

Adobe Installs 1.2 MW of Bloom Boxes—Cheaper Than Grid Power - rahooligan
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/adobe-installs-1.2-mw-of-bloom-boxes-cheaper-than-grid-power/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+greentechmedia-all-content+(Greentech+Media:+All+Content)&utm_content=Twitter

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javanix
"The price includes maintenance, fuel and the amortized cost over the
operative life of the fuel cell (ten years), _along with the 30 percent
federal tax credit and the California incentives available for companies that
use the device._ "

While still an improvement, without the 30% subsidies the rate would shoot up
to ~$.11.

Always important to keep subsidies in mind when dealing with new large-scale
tech like this.

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CWuestefeld
As I read the sentence, it would be $0.11 _plus_ whatever's in there from
California's incentives. It looks to me like the 30% only refers to the
federal subsidy.

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enjo
Ya.. it seems like a rather marginal savings really (without the credit).

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cwan
This in itself is remarkable. Even if costs are at parity, this is still
amazing given that the technology is continuing to improve / scale. I'd be
curious / suspicious as to the discount rate they are using to calculate the
present value of long term costs - this is where they can manipulate the
numbers in their favor.

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johnohara
Reliability, not cost, is the primary issue. The transport grid nationwide is
in serious need of repair and upgrading.

The move toward owning one's power generation at a time when the state is
issuing IOU's makes business sense.

Perhaps it's a hedge against concerns over what they perceive the utilities
must do in the next 25 years to keep the lights on.

~~~
lsc
that was my thought. I mean, if I was considering provisioning these in my
data centre, I'd set them up as the primary power source, while provisioning
enough grid capacity to work as my backup power source. hell, that way I could
choose grid power vs. the fuel cell power based on what the spot price of fuel
looks like.

When costing it out, I'd compare it to the cost of running on primary grid
power plus the cost of buying and maintaining a backup battery + diesel
generator system, and those costs are substantial, so yeah, these things sound
very interesting, in a few years, for applications where redundant power is
called for.

Of course, I don't know how the cost numbers would work out; Right now, I pay
"retail" for my data centre space, and I probably eat around, 10Kw in power
(plus cooling, so that might be closer to 20-30Kw total. at this scale, in
someone else's data centre, your cooling costs are rolled into your power
costs.) but certainly, if it's at parity with grid power, the fact that it's
redundant, in that a grid failure won't take it out, is a pretty big plus
that's worth a substantial capital investment.

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johnohara
Few people know that in Las Vegas, cogeneration is essential. MGM Mirage owns
the Grand, Luxor, Bellagio, Mirage and now the City Center. They do their best
to provide their own power or at least provide complete backup capability in
the event of an outage. The new City Center development has its own 8.5
megawatt generating facility.

[http://www.energytimes.com/pages/departments/1002/earthmatte...](http://www.energytimes.com/pages/departments/1002/earthmatters1002.html)

Most people think all that glitz comes from the Hoover Dam, but I think they
they generate a lot of it themselves.

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bakbak
This is by far one of the most disruptive innovation ... also because all the
energy, utilities and power companies got panicked as they might go out of
business but were calmed down as they would either get license to the
technology OR sell those energy servers and/or also supply other input energy
that is required (such as bio-gas, methane, natural gas etc.)

~~~
ck2
Hopefully they won't lobby politicians to crush Bloom out of existence.

Many power companies are owned by city/county governments aren't they? So
that's a political danger.

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bakbak
that was danger before - hopefully there won't be any accident/disaster from
existing installed boxes - also John Doer (the VC) of this company is one of
the most powerful lobbyist himself and they did a fantastic job by keeping
this secret (until recently) and in the mean time they used all their high-
profile contacts within various industries to install those energy boxes and
get super-positive reviews , so by doing this they edged-out all other
lobbyist ..

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easp
I was really intrigued by Bloom, but when I did a little digging, I realized
that the only thing revolutionary about them was they hype.

At best, their tech is an evolutionary improvement over other fuel cells.
Other fuel suppliers are targeting the same applications with similar
efficiencies and price-points.

Furthermore, as others have pointed out, the claimed efficiencies assume full
use can be made from the waste heat, and their overall efficiency is less than
a gas turbine plant. Their overall capital efficiency may be lower still
since.

