Bloom Energy installs 37 MW of fuel cells for data center provider Equinix

November 08, 2018 | Case Study

Building on a 1 MW pilot between the two companies completed in 2015, on April 2017, Bloom Energy agreed to install 37 MW of its solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) at 12 of Equinix's data centers in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles. The behind-the-meter deployment will be constructed over a two-year period from 2017 to 2019 and was invoiced under a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA), financed by PowerSecure, a subsidiary of utility Southern Company. Bloom Energy has a partnership with PowerSecure, which is part of Southern Company's initiative into owning distributed energy assets. Although the size is a record specifically for fuel cell deployments at data centers, it still is quite large in general, as most fuel cell installations are under 10 MW, the largest being a 59 MW utility deployment in South Korea. In 2017, Bloom Energy had installed around 62 MW of fuel cells in total (making this installation 60% of its sales), but has taken on considerable debt to do so and will need more revenue to continue business. The company also recently received $100 million in project financing from Key Equipment Finance.