Bloom box. Eco-friendly power unit.
Energy Server is released. What makes the Energy Server unique ?
Built with our patented solid oxide fuel cell technology, Bloom’s Energy Server™ is a new class of distributed power generator, producing clean, reliable, affordable electricity at the customer site.
Fuel cells are devices that convert fuel into electricity through a clean electro-chemical process rather than dirty combustion. They are like batteries except that they always run. Our particular type of fuel cell technology is different than legacy “hydrogen” fuel cells in four main ways:
- Low cost materials – our cells use a common sand-like powder instead of precious
metals like platinum or corrosive materials like acids. - High electrical efficiency – we can convert fuel into electricity at nearly twice the
rate of some legacy technologies - Fuel flexibility – our systems are capable of using either renewable or fossil fuels
- Reversible – our technology is capable of both energy generation and storage
Each Bloom Energy Server provides 100kW of power, enough to meet the baseload needs of 100 average homes or a small office building… day and night, in roughly the footprint of a standard parking space. For more power simply add more energy servers.
100 kW is a lot of power. An average European house needs 3000-4000 W. Although currently a commercial unit costs $700,000-$800,000 each, Sridhar hopes to manufacture home units that cost less than $3,000 in five to 10 years. He said he got the idea after designing a device for NASA that would generate oxygen on Mars, for a mission that was later canceled.
A great product.
Site: www.bloomenergy.com
Blessings,
Koen
Sorry, but isn’t this just a typical fuel cell?
It needs fuel and oxygen, burns them to produce CO2, H2O, residual heat, and electricity.
The cell itself may be made of materials that are less expensive to produce and have less
of an ecological impact to refine/produce, so in that aspect it may be somewhat more “eco-friendly” than other fuel cells.
But in its power generation process it seems identical to existing “expensive” fuel cells.
Which means it does not appear to be a more “eco-friendly” way of producing power
than any other fuel cell that burns a fuel-oxygen mix.
It still burns fuel, it still produces CO2, it is NOT “eco-friendly”.