In an exclusive interview