Thursday, March 4, 2010

More Benefits & Applications

Bloom has a Broader Vision
Historically, businesses have been required to install many different energy technologies to address all their energy needs. To ensure power reliability, they purchased costly backup solutions. For increased power quality, they purchased power conditioning equipment. If they simply wanted clean power, they installed solar panels or purchased Renewable Energy Credits. All individual solutions that solve individual problems.
Bloom is Different

Bloom Energy's versatile fuel cell technology is essentially a flexible energy platform, providing multiple benefits simultaneously for a wide range of applications. In addition to clean, reliable, affordable electricity, Bloom customers can realize a multitude of other advantages:
  • Reverse Backup: Businesses often purchase generators and other expensive backup applications that sit idle 99% of the time, while they purchase their electricity from the grid as their primary source. The Bloom solution allows customers to flip that paradigm, by using the Energy Server as their primary power, and only purchasing electricity from the grid to supplement the output when necessary. Increased asset utilization leads to dramatically improved ROI for Bloom Energy's customers.
  • Time to Power: The ease of placing Bloom Energy Servers across a broad variety of geographies and customer segments allows systems to be installed quickly, on demand, without the added complexity of cumbersome combined heat and power applications or large space requirements of solar. These systems' environmental footprint enables them to be exempt from local air permitting requirements, thus streamlining the approval process. Fast installation simply requires a concrete pad, a fuel source, and an internet connection.
  • DC Power: Bloom systems natively produce DC power, which provides an elegant solution to efficiently power DC data centers and/or be the plug-and-play provider for DC charging stations for electric vehicles.
  • Hydrogen Production: Bloom's technology, with its NASA roots, can be used to generate electricity and hydrogen. Coupled with intermittent renewable resources like solar or wind, Bloom’s future systems will produce and store hydrogen to enable a 24 hour renewable solution and provide a distributed hydrogen fueling infrastructure for hydrogen powered vehicles.
  • Carbon Sequestration: The electrochemical reaction occurring within Bloom Energy systems generates electricity, heat, some H2O, and pure CO2. Traditionally, the most costly aspect of carbon sequestration is separating the CO2 from the other effluents. The pure CO2 emission allows for easy and cost-effective carbon sequestration from the Bloom systems.
Bloom is proud to deliver one of the most robust and dynamic energy platforms on the market today.
Read rest of entry

Energy Security


Securing Your Energy Future
The fact that the grid is a shared, centralized resource means that your energy security is impacted by many factors beyond your control and rarely in your best interest. Few will forget the "Northeast Blackout of 2003", when a failure to trim trees in Ohio set off a chain of events across the grid that ultimately cut power to 55 million people in eight U.S. states and Canada.
Dependence on the aging grid leaves you exposed to surges, brownouts and unexpected service interruptions, and requires costly investments in backup solutions that sit idle most of the time. But there is a way to take control of your energy security without breaking the bank.
Distributed Generation is the Answer
Distributed generation refers to power generation at the point of consumption. Generating power on-site, rather than centrally, eliminates the cost, complexity, interdependencies, and inefficiencies associated with transmission and distribution, and shifts control to the consumer.
In addition to providing distributed generation, Bloom's technology offers several other key benefits contributing to energy security.
  • Bloom's modular building block architecture is fault tolerant, helping to ensure the highest levels of power availability.
  • The systems are capable of running on a wide range of pipeline and locally stored fuels and can automatically detect an interruption and cut over from a primary to a backup fuel source.
  • The systems can operate in grid parallel mode — the grid provides a great backup and surge handler.
  • In addition to availability, power quality is also an important issue. In today's digital age, many technologies suffer from variation in voltage or electrical flow over the transmission and distribution infrastructure that result in poor power quality. Bloom generates perfect waveform at the point of consumption. That means perfect power quality for our digital age.
Bloom puts your energy future in your control.
Read rest of entry

Best of Both Worlds – You Don't Have to Choose


Few would pay more to be green, but wouldn't everybody go green to save money? For far too long, companies have been forced to choose between their budget and their conscience. Bloom Energy is changing that paradigm.
Bloom allows you to save money first. The efficiency built into Bloom's fuel cell systems allows a typical customer to achieve a 3-5 year financial payback making it an easy and economically sound choice.
But the economics aren't the only story. Customers can also cut their CO2 emissions by 40%-100% compared to the U.S. grid (depending on their fuel choice) and virtually eliminate all SOx, NOx, and other harmful smog forming particulate emissions. Installing Bloom Energy Servers allows you to dramatically reduce your carbon footprint, but not at the cost of your bottom line.
When operating on pipeline-delivered natural gas, Bloom systems efficiently and electrochemically convert that fuel into low-carbon, baseload electricity. The same Energy Servers can also provide a carbon neutral generation solution operating on renewable fuels such as biogas. Bloom's fuel flexibility allows customers to choose the solution that is right for them.
Bloom Energy proves that reducing your carbon footprint and your energy costs are no longer mutually exclusive.
Read rest of entry

