Bloom Energy power servers at eBay offices in San Jose, California. Photo: Bloom Energy

Sunnyvale, CA - February 24, 2010

Bloom Energy Corporation, a Silicon Valley-based company committed to changing the way people generate and consume energy, announced today the availability of the Bloom Energy Server™, a patented solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology that provides a cleaner, more reliable, and more affordable alternative to both today’s electric grid as well as traditional renewable energy sources.

Dr. KR Sridhar, co-founder and CEO of Bloom Energy, poses next to Bloom Energy power servers at eBay offices in San Jose, California. Photo: Bloom Energy

Bloom Energy Server provides continuous onsite electricity from wide range of renewable or traditional fuel sources Industry-leading customers include Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Cox Enterprises, eBay, Google, FedEx, Staples, and Walmart.

The Bloom Energy Server provides distributed power generation, allowing customers to efficiently create their own electricity onsite.

ES-5000 Energy Server Photo: Bloom Energy

The company introduced its groundbreaking technology at an event hosted today at eBay Inc. headquarters along with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, General Colin Powell, and several of its early customers.

ES-5000 Energy Server Photo: Bloom Energy

Built using abundant and affordable materials, Bloom’s fuel cell technology is fundamentally different from the legacy “hydrogen” fuel cells most people are familiar with.

The Bloom Energy Server is distinct in four primary ways: it uses lower cost materials, provides unmatched efficiency in converting fuel to electricity, has the ability to run on a wide range of renewable or traditional fuels, and is more easily deployed and maintained.

Bloom Energy power servers at eBay offices in San Jose, California. Photo: Bloom Energy

Unlike traditional renewable energy technologies, like solar and wind, which are intermittent, Bloom’s technology can provide renewable power 24/7.

Each Bloom Energy Server provides 100 kilowatts (kW) of power in roughly the footprint of a parking space.
Each system generates enough power to meet the needs of approximately 100 average U.S. homes or a small office building.

Bloom Energy, 1252 Orleans Drive, Sunnyvale, California Photo: Bloom Energy

For more power, customers simply deploy multiple Energy Servers side by side. The modular architecture allows customers to start small and “pay as they grow”.

Bloom’s customers have deployed the solution to lower and/or fix their energy costs, while significantly cutting their carbon footprint and enhancing their energy security by reducing their dependence on the grid.

Bloom Fuel Cell Photo: Bloom Energy

Customers who purchase Bloom’s systems can expect a 3-5 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 U.S. grid.

Photo: Bloom Energy

Customers announced today include Bank of America (NYSE: BAC); The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO); Cox Enterprises; eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY); FedEx Express, an operating company of FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX); Google (Nasdaq: GOOG); Staples (Nasdaq: SPLS); and Walmart (NYSE: WMT).

Photo: Bloom Energy

Since the first commercial customer installation in July 2008, Bloom’s Energy Servers have collectively produced more than 11 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity, with CO2 reductions estimated at 14 million pounds – the equivalent of powering approximately 1,000 American homes for a year and planting one million trees.

Photo: Bloom Energy

“Bloom Energy is dedicated to making clean, reliable energy affordable for everyone in the world,” said Dr. KR Sridhar, principal co-founder and CEO of Bloom Energy.
“We believe that we can have the same kind of impact on energy that the mobile phone had on communications. Just as cell phones circumvented landlines to proliferate telephony, Bloom Energy will enable the adoption of distributed power as a smarter, localized energy source. Our customers are the cornerstone of that vision and we are thrilled to be working with industry leading companies to lower their energy costs, reduce their carbon footprint, improve their energy security, and showcase their commitment to a better future.“


Powder to Power – How It Works


Founded in 2001, Bloom Energy can trace its roots to the NASA Mars space program.

For NASA, Sridhar and his team were charged with building technology to help sustain life on Mars using solar energy and water to produce air to breath and fuel for transportation.
They soon realized that their technology could have an even greater impact here on Earth and began work on what would become the Bloom Energy Server.

