Data center using fuel cells in place of diesel generators for backup power

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8937405-B2
Application number	US-65118509-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 31, 2009
Priority date	Dec 31, 2009
Publication date	Jan 20, 2015
Grant date	Jan 20, 2015

Abstract

The need for backup diesel generators in a data center is obviated by using fuel cells to convert a fuel to electrical energy, which provide backup power to equipment in a data center, which may include the servers in the data center and other important systems that normally use utility power. When the utility power fails, the equipment switches to backup power that is provided by fuel cells supplied with fuel (such as natural gas), possibly using a source of temporary power (e.g., a UPS or direct tie-in of batteries) while the fuel cells come online. The fuel may also be used to power a turbine or generator, coupled to a chiller for providing a cooled liquid to a cooling system.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A server system comprising:
a plurality of servers, wherein each of the servers is configured to receive AC power at an AC input of the server and DC power at a DC input of the server;
an input power terminal coupled to receive AC electrical power from a utility service and further coupled to the AC input of each of a plurality of the servers to provide the AC electrical power from the utility service to the plurality of servers;
a fuel source configured…

Assignees

• Park Seung Hoon
• Facebook Inc

Inventors

• Park Seung Hoon

Classifications

• H02J2101/30

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H02J9/061

  Electricity · mapped topic

• Y02P90/40

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• G06F1/30 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• H02J2001/004

  Electricity · mapped topic