UConn's Campus as a Blueprint for Data Center Power
December 1, 2025
As the United States grapples with the soaring energy demands of its digital infrastructure, the search for sustainable and reliable on-site power generation has become critical. Data centers, essential for everything from cloud computing to the anticipated revolution in quantum computing, consumed approximately 4% of the nation's electricity in 2023, a figure projected by the Department of Energy to surpass 9% by 2030. This surge underscores an urgent need for scalable, efficient, and clean power solutions.
The University of Connecticut (UConn) has emerged as a leading proving ground for one such solution: fuel cell technology. For decades, UConn has served as a living laboratory, advancing fuel cell research and implementation. This work positions the university's expertise as a direct answer to the data center industry's growing power challenges.
UConn's practical deployment of fuel cells began in 2012 at its Depot Campus, which now operates entirely on the technology. A key installation includes a HyAxiom 460-kW unit that recovers about 1.7 million BTU/hour of waste heat for university labs—a combined heat and power (CHP) profile that mirrors the exact efficiency needs of modern data centers. The university's partnership with FuelCell Energy in 2024 brought fuel cells to the Innovation Partnership Building at the Storrs flagship campus, while a donation of eight 1.5-kW solid oxide fuel cell units from InfraPrime has uniquely equipped UConn to advance this specific technology.
The financial and operational benefits are substantial. At the Central Utility Plant in Storrs, the integration of advanced turbines capable of utilizing 30% hydrogen is expected to save nearly $180 million in energy costs over the plant's lifetime. Furthermore, fuel cell installations at UConn's Stamford campus and Farmington health complex provide significant portions of those sites' energy, saving millions annually by reducing strain on the local grid.
This "lab-to-load" model is integral to UConn's broader impact. The university's energy-related research, involving over 100 faculty including world-renowned clean energy expert and President Radenka Maric, contributed to a record $367 million in research awards in fiscal year 2024. UConn's overall annual economic impact in Connecticut is estimated at $8.5 billion, supporting about 32,000 jobs and generating around $320 million in state and local taxes.
The implications for the data center industry are clear. UConn's research spans the critical areas of materials, cell architectures, and systems modeling needed for reliable baseload power. Recent breakthroughs in direct carbon fuel cells (DCFCs) are achieving record efficiency, bringing carbon-to-electricity commercialization closer. As President Maric and a team of leading experts like C2E2 director Xiao-Dong Zhou continue their work, UConn stands ready to translate its proven, on-campus fuel cell successes into scalable, firm, and grid-smart power solutions for the nation's data centers.
Source: today.uconn
University of Connecticut Pioneers Fuel Cell Technology as Scalable Power Solution for Data Centers