Lower & Lock-In Energy Costs


Take Control of your Energy Economics
Depending solely on your local utility for your power needs leaves you exposed to significant risk. Prices are increasing and volatile and outages are unpredictable, leaving you vulnerable to damages from brownouts, surges, and unexpected service interruptions.
Lack of consistent service isn't the only consideration, because if history means anything, electricity prices aren't likely to go down. In fact, in places like California, they've gone up on average ~6% per year over the last 40 years. And while no one knows for sure what the future holds for grid electricity prices, most experts conclude that they will continue to increase significantly over the next decade due to a combination of rising fuel costs, pending carbon legislation, and large investments required to overhaul the antiquated grid infrastructure to keep pace with our modern world.
For those uncomfortable with this status quo, Bloom Energy can help you take control of your energy economics.
Lower Costs
Bloom Energy enables you to save money by lowering your electricity costs. Our customers today generate their own electricity for less than they pay their power company. The savings typically provide a 3-5 year payback on their initial capital investment.
Our systems can generate electricity cheaper than the power company for two main reasons. First, Bloom's unmatched efficiency in converting fuel to electricity means that our systems produce significantly more electricity for the same fuel costs. Second, our ability to generate the electricity on-site eliminates the need for costly transmission and distribution infrastructure.
Lock-in Pricing
While lowering energy costs is important, for some it is even more critical to make them predictable. Bloom Energy offers you a way to lock-in your electricity costs for the long term. You can fix your electricity costs by entering into a long term fuel contract with your gas supplier and taking advantage of our ability to consistently produce clean electricity from that fuel.
Pay As You Grow
Bloom Energy provides a modular solution that allows you to incrementally increase your onsite generating capacity if, and when, your energy needs grow. Instead of being forced to anticipate your power demand for the next ten to twenty years and paying upfront for equipment capacity you can't use, our solution allows you to match your initial deployment to your current base load and to pay as you grow.
...AND IT'S CLEANER TOO
Bloom Energy doesn't believe that achieving your sustainability goals should cost you more. Given the opportunity to save money and help the environment, the right decision becomes an easy one.
Read rest of entry

Bloom Energy delivers Better Electrons


All electrons are not created equal. Only Bloom Energy delivers electrons that are clean and reliable and affordable… all at the same time… and just for you. That makes them better electrons.
Bloom's Energy Servers™ help you to
  • Lower your energy costs and eliminate volatility
  • Save the environment and save money
  • Improve your energy security and reliability
  • Start small and "pay as you grow"
  • Get access to power quickly
Our simple, modular, building-block architecture is easy to install and easy to buy.
Bloom manages and maintains the system 24/7/365. All you see are the benefits from better electrons.
Read rest of entry

ES-5000 Energy Server

ES-5000 Energy Server

 
 
Technical Highlights
Inputs
Fuels Natural Gas, Directed Biogas
Input fuel pressure 15 psig
Fuel required @ rated power 0.661 MMBtu/hr of natural gas
Water required (for startup only) 120 gallons municipal water
Outputs
Rated power output (AC) 100 kW
Electrical efficiency (LHV net AC) > 50%
Electrical connection 480V @ 60 Hz, 4-wire 3 phase
Physical
Weight 10 tons
Size 224" x 84" x 81"
Emissions
NOx < 0.07 lbs/MW-hr
SOx negligible
CO < 0.10 lbs/MW-hr
VOCs < 0.02 lbs/MW-hr
CO2 @ specified efficiency 773 lbs/MW-hr on natural gas,
carbon neutral on Directed Biogas
Environment
Standard temperature range 0° to 40° C (extreme weather kit available)
Max altitude at rated power 6,000 ft. MSL
Humidity 20% - 95%
Seismic Vibration IBC 2003: Site Class D
Location Outdoor
Noise @ rated power < 70 DB @ 6 feet
Codes and Standards
Complies with Rule 21 interconnection standards
Exempt from CA Air District permitting; meets stringent CARB 2007 emissions standards
Product Listed by Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL) to ANSI/CSA America FC 1
Additional Notes
Operates in a grid parallel configuration
Includes a secure website for you to showcase performance & environmental benefits
Remotely managed and monitored by Bloom Energy
Capable of emergency stop based on input from your facility
Read rest of entry

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells


Fuel cells were invented over a century ago and have been used in practically every NASA mission since the 1960's, but until now, they have not gained widespread adoption because of their inherently high costs.
Legacy fuel cell technologies like proton exchange membranes (PEMs), phosphoric acid fuel cells (PAFCs), and molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFCs), have all required expensive precious metals, corrosive acids, or hard to contain molten materials. Combined with performance that has been only marginally better than alternatives, they have not been able to deliver a strong enough economic value proposition to overcome the status quo.
Some makers of legacy fuel cell technologies have tried to overcome these limitations by offering combined heat and power (CHP) schemes to take advantage of their wasted heat. While CHP does improve the economic value proposition, it only really does so in environments with exactly the right ratios of heat and power requirements on a 24/7/365 basis. Everywhere else the cost, complexity, and customization of CHP tends to outweigh the benefits.
For decades, experts have agreed that solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) hold the greatest potential of any fuel cell technology. With low cost ceramic materials, and extremely high electrical efficiencies, SOFCs can deliver attractive economics without relying on CHP. But until now, there were significant technical challenges inhibiting the commercialization of this promising new technology. SOFCs operate at extremely high temperature (typically above 800°C). This high temperature gives them extremely high electrical efficiencies, and fuel flexibility, both of which contribute to better economics, but it also creates engineering challenges.
Bloom has solved these engineering challenges. With breakthroughs in materials science, and revolutionary new design, Bloom's SOFC technology is a cost effective, all-electric solution.
Over a century in the making, fuel cells are finally clean, reliable, and most importantly, affordable.
Read rest of entry
 

Bloom Box Energy