Fuel cells are powering AI data center demand: they’ve moved from interesting clean tech to major player. How are utilities using them?
Interchange Recharged
Wood Mackenzie
4.8 • 535 Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2026
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
US data centre announcements are averaging 435MW a month, and there’s around 175GW of large-load capacity already committed or under construction. AI hyperscalers are looking for innovative ways to meet their energy demands. It’s one of the biggest infrastructure challenges in energy right now: how to deliver reliable, fast power without derailing climate and decarbonisation goals. Joining interim host Bridget van Dorsten is Akhil Batheja, Director of Technology Strategy at Bloom Energy, to unpack why fuel cells have moved from “interesting clean technology” to the epicentre of the data-centre power conversation - and what that shift means for utilities, energy projects, and energy policy.
Together they discuss how solid oxide fuel cells differ from turbines, engines and batteries - from efficiency and permitting advantages to “Lego block” scalability - and why “time to power” is becoming the defining metric for data center owners. Bridget and Akhil explore grid resilience and the realities of operating off-grid campuses, how fuel cells can handle spiky AI workloads using supercapacitors, and why a future high-voltage DC architecture could reshape data-centre efficiency. Finally, they look at pathways to cleaner fuels, including hydrogen, renewable energy-linked fuels like biogas/RNG, and carbon capture, plus the role of energy finance and green finance in accelerating climate change solutions across the energy transition.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | They're spending unforeaken monies on Nvidia GPUs and building this infrastructure. |
| 0:04.6 | Once it's up and ready, they want it running immediately. |
| 0:07.6 | You're doing multiple steps to the process, right? |
| 0:09.6 | You're taking the chemical energy, combusting it in some form thermal energy. |
| 0:13.2 | You're converting that thermal energy by moving either a turbine or something moving to mechanical energy. |
| 0:17.3 | That mechanical energy is then exciting some sort of a conductor in electric field, and that produces electric energy, right? |
| 0:24.5 | So there's like three steps to that process. |
| 0:26.7 | So any change you have in the electric energy that has to cascade back, that becomes really tricky. |
| 0:31.7 | Fuel cells to contrast that is a direct process, right? |
| 0:34.0 | Because that's an electrochemical reaction happening on the cell is just one step. |
| 0:38.5 | It's sounding really good, almost too good to be true. What's the catch? |
| 0:45.9 | Wood McKenzie's Solar Energy and Storage Summit is back in Denver on the 29th and 30th of April |
| 0:52.2 | 26. It's co-located with the brand new North American Power and Renewables Forum, |
| 0:58.0 | which features senior speakers from across the US power sector. |
| 1:02.0 | Come and join over 450 senior leaders from US power developers, |
| 1:07.0 | utilities, and independent power producers to tackle the industry's biggest challenges. |
| 1:12.5 | From navigating life after tax credits to capturing the load growth boom, |
| 1:17.2 | discover how the energy mix is evolving and how the U.S. is going to meet that power demand. |
| 1:22.5 | Seats are limited, so register now at woodmack.com. |
| 1:27.7 | Welcome back to the interchange recharged. |
| 1:30.9 | I'm Bridget Van Doriston, your host. |
| 1:33.3 | And today we're talking about one of the biggest infrastructure challenges |
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