On Tuesday, Energy Internet Corporation (EIC), a privately held, Bay Area-based developer of zero-carbon, long-duration energy storage, announced its second major deals in as many weeks with high-profile technology partners in the red-hot market for green data centers. On Tuesday, EIC announced a partnership with Texas downstream decarbonization developer Lummus Technologies–which holds some 3,400 patents in process technologies ranging from petrochemicals and natural gas refining to hydrogen– to develop technologies specifically for electricity generation and energy storage for data centers using compressed or liquified air.
The partnership will be based around EIC’s Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) technology, which is designed to store power at times when generation exceeds consumption, delivering power during daily intermittencies as well as extended seasonal periods of renewable-power deprivation. EIC says it uses off the shelf components in a novel combination, allowing it to bypass the risks and costs associated with hardware development.
Lummus will participate in the development deal under the aegis of its Green Circle business unit, a subsidiary that develops solutions for the energy transition and circular economy. Green Circle’s areas of focus include conversion of plastic waste to value-added products; production of chemicals and fuels from biomass; and decarbonization of refinery and petrochemical assets.
Hailing Lummus as a “critical partnership” for his firm, EIC CEO Shankar Ramamurthy said the partnership would combine Lummus’s design, process and equipment technology with EIC’s software and design architecture.
“We believe that our partnership accelerates data center transition to environmentally sustainable operations, by providing zero carbon and net zero water energy solutions that are less expensive, more reliable and more available than alternatives today,” he said.
“We are thrilled to partner with EIC, and venture into technology applications that provide carbon-free, non-lithium storage that can power data centers and other users where reliability is crucial. This expands Lummus’ portfolio, diversifying from traditional fossil-derived feeds while applying the process and equipment technology and design capabilities that have made us so successful for decades,” added Lummus President and CEO Leon de Bruyn. “The partnership between EIC and Lummus also allows us to enter new and growing end markets, strengthens our role in the energy transition and immediately adds to our business while capitalizing on existing capabilities.”
Intel
Late last week, EIC confirmed that it is working with chip giant Intel to develop long-duration, low-cost renewable energy storage architecture in support of carbon-neutral computing in data centers. The reference architecture will be tailored for multiple data center classes, such as, Remote/Edge, Medium Scale (up to 50MW) and Hyperscale (greater than 50MW).
“Over the decades, sustainability has been a corporate goal for many leading corporations, including cloud service providers who power the digital world,” Intel fellow Mohan J. Kumar said upon the partnership being made public. “Achieving carbon free has proven to be an elusive goal for the industry, mostly due to lack of energy storage technologies that last over 24 hours and that are able to the overcome intermittency of green energy sources and the associated curtailment issues. Our exploration with EIC will tap Intel’s broad portfolio of sustainability technologies to explore new energy storage solutions using compressed air energy storage.”
