Looking To Go Green, Microsoft Starts Using Hydrogen Fuel

Kantor Microsoft (Image by Efes Kitap from Pixabay)

JAKARTA - Carbon exhaust emissions are currently a serious topic of discussion for global companies, including in the United States (US). In response to this, Microsoft has developed hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative energy.

Quoting the Engadget page, the technology company has announced that it will be approaching its 'carbon negative' target by 2030. The use of hydrogen fuel cells can generate 250kW of energy which is enough to operate Microsoft data centers and servers for 48 consecutive hours.

According to Microsoft's chief environmental officer, Lucas Joppa uses hydrogen as an alternative and economical resource as a substitute for diesel generators. Even though this company only uses less than 1 percent of diesel fuel as its reserve energy.

"And the idea of using green hydrogen fits perfectly with our overall carbon commitment," he was quoted as saying in a Microsoft press release, Tuesday, July 28.

The technology giant's idea has been exploring hydrogen fuel cells since 2018, when researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO used proton exchange membrane hydrogen (PEM) fuel cells to power computer devices.

Until finally infrastructure engineers from Microsoft developed a fuel cell system using hydrogen. The result is that this fuel cell is capable of producing 250 kW of electrical energy for 48 hours which is now used to operate Microsoft servers and data centers in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States (US).

The team plans to develop this alternative fuel cell to produce up to 3 megawatts of power, making it suitable for use as a backup generator. "It is possible that the Azure data center could be fully equipped and run on hydrogen fuel cells and electrolyzers that convert water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen," said Monroe.

Hydrogen backup generator (doc. Microsoft)

It is known that this system can integrate with the electric power grid to provide alternative energy services. In addition, Microsoft also offers convenience for owners of hydrogen-powered vehicles, can come to the data center to refuel their cars.

"By continuing to develop hydrogen fuel technology, Microsoft could eventually serve as the company's model for the use of hydrogen fuel cells elsewhere," added Monroe.

Previously, this initiative had also been carried out by Jeff Bezos' retail company, Amazon. Amazon announced that it will provide some funds through the Amazon Climate Pledge program.

Approximately US $ 2 billion or the equivalent of Rp28 trillion will be granted by Amazon to help advance technology that will reduce greenhouse gases. This fund will help Amazon and other companies comply with The Climate Pledge initiative that began in September 2019. The promise to be zero carbon by 2040.