Tatsat Chronicle Magazine

Airtel’s Nxtra Joins Hands With Bloom Energy To Reduce Carbon Emissions

September 13, 2022
nxtra

Bharti Airtel’s subsidiary, Nxtra Data Limited has partnered with Bloom Energy to implement the installation of a low-impact fuel cell in its Karnataka data center. The new fuel cell will help in reducing carbon emissions by providing clean energy with the help of hydrogen-ready fuel supply.

Nxtra will be the first data center company in India to implement fuel cell technology in its data centers to reduce carbon emissions and unlock the benefits of cost and sustainability.

In an official statement, Rajesh Tapadia, COO of Nxtra by Airtel said in a statement: “Nxtra is committed to set new benchmarks in sustainability for the data centre industry and play a leading role as India emerges as leading data centre destination in APAC. With an ambition to reach net zero by 2031, we have embarked on our sustainability journey by making all possible efforts to adopt innovative energy solutions. Our partnership with Bloom Energy is a testament to our future-ready energy strategy to supply much cleaner energy to our data centres.”

Nxtra plans to run the unit on non-combusted natural gas and then switch to 50% hydrogen in the future without any significant investment. The natural gas fuel cell will be used for primary generation with grid electricity and generators as a backup source.

“Bloom Energy’s technology is distinctly capable of helping India meet its decarbonisation objectives as it transitions to a hydrogen economy,” said Tim Schweikert, senior managing director, international business development, Bloom Energy.

Airtel’s Nxtra has the largest data center network in India with 12 large data centers and 120 edge data centers in India. The company is planning to invest over Rs 5,000 crore to increase the capacity to 400 MW over the next four years.