This morning at eBay headquarters, Bloom Energy guru KR Sridhar pulled back the curtain on his company's secret project: the Bloom Energy Server. Like I wrote
previously, the Bloom Box is supposedly going to lead the world in a paradigm shift of power production and consumption.
Bloom Energy didn't really announce a lot more information about the Bloom Box. There were not specific numbers on how much power the box can kick out or even a firm price tag. But according to
TriplePundit:
The Bloom Energy Server, or Bloom Box as it's being called, promises to reduce carbon emissions by at least 50 percent per kilowatt, run on a wide range of fuels, and provide electricity at a much cheaper rate per kW, compared to today's utility grid power system. The test systems are providing power at 8 to 9 cents per kWh, according to Mr. Sridhar. (It should be noted that this price includes various California state subsidies and incentives.)The company has been testing the Bloom Box at 20 customer sites (with price tags close to $800k) including locations like Google and eBay for the past 18 months, which have shown significant improvements in efficiency and emissions over existing fuel cell systems.
So, it's OK to be impressed, but don't get your hopes up. Got it.
It's yet to be seen if the Bloom Box and its eventual copycat products will actually be useful for average citizens. Bloom Energy certainly wants to get a box in every household's back yard, but you know what? That's what they said about the Segway, too.
You can see a great slideshow of the Bloom Box's inner workings
here, courtesy of Fox News.
Bloom Energy's press releases can be viewed
here.