Energy Server Architecture Photo: Bloom Energy

The Bloom Energy Server converts air and nearly any fuel source – ranging from natural gas to a wide range of biogases – into electricity via a clean electrochemical process, rather than dirty combustion.
Even running on a fossil fuel, the systems are approximately 67% cleaner than a typical coal-fired power plant.
When powered by a renewable fuel, they can be 100% cleaner.

Each Energy Server consists of thousands of Bloom's fuel cells – flat, solid ceramic squares made from a common sand-like "powder."

Technical Highlights credit: Bloom Energy

“Today we are witnessing something special," said John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Bloom Energy board member.
"This is new kind of product announcement. It comes long after a product has shipped and it comes directly from marquis customers. For years, there have been promises of new energy solutions that are clean, distributed, affordable, and reliable; today we learn that Bloom, formerly in stealth, has actually delivered. Americans want clean, affordable, energy, 24x7 - and all the jobs that go with it. Bloom's boxes are a breakthrough, serving energy, serving demanding customers, and serving our country."

Bloom Energy’s management team possesses expertise across a number of relevant industries, including aerospace, high volume manufacturing, semiconductors, automotive, naval nuclear, and Silicon Valley startups.

Production Facility Photo: Bloom Energy

In addition to CEO Sridhar, the company’s board members include John Doerr, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers; General Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State; Scott Sandell, general partner, New Enterprise Associates (NEA); T.J. Rodgers, chairman, SunPower; and Eddy Zervigon, managing director, Morgan Stanley.

Bloom Energy’s investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, representing the firm’s first clean tech investment, as well as Morgan Stanley, NEA, and Northgate Capital.


About Bloom Energy


Bloom Energy is a provider of breakthrough solid oxide fuel cell technology that generates clean, highly-efficient power onsite from virtually any fuel source.

Bloom Energy’s mission is to make clean, reliable energy affordable for everyone in the world.
The Bloom Energy Server is currently producing power for several Fortune 500 companies.
The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA.

For more information, visit

BloomEnergy.com   


Press Contacts:

Nicki Dugan
bloom@outcastpr.com
415-392-8282

http://c0688662.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/downloads-pdf-release-bloom-launch-2-24-2010.pdf  



NASA™ Technology Comes to Earth


Bloom Energy can trace its roots to work performed at the University of Arizona as part of the NASA Mars space program.

Photo: Bloom Energy

Dr. KR Sridhar and his team were charged with creating a technology that could sustain life on Mars. They built a device capable of producing air and fuel from electricity, and/or electricity from air and fuel.

They soon realized that their technology could have an even greater impact here on Earth.

In 2001, when their project ended, the team decided to continue their research and start a company.
Originally called Ion America, Bloom Energy, was founded with the mission to make clean, reliable energy affordable for everyone on earth.

In 2002, John Doerr, and Kleiner Perkins became the first investors in the company. Kleiner Perkins was legendary for its early backing of other industry changing companies, like Google, Amazon.com, Netscape, and Genentech, but Bloom was its first clean tech investment. In fact, at that time, clean tech was not even really a word.

With financing in place, the team packed three U-hauls and headed to NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley to set up shop.

Over the next few years, the technology quickly developed from concept, to prototype, to product, as the major technological challenges were solved and the systems became more powerful, more efficient, more reliable, and more economical.

In early 2006 Bloom shipped its first 5kW field trial unit to the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga.
After two years of successful field trials in Tennessee, California, and Alaska, to validate the technology, the first commercial (100kW) products were shipped to Google in July 2008.

Since that time Bloom's Energy Servers have helped our customers generate millions of kWhs of electricity and eliminate millions of pounds of CO2 from the environment.

From humble beginnings on Mars, Bloom Energy is now changing the Earth for the better.


http://www.bloomenergy.com/about/company-history/  



What is an Energy Server?


