Equinix: New European Clean Hydrogen Partnership announced

The European Clean Hydrogen Partnership has announced its €2.5 million EcoEdge PrimePower project (E2P2). The tech consortium making up the partnership includes Equinix, InfraPrime, RISE, Snam, SolidPower, TEC4FUELS and Vertiv. Together, they will pursue the development of low-carbon fuel cells, which will power data centers, to reduce carbon emissions by up to 100%, and help these tech companies achieve their green pledges.

The project will reportedly explore the integration of solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFC) with uninterruptible power supply (UPS) technology and lithium-ion batteries to power data centers. According to the consortium, the implementation of natural gas SOFC as a "prime power application" will be "instrumental" for the use of green hydrogen for fuel cells application.

Speaking about the project, Bart Biebuyck, Executive Director, Clean Hydrogen Partnership, said: "With 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." He went on to emphasize the importance of projects such as E2P2 which he said are "absolutely essential in offering solutions to un-tap markets with great potential and contribute to our ambitious EU climate targets."

Meanwhile, Dr Jon Summers, Scientific Lead in Data Centers, RISE, said:"This 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."