Honda Motor Co., Tokuyama Company, and Mitsubishi Company have launched an illustration undertaking to energy a knowledge middle utilizing recycled gasoline cells from EVs and industrial by-product hydrogen. The businesses held a gap ceremony on the demonstration website in Shunan Metropolis, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan.
The undertaking makes use of a stationary gasoline cell energy station developed by Honda that comes with gasoline cells recovered from gasoline cell EVs. The system makes use of by-product hydrogen produced by Tokuyama’s salt water electrolysis operations to generate electrical energy for a distributed information middle operated by Mitsubishi Company.
The three corporations started planning the undertaking in June 2023 after it was chosen by Japan’s New Vitality and Industrial Know-how Growth Group as a part of its ‘Growth of Applied sciences for Realizing a Hydrogen Society’ program.
The demonstration goals to confirm whether or not reusing automotive gasoline cell methods for stationary purposes can scale back prices for purchasers putting in energy stations and contribute to electrical energy decarbonization. The businesses anticipate gasoline cell adoption to extend in coming years, making efficient reuse of those methods more and more vital.
Knowledge facilities face rising energy calls for attributable to applied sciences requiring large-volume information processing, together with generative synthetic intelligence and automatic driving methods. The undertaking seeks to deal with this problem by combining by-product hydrogen, which might be produced with low carbon emissions, with reusable gasoline cells to assist information middle operations.
The demonstration will take a look at electrical energy provide from a number of sources, together with the stationary gasoline cell energy station, the ability grid, battery vitality storage methods, and renewable vitality sources. An Vitality Administration System will coordinate completely different operation patterns, together with backup energy, off-grid main energy, peak demand discount, and grid supply-demand balancing that features feeding electrical energy again to the grid.
Honda has performed hydrogen expertise and gasoline cell EV analysis for greater than 30 years. The corporate goals for carbon neutrality throughout all merchandise and company actions by 2050 and has recognized 4 core domains for gasoline cell purposes: FCEVs, industrial automobiles, stationary energy stations, and development equipment.
The stationary gasoline cell energy station used on this undertaking incorporates gasoline cells from Honda’s CR-V e:FCEV. The system is designed to fulfill prospects’ most electrical energy consumption wants whereas sustaining a compact dimension by way of optimized cooling methods and inside structure. Honda designed the station to realize excessive responsiveness, concentrating on energy provide inside 10 seconds of startup for emergency backup purposes.
The undertaking will discover enterprise viability and sensible purposes whereas analyzing how the expertise can assist municipal and native enterprise digital transformation initiatives.