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:

1. Low cost materials – our cells use a common sand-like powder instead of precious metals like platinum or corrosive materials like acids

2. High electrical efficiency – we can convert fuel into electricity at nearly twice the rate of some legacy technologies

3. Fuel flexibility – our systems are capable of using either renewable or fossil fuels

4. 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.

http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/  



Energy Server Architecture


At the heart of every Energy Server™ is Bloom's patented solid oxide fuel cell technology.

Each Energy Server consists of thousands of Bloom's fuel cells.
Each cell is a flat solid ceramic square made from a common sand-like "powder."

Each Bloom Energy fuel cell is capable of producing about 25W... enough to power a light bulb.
For more power, the cells are sandwiched, along with metal interconnect plates into a fuel cell "stack".
A few stacks, together about the size of a loaf of bread, is enough to power an average home.

In an Energy Server, multiple stacks are aggregated together into a "power module", and then multiple power modules, along with a common fuel input and electrical output are assembled as a complete system.

For more power, multiple Energy Server systems can be deployed side by side.

In addition to Bloom's unmatched performance, this modular architecture offers...

• easy and fast deployment

• inherent redundancy for fault tolerance

• high availability (one power module can be serviced while all others continue to operate)

• mobility


http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/architecture/  



General Colin Powell
Independent Board Member

General Colin Powell

General Colin L. Powell, USA (Retired) served as the 65th U.S. Secretary of State from January 2001 to January 2005.
He served 35 years in the U.S. Army, rising to the rank of Four-Star General and from 1989 to 1993, served as the 12th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He also served as the National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan.

General Powell is the author of his best-selling autobiography, “My American Journey.”

Since returning to private life, he has become a strategic limited partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a renowned Silicon Valley venture capital firm.

General Powell is the Founder of the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies at his alma mater, the City College of New York.
The Center is student-focused with a mission to develop a new generation of publicly engaged leaders.

He is the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the America's Promise Alliance, dedicated to forging a strong and effective partnership alliance committed to seeing that children experience the fundamental resources they need to succeed.

General Powell is also helping to raise funds for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC and for the construction of an education center for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.


John Doerr
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

John Doerr joined Intel in 1974 just as they invented the famous "8080" 8-bit microprocessor. At Intel, he held various engineering, marketing and management assignments, and was one of their top-ranked sales executives.

In 1980, he joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and sponsored a series of investments including Compaq, Cypress, Intuit, Macromedia, Netscape, Lotus, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, S3, Sun Microsystems, Amazon.com, and Symantec.

John was the founding CEO of Silicon Compilers and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Google, Intuit, Amazon.com, Homestore.com, and Sun Microsystems. His privately held company board seats include Good Technology, and Segway.

He holds patents for computer memory devices he invented as a design engineer at Monsanto.
Recent interests include education, the Internet and biotechnology genomics.

He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Rice University and a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.

http://www.bloomenergy.com/about/board-of-directors/#doerr  



KR Sridhar, Ph.D.
Principal Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Dr. KR Sridhar, principal co-founder and CEO of Bloom Energy

Prior to founding Bloom Energy, Dr. KR Sridhar was Director of the Space Technologies Laboratory (STL) at the University of Arizona where he was also a professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering.
Under his leadership, STL won several nationally competitive contracts to conduct research and development for Mars exploration and flight experiments to Mars.
KR has served as an advisor to NASA and has led major consortia of industry, academia, and national labs.
His work for the NASA Mars program to convert Martian atmospheric gases to oxygen for propulsion and life support was recognized by Fortune Magazine, where he was cited as "one of the top five futurists inventing tomorrow, today."

As one of the early pioneers in green tech, KR. also serves as a strategic limited partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and as a special advisor to New Enterprise Associates.
He has also served on many technical committees, panels and advisory boards and has several publications and patents.

KR received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering with Honors from the University of Madras, India, as well as his master’s degree in Nuclear Engineering and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

http://www.bloomenergy.com/about/management-team/#sridhar