Fuel cells are powering AI data center demand: they’ve moved from interesting clean tech to major player. How are utilities using them?

Fuel cells are powering AI data center demand: they’ve moved from interesting clean tech to major player. How are utilities using them?

US data centre announcements are averaging 435MW a month, and there’s around 175GW of large-load capacity already committed or under construction. AI hyperscalers are looking for innovative ways to meet their energy demands. It’s one of the biggest infrastructure challenges in energy right now: how to deliver reliable, fast power without derailing climate and decarbonisation goals. Joining interim host Bridget van Dorsten is Akhil Batheja, Director of Technology Strategy at Bloom Energy, to unpack why fuel cells have moved from “interesting clean technology” to the epicentre of the data-centre power conversation - and what that shift means for utilities, energy projects, and energy policy.

Together they discuss how solid oxide fuel cells differ from turbines, engines and batteries - from efficiency and permitting advantages to “Lego block” scalability - and why “time to power” is becoming the defining metric for data center owners. Bridget and Akhil explore grid resilience and the realities of operating off-grid campuses, how fuel cells can handle spiky AI workloads using supercapacitors, and why a future high-voltage DC architecture could reshape data-centre efficiency. Finally, they look at pathways to cleaner fuels, including hydrogen, renewable energy-linked fuels like biogas/RNG, and carbon capture, plus the role of energy finance and green finance in accelerating climate change solutions across the energy transition.

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The grid's missing operating system: Why a $100,000 AI controller could defer trillions in hardware and why utilities won't buy it

The grid's missing operating system: Why a $100,000 AI controller could defer trillions in hardware and why utilities won't buy it

The energy transition conversation focuses on what connects to the grid. Far less attention goes to whether anyone is coordinating what those assets do once connected. AI training runs swing hundreds ...

2 Kesä 43min

The grid's immune system is retiring: Synchronous condensers, AI data centers and the physics gap that software alone can't close

The grid's immune system is retiring: Synchronous condensers, AI data centers and the physics gap that software alone can't close

As coal and gas plants retire, the energy transition conversation focuses on replacing their generation capacity. What gets far less attention is the loss of the physical properties those machines pro...

19 Touko 1h 2min

Beyond combustion: Long Island's first hydrogen-powered linear generator and the fuel-flexible answer to the dispatchable emissions-free resource problem

Beyond combustion: Long Island's first hydrogen-powered linear generator and the fuel-flexible answer to the dispatchable emissions-free resource problem

Utilities are under pressure to deliver generation that is dispatchable, affordable, and clean enough to satisfy increasingly stringent environmental rules, notoriously hard to do in one asset. As ren...

5 Touko 39min

The electrolyzer reckoning: Can disciplined product development deliver on green hydrogen's promise before the survivors run out of runway?

The electrolyzer reckoning: Can disciplined product development deliver on green hydrogen's promise before the survivors run out of runway?

Empty gigawatt factories, product recalls, participation rates that never materialised, and a policy environment that has now stripped the green premium entirely. The electrolyzer industry has had a b...

21 Huhti 1h

Flexibility as a service: Can Octopus's acquisition of Uplight finally make US residential VPPs work?

Flexibility as a service: Can Octopus's acquisition of Uplight finally make US residential VPPs work?

Millions of enrolled devices, 60 utilities, and the participation rate gap that's been embarrassing the US market for a decade. US residential virtual power plants have been a promising idea that's co...

7 Huhti 45min

The muscle we forgot: SMRs, hyperscalers, and why this nuclear renaissance might actually be different

The muscle we forgot: SMRs, hyperscalers, and why this nuclear renaissance might actually be different

Why nuclear has never been project financed and how that might finally be about to change.Every nuclear plant ever built has ultimately been backstopped by taxpayers or ratepayers. Not because the tec...

24 Maalis 56min

The grid nobody planned for: public power, hyperscalers and the race to rewire America for the AI age

The grid nobody planned for: public power, hyperscalers and the race to rewire America for the AI age

What two decades of flat demand means for a grid now expected to double in sizeThe US went from essentially zero load growth for twenty years to 3% national growth almost overnight. The supply chains,...

10 Maalis 1h 4min

Is hyperscaler demand finally giving CCS its moment?

Is hyperscaler demand finally giving CCS its moment?

Carbon capture and storage has long been framed as a clean technology that’s forever five years away. Bridget van Dorsten speaks with Tim Vail, CEO of ION Clean Energy, to explore why a surge in AI da...

24 Helmi 47min

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