When rocket scientist K.R. Sridhar founded the technology startup that would become Bloom Energy in 2001 — and famously introduced its electricity-generating “box” to the world in 2010 during a “60 Minutes” segment — his inspiration was a photograph snapped from outer space illustrating the vast swaths of planet Earth still in the dark, unconnected to the electric grid.
He mused then, as he does now: If scientists could generate power for equipment on far-flung planets such as Mars, why can’t they light up rural communities here on Earth? “In a digital world, electricity, like food and shelter, is a human need,” said Sridhar, Bloom’s chairman and CEO, during a relatively rare formal media briefing last week at the company’s Sunnyvale, California, headquarters.
Almost 20 years later, that worldview looms large on a wall in the now-public company’s corporate briefing room. It’s a not-so-subtle reminder of Bloom’s long-term mission “to make clean, reliable and affordable energy for everyone in the world.”
Right now, however, the company’s short-term concern is convincing high-profile commercial and industrial accounts to buy the Bloom Energy Server (the fancy name for its fuel cell technology) to reduce their reliance on the traditional grid. Bloom’s solid oxide fuel cells generate electricity through an electrochemical reaction, rather than through a combustion process, which distinguishes its approach from on-site cogeneration options.
Read the rest of my report for GreenBiz.com here.