Honda and Mitsubishi will check a fuel cell-powered records center in Japan

In a nutshell: Fuel cells - used as an opportunity electricity supply in the automobile industry - convert the chemical energy of a gasoline, often hydrogen, and an oxidizing agent (oxygen) into strength. Japan has a substantial fleet of gasoline mobile electric powered motors (FCEVs) on its roads, some thing Mitsubishi plans to exploit in its ultra-modern experiment for an environmentally sustainable strength infrastructure.

Mitsubishi these days introduced a joint demonstration for a new-era statistics center, a plant designed to apply a stationary fuel cellular (FC) electricity station as its primary electricity source. The employer will companion with Honda and Tokuyama Corporation, exploring the feasibility of an FC-based electricity source inside the face of in addition increase in energy demand for statistics centers crunching large volumes of statistics.

The challenge could be held within the metropolis of Shunan, Mitsubishi said, wherein Tokuyama has run an electrolysis plant considering 1952. Tokuyama will provide the hydrogen extracted as derivative of its saltwater electrolysis commercial enterprise, whilst Honda will develop the power station via reusing fuel cells eliminated from its electric powered automobiles.

The innovative data center become proposed by using the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), a Japanese agency which promotes research, improvement and adoption of modern hydrogen-based totally energy assets. The joint venture ought to start on March 31, walking for 2 years until March 31, 2026.

FCEVs are a potential opportunity to battery-powered vehicles, though they don't provide the equal electricity efficiency. Honda has already tested retired hydrogen gasoline cells repurposed as a information center backup power supply in California, at the same time as the new Japan undertaking goals to build a stationary electricity plant that could paintings each as a backup and a primary electricity source.

Mitsubishi did not provide any details about the statistics center infrastructure the agency will control in Shunan, so the amount of power furnished with the aid of the FC-primarily based energy plant is currently unknown. Hydrogen is taken into consideration a clean gas because it best produces water as a derivative of a fuel mobile's electrochemical reaction.

Commercially produced hydrogen is extracted from methane gasoline with an strength-intensive method based totally on fossil fuels, which is probably the equal technology employed with the aid of Tokuyama in its saltwater electrolysis plant. Mitsubishi's task ought to at the least be useful in demonstrating the feasibility of an powerful integration of hydrogen and exhausted fuel cells into the strength business.