There is little question that hydrogen fuel cells hold a lot of promise for data center power and general power generation for industrial use.

But as we have mentioned before, the availability of hydrogen is dependent on a number of factors, not the least of which is hydrogen generation and distribution.

Plug Power, which started making waves in 2022 when it built a 3 MW hydrogen powered generation system for Microsoft, believes that we are on the cusp of seeing a more general use of hydrogen fuel cells for adding power to the grid.

Although, as Plug Power CEO Andrew Marsh said, “I don’t think it’s a 2024 event. I think it could be a late 2025 event where you start seeing some deployments at scale.”

But Marsh isn’t referring to the concept of having hydrogen power on-site for backup power.

He expects customers to be able to do peak load shaving, making use of the power generation capability as a regular part of a site’s power generation plan.

And with the ongoing efforts to make data centers better citizens of the power grid, this on-site power generation capability to not only backstop, but also supplement the grid, should find a lot of support in the industry.