Data Center Power: Solar, Nuclear, Fuel Cells, and Carbon Capture Options

Data centers are a fast-growing electricity demand source, and most of that power still comes from fossil fuels. As accounting shifts from market-based offsets to location-based and time-matched emissions, operators are looking at solar plus battery storage, small modular reactors, fuel cells, and carbon capture. IDTechEx projects global data center power capacity could triple to over 300 GW by 2036. Solar alone cannot meet round-the-clock demand, but pairing it with grid-scale batteries is becoming more competitive. Nuclear SMRs from startups backed by Google, Amazon, and Meta are still years away from commercial scale. Natural gas fuel cells can cut emissions now and later run on hydrogen, while carbon capture remains a longer-term option with infrastructure hurdles. The article gives a practical overview of what can scale and what is still speculative.