Iceland’s national power company has partnered with Verne Global to test and deploy hydrogen fuel cells as a long-term backup for its Icelandic data center facility.
Iceland’s system is already nearly 100 percent green, with the country’s government stating that renewable energy accounts for the largest percentage of the country’s overall energy budget. However, fossil fuels are still necessary for data center backup.
To put an end to this, Landsvirkjun is collaborating with Verne Global on a green hydrogen assessment, with Icelandic New Energy directing the project and publishing a report.
Icelandic New Energy was founded in 1999 with the goal of encouraging the use of hydrogen fuel in Iceland. It was founded after the Icelandic parliament decided in 1998 to switch the country’s automobile and fishing fleets to hydrogen produced from renewable energy by 2050.
“We’re always looking for ways to strengthen our already market-leading sustainability credentials, so we leaped at the chance to cooperate with Landsvirkjun and Icelandic New Energy to turn even our backup data center electricity ‘green,” said Dominic Ward, CEO of Verne Global.
The stakeholders claim that their initiative is Iceland’s first of its sort. Importantly, the hydrogen will be created using Iceland’s renewable energy, making the solution a viable alternative to gas.
Verne Global’s 40-acre data center complex has specialized data center services for companies who need to execute high-intensity compute workloads including AI, machine learning, HPC, and supercomputing.
Verne Global will deploy sustainable hydrogen-powered production to maintain its data center operations in the rare case of an interruption to its primary power source through this pilot project.
“We’re excited to partner with Verne Global on this project and assist them in capitalizing on Iceland’s unrivaled potential to offer green energy,” said Landsvirkjun CEO Hörur Arnarson. “We’re excited to collaborate with an industry leader on this ground-breaking research, which will offer us valuable insights for using hydrogen power across Iceland and beyond.”
