Silicon Valley startup Bloom Energy has finally unveiled its long-awaited distributed fuel cell system.

 

In a press event last week starring Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Colin Powell, the company announced its Bloom Energy Server and half a dozen marquee customers.

 

It says its server – based on patented solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology – delivers “a cleaner, more reliable, and more affordable alternative” to both the grid renewable energy.

 

It predicts that as a distributed system, the server will have the same disruptive effect on power grids as mobile phones have had on landline telephony. It announced Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Cox Enterprises, eBay, Google and Walmart as among its initial customers.

 

The nine-year-old company has developed the product in stealth mode, punctuated by some enthusiastic publicity over the last 18 months, including a recent spot on 60 Minutes,

 

It says compared with hydrogen fuel cells, the “Bloom Box” uses lower cost materials, is more efficient in converting fuel to electricity and can run on a wide range of renewable or traditional fuels.

 

According to the company, each box provides 100kW of power “in roughly the footprint of a parking space” and generates enough power to meet the needs of 100 US homes or a small office building.

 

Bloom says customers can expect a three- to five-year payback on their capital investment from the energy cost savings.  Depending on whether they are using a fossil or renewable fuel, they can also achieve a 40-100% reduction in their carbon footprint as compared with the US grid.

 

K. R. Sridhar, principal co-founder and CEO of Bloom Energy, said: “Just as cell phones circumvented landlines to proliferate telephony, Bloom Energy will enable the

adoption of distributed power as a smarter, localized energy source.”

 

The Bloom server began as a project nine years ago to help the Nasa Mars space program produce oxygen and fuel.

 

The server converts air and nearly any fuel source – ranging from natural gas to a wide range of biogases – into electricity via an electrochemical process, rather than combustion.

 

Even running on a fossil fuel, the systems are approximately 67% cleaner than a

typical coal-fired power plant, Bloom says.

 

Bloom’s corporate customers say the boxes cost about 8 to 10 cents per kWH – but that includes the benefit of tax incentives, says Data Center Knowledge.

 

“Bloom’s California customers achieve the quoted electricity costs only because they pay for just half of the system’s capital expense, based on the generous 30% U.S. federal tax credit and the $2,500/kW California rebate,” said research firm Lux.

 

Without the incentives, the electricity would “cost around $0.13/kWh to $0.14/kWh, with about $0.09/kWh from system cost and about $0.05/kWh coming from fuel cost,” Lux calculated. “Note that this is high compared to average retail U.S. electricity costs of roughly $0.11/kWh.”