TechnologyPower and heat generation
DOE laboratory project to test fuel-cell power architecture for AI data centres
Renewable Innovations joined a three-year R&D collaboration to build and validate a fuel-cell rack intended to power and cool a high-power compute rack.
- Event
- First published on EPC Feed
- Sources
- 4 listed below
- Reading time
- 2 min
Renewable Innovations announced on 22 October that it is participating in a three-year research project led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratory of the Rockies. The FC-DC project will investigate fuel-cell power for existing and new data centres, including a rack designed to power and cool a high-power compute rack directly on the data-centre floor.
From reference design to field demonstration
The company’s release identifies a demonstration at Sky Data Centers in Santa Rosa, California. It also describes reference designs for retrofits and new facilities, including 800 VDC distribution, digital real-time simulation, hardware-in-the-loop work and transient testing. The collaborators include NVIDIA, Energy Vault, DRG Technical Solutions, HPE Labs, Alderbuck Energy and Sky Data Centers. These are planned research and validation activities rather than published operating results.
What a fuel cell contributes
The Department of Energy’s fuel-cell primer explains that a fuel cell converts supplied fuel into electricity and heat through electrochemical reactions. Unlike a battery that must be recharged, it can continue producing electricity while fuel is supplied. In the hydrogen example, the reactions produce water and heat as well as electrical power.
The primer also distinguishes different fuel-cell types. Polymer-electrolyte membrane systems typically use hydrogen and can vary output quickly. Higher-temperature designs can process some hydrocarbon fuels differently. These general characteristics explain why the choice of cell, fuel supply and operating conditions matters to a data-centre design; they do not identify which technology will be selected for FC-DC.
The wider research programme
DOE’s Alternative Fuels and Feedstocks Office describes stationary power for data centres as a focus of its fuel-cell technology work. Its programme includes infrastructure research on alternative-fuel transport and storage, alongside system integration and first-of-a-kind demonstrations intended to reduce technical uncertainty before commercial scale-up. FC-DC’s testing approach fits that research setting, while commercial readiness remains an outcome to be demonstrated.
A separate April 2026 assessment by the U.S. Government Accountability Office identified fuel cells as a possible source of quiet backup power for large facilities, including data centres. It also highlighted cost and hydrogen transport and storage as barriers to wider energy use. Those constraints are relevant context for fuel-cell infrastructure, rather than evidence of a problem or solution at the planned Santa Rosa demonstration. The project’s tests will need to establish performance within its actual system design.
Sources
- Renewable Innovations Joins National Laboratory of the Rockies Collaboration to Advance Fuel Cell Power for AI Data Centers
- DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy fuel-cell information
- Alternative Fuels and Feedstocks Office research programmes
- Hydrogen Energy: Technologies Offer Potential Benefits but Face Challenges to Widespread Use
Spotted an error or have a primary source we should read? Send a correction.