneratively produced hydrogen because it allows both pollutant and climate-damaging gas emissions to be reduced to zero. Fuel cell systems can also be easily integrated at a later date and grow with it when a data centre expands. This makes fuel cell systems a long-term and future-proof investment.
Fuel cells can play a central role for CO2-free data centres (see graphic). In the future, the basic power requirements of a data centre could be covered by solar and wind power plants instead of from the public power grid, as has been the case to date. If sufficient 'green' electricity is available, hydrogen can be produced from water by electrolysis and stored on site. In addition, the hydrogen demand could be covered by a supply network (that will be available in the future) and used to operate the fuel cell: it would immediately take over the supply of the data centre to maintain the infrastructure in the event of a power failure. Rolls-Royce, Daimler Truck AG and Volvo are planning to cooperate on a CO2-neutral emergency power supply for mission-critical facilities such as data centres using stationary fuel cell generators.
Is it possible to connect emergency generators in data centres to the grid for control reserve and thus support the expansion of renewable energies?
Absolutely! Emergency gensets offer excellent conditions for feeding control reserve into the power grid and thus compensating for fluctuations in the grid (frequency and voltage) caused by the increased integration of renewable energies. The gensets could play a significant role in supporting the energy transition (and integration of renewables).. For many years, Rolls-Royce Power Systems has had cooperative agreements with various national and international companies that enable our gensets to be integrated into the respective capacity markets.
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Rolls-Royce Holdings plc published this content on 23 March 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 24 March 2021 10:42:24 UTC.
