A natural gas provider, a fuel cell developer, and an investment firm have partnered to power off-grid data centers with natural gas and methane from coal mines.
Diversified Energy, FuelCell Energy, and TESIAC this week announced plans to form an acquisition and development company focused on using the fuels for data center projects.
The three companies would leverage in-basin natural gas production, energy generation via fuel cell technology, and infrastructure financing to create “a highly efficient, scalable, and sustainable energy solution” tailored for near-term data center power capacity requirements.
Natural gas and methane would be extracted from coal mines by Diversified Energy and delivered via a pipeline to FuelCell’s cells, which would generate power through the electrochemical conversion of methane to hydrogen, and then to electricity. TESIAC would provide the financing options.
The companies said the offering has fiber-connected sites identified that are scaleable to hundreds of megawatts and could be online within two years.
Details of planned locations weren’t shared in the release, but a FuelCell earnings presentation from this month said the partnership could supply as much as 360MW of electricity to locations in Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky.
Diversified Energy is LSE/NYSE-listed focused on natural gas and liquids with assets across the US.
Brad Gray, Diversified Energy president and CFO, said: “Our natural gas and coal mine methane asset footprint is advantageously positioned in the Appalachian Region to support the power generation needs of data centers directly. The market demand for the type of reliable, quickly dispatchable power that only natural gas can deliver is incredibly strong, and we’re excited about the potential of this partnership to deploy Diversified Energy-produced natural gas and coal mine methane and pair it with FuelCell’s advanced industrial-scale technology to create an efficient, cost-effective, environmentally sound solution for the next generation power needs of data centers.”
Founded as Energy Research Corp in 1969, Connecticut-based FuelCell Energy provides carbonate and solid oxide fuel cells. The company is listed on the NASDAQ.
Jason Few, president and CEO of FuelCell Energy, said: “By leveraging an abundant supply of natural gas and coal mine methane (CMM), we’re confident we can address data center energy needs more quickly and cleanly than other market alternatives, accelerating the time to revenue for data centers and their customers.”
TESIAC is an investment and development platform company focused on regional economic development, sustainable energy infrastructure, workforce development, and community-centered reinvestment opportunities.
Karen Morgan, managing partner at TESIAC, said: “We anticipate there will be multiple benefits for communities from this collaboration. Stabilizing the energy supply, while capturing methane emissions, turns an environmental challenge into an economic growth opportunity, creating steady job growth as a result of bringing the supply chain closer to the source of power and the end user.”