And to those waving hands about the expense of maintaining the electrical
grid, get real. Big stream power plants are much more energy (and capital)
efficient than these fuel cells, or gas turbine plants. It may that the
efficiency of these things go up and the costs come down enough as volumes
increase that the economics shift, but for now, providing base load through
the grid via high efficiency power plants is going to be cheaper than why
Bloom or their less hyped competitors offer.

I think the real appeal of these things is that they give big customers a
hedge against more gaming of the markets by the electrical generation and
transmission companies. I doubt any of them are eager to become completely
dependent the natural gas producers and pipeline companies either.

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some1else
If Adobe Application Installer was optimized, it would reduce the power
consumption worldwide. Seriously, Master Suite takes longer to install than
OSX Leopard. And just imagine the power savings of a lightweight Acrobat
reader :-P

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zabraxias
We have one of these at the eBay/PayPal campus in San Jose. It apparently
powers almost the entire green building and I haven't heard of any issues yet
- though I imagine the setup here is recent anyway.

I am all for green so it's an awesome initiative and I bet the government
subsidies don't hurt either.

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dochtman
So is this better for the environment, or just cheaper? The article doesn't
seem to mention it.

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uvdiv
It's both less efficient and more expensive than burning natural gas in a
turbine.

Its data sheet claims 52% efficiency [1], while current generation CCGTs are
60% efficient (e.g. [2]).

Its commercial price is $7,000-$8,000/kW(e) [3]. This is ten times the cost of
CCGT power plants, at ~$700-800/kWe (e.g. [4,5]). (This does NOT mean the
amortized cents/kWh cost is 10x higher -- most of the final cost is the gas
fuel). Ref [5] is particularly relevant, it's financial estimates from
California's state energy commission.

edited to add: According to the link [6] in the OP article, the commercial
price of the Bloom Box already includes state rebates, and the real cost is
twice as high ($14,000-$16,000/kWe). It also reports comparable costs for
competing fuel cells ($11,200/kWe for ClearEdge, and $30,000/kWe for
Panasonic's really tiny fuel cell).

"A 100-kilowatt Bloom server array costs around $700,000 to $800,000, or
$7,500 a kilowatt, after incentives that cover around 50 percent of the
costs."

[1] <http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/>

[2] A modern CCGT turbine: [http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/power-
generation/gas-tur...](http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/power-
generation/gas-turbines/sgt5-8000h.htm)

(5,687 BTU/kWh <\--> 60.0% efficiency)

[3] <http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_16189290>

[4] (same turbine as [2]) <http://www.power-technology.com/projects/irsching/>

[5] CCGT costs in table 14:
[http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007publications/CEC-200-2007-011/C...](http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007publications/CEC-200-2007-011/CEC-200-2007-011-SD.PDF)

[6] [http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/bloom-
vs.-solar-...](http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/bloom-vs.-solar-
which-one-is-best/)

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wmf
I'm pretty skeptical about Bloom Energy, but it's not fair to compare the
efficiency of a 375 MW gas turbine against a 100 kW fuel cell (assuming that
customers care about local generation and aren't just looking for the cheapest
power). Maybe you should compare against a microturbine.

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uvdiv
>...but it's not fair to compare the efficiency of a 375 MW gas turbine
against a 100 kW fuel cell

Why not, they are substitutes for each other.

>(assuming that customers care about local generation...

Why should they care about "local generation"?

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qq66
It's all a very successfully executed PR stunt. Local generation only matters
in places where electricity distribution is unreliable or nonexistent (such as
shopping malls in India having diesel generators on site).

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tealtan
that's not true. a lot of energy is lost just trying to move electricity to
another location (something like a factor of 2/3).

so having local power plants would mean power has far less distance to travel,
meaning you don't have to produce as much.

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uvdiv
Not true. Transmission losses are just 6.5% total.

[http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/electricity_faqs.asp#electric_r...](http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/electricity_faqs.asp#electric_rates2)

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VladRussian
things like this remind me about backyard steel furnaces of the Great Leap
Forward <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backyard_furnace>

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kwantam
Over/under on the time until someone decides to sue Adobe to force them to
sell the energy to PG&E and buy it back at an increased rate the same way
homeowners are forced to with their PV panels?

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ck2
I first saw Bloom Boxes on 60 Minutes, I think. Fascinating stuff.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6DLyruTqHI>

