T-Systems is using this Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell to power part of its Munich data center with biomethane. The system generates 245 kilowatts of power.
Mark Fontecchio at
TechTarget [1] has an item this morning about a proposal in Chicopee, Mass. to use methane gas from a local landfill to power a data center. The town’s mayor has reached out to Dow Jones about building a data center in Chicopee, using the biogas potential as a hook. As Mark notes, Google is using landfill gases to power a greenhouse in North Carolina, while Fujifilm has a South Carolina manufacturing plant incorporates methane into its power base.
There’s a working precedent for using biomethane to power a data center. T-Systems is using a “hot module” fuel cell to provide power for a server room in a facility in Munich, Germany, which runs on biogas supplied by a planet in nearby Pliening.
The module, officially known as a Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell, is built by
CFC Solutions Gmbh [2] and generates 245 kilowatts of power. During cultivation, the energy crops absorb the same quantity of CO2 that is later released by the data center. T-Systems uses the waste heat from the fuel cell in an
absorption cooling [3] cycle. The company describes the Munich operation, which was launched in July 2007, as a “long-term test” to pioneer environmentally friendly data center energy.
The company provides a
detailed description [4] of the system and additional
photos [5] of the fuel cell and the Munich data center.
Rich Miller is the founder and editor-in-chief of Data Center Knowledge, and has been reporting on the data center sector since 2000. He has tracked the growing impact of high-density computing on the power and cooling of data centers, and the resulting push for improved energy efficiency in these facilities.
Article printed from Data Center Knowledge: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com
URL to article: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/02/19/powering-a-data-center-with-methane/
URLs in this post:
[1] TechTarget: http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/data-center-facilities/local-official-wants-to-build-data-center-powered-by-methane/
[2] CFC Solutions Gmbh: http://www.mtu-online.com/mtuonsiteenergy/press/press-archive/details/news/hotmodule_fuel_cells_the_natural_choice_for_biogas_and_sewage_gas_operation/category/6/back/75/cHash/a70e692cbd/
[3] absorption cooling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator
[4] detailed description: http://www.t-systems.de/tsi/servlet/contentblob/t-systems.de/en/340214/blobBinary/10_Backgrounder-Green-IT_engl-ps.pdf
[5] photos: http://www.t-systems.com/tsi/servlet/content/t-systems.de/en/228788
[6] Rich Miller: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/author/richm/
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