Today I was honored to participate in the White House’s “Scaling Renewable Energy and Storage with Smart Markets” event. It was a pleasure to meet with public and private sector professionals to discuss critical energy topics, including the acceleration of commercial energy storage.
Exploring next generation technologies for energy storage and management is a key component of Microsoft’s datacenter strategy to help fulfill our company’s ongoing commitment to 100 percent carbon neutrality. In support of this broader effort, today we announced a pilot program with Primus Power, which will advance energy storage at datacenters globally.
The program will be carried out in collaboration with NRG Energy, the University of Texas at San Antonio, and battery technology providers including Primus Power. It will test storage technologies that use batteries to act as grid resources to improve reliability, energy efficiency and usability of renewable energy. Multi-hour duration flow batteries, like those pioneered by Primus, are being evaluated for their ability to deliver uniform power for 20 years without fade or component replacement.
In addition to the pilot program, we have invested in other energy storage and management technologies including biogas and fuel cells, which have the potential to accelerate the availability of new types of energy and drive new efficiencies. As the world moves toward a future based on cloud computing, Microsoft is committed to using the power of technology to minimize our environmental impact and to ensure a sustainable, low-carbon future for our planet.
Learn more at https://www.microsoft.com/about/csr/environment/.