Hannah Baldwin, an electrical engineer for the high-power stationary group at Plug Power, inspects a fuel cell in the generator built in New York in partnership with Microsoft. (Microsoft Photo / John Brecher)
Data centers packed with millions of servers provide the backbone of the internet, dishing up everything from cat videos to financial transactions to online gaming when and where you need them.
Given data centers’ importance, their operators — including Microsoft, Amazon and Google — take great pains to make sure there’s always power available to keep them running. That means having sufficient backup energy from diesel generators and batteries in case of power outages.
But tech companies are also pledging ambitious climate goals that don’t align with burning diesel from fossil fuels.
Microsoft has been working on cleaner alternatives…