On its headquarters site in Torrance, California, Honda started running a stationary fuel cell power plant. This was the company’s first move toward commercializing zero-emission backup power generation in the future.
The project makes use of Honda’s experience in hydrogen fuel cell technology and advances the company’s global objective to attain carbon neutrality for all goods and business operations by 2050.
The data center on the American Honda Motor Co., Inc. property receives clean and quiet emergency backup power from Honda’s fuel cell power plant, which is now fully operational as a demonstration initiative. Honda will start implementing a next-generation stationary fuel cell system at its production plants and data centers throughout the world in the upcoming years, lowering the company’s greenhouse gas emissions.
With a design that enables the output to grow every 250 kW bundled with four fuel cells, the demonstration stationary fuel cell unit has a capacity of roughly 500 kW. It reuses the fuel cell systems of previously leased Honda Clarity Fuel Cell vehicles.
The fuel cell units can be arranged differently to accommodate cubic, L-shaped, Z-shaped, and other packing designs as well as the installation environment.
Future stationary FC units destined for commercial use will make use of the next-generation FC system Honda and General Motors collaboratively developed. This technology is also expected to power an entirely new FCEV based on the Honda CR-V when it debuts in 2024.
Due to the rise of cloud computing and big data usage over the past few years, data centers’ power needs have been overgrown, and the necessity for backup power sources has grown from the standpoint of business continuity planning (BCP). The fuel cell station in Torrance also serves as a proof of concept for the power generation unit’s potential commercialization in the future.
For backup power and balancing potential peak power events, hydrogen fuel cells hold out a lot of promise, in our opinion. Honda seeks to promote hydrogen and deliver clean energy for potential commercial clients by installing and employing our fundamental technology, the fuel cell system, in diverse applications, such as stationary power generation.
Honda revealed last fall that its Performance Manufacturing Center (PMC) in Marysville, Ohio would begin producing an all-new hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) in 2024, based on the recently released, all-new Honda CR-V. For more than 30 years, the business has been creating fuel cells and hydrogen technology.
Honda has said it will continue business development in the fields of commercial vehicles and construction equipment, in addition to the continued applicability to Honda fuel cell electric vehicles and stationary power generation.
