World premiere: biogas fuel cell powers and cools telecom server farm

Server farms have a voracious appetite for energy. On the one hand they use considerable amounts of electricity to function, while on the other hand they need vast amounts of cooling. Some have noticed that rising energy prices are becoming a heavy burden on the IT and telecom industry’s servers, which form the backbone of the internet and of global telecommunications. Increases in the energy efficiency of new generations of servers don’t keep up with rising energy costs.


In a world premiere, a large server farm in Germany is overcoming the problem by using what is arguably the cleanest and most efficient energy system currently in existence: a fuel cell that delivers both electricity and cooling, powered by locally produced carbon-negative biogas.

Biopact