The US-based data centre solutions company launched its new system, dubbed Flexgrid, which integrates a range of energy sources, including hydrogen, natural gas, diesel, renewables, and grid power.

Flexgrid will power systems starting at 2MW, with the possibility of scaling up to 25MW with additional power sources.

This aims to enable data centres to accelerate AI installations where grid and hydrogen are not readily available.

Yuval Bachar, CEO of ECL, said moving towards the “power-agnostic” system reflects current market conditions.

“You should be able to plug in hydrogen where it’s abundant, natural gas where it’s ubiquitous, renewables where they are competitive, and still deliver [power]”, he continued.

The IEA estimates electricity demand from data centres could double by 2030 to 945TWh, which has raised concerns about grid connections and the increased use of fossil fuels in grids to supplement demand.

This comes after ECL delivered what it called the “world’s first” hydrogen-powered data centre in June 2024. At the time, Bachar said that hydrogen had been identified as “the power source of choice for the future” by many data centre providers.

The launch of Flexgrid signals a first move away from pure hydrogen power reliance in the data centre space. It comes as clean hydrogen projects face higher-than-predicted production costs and waning offtaker demand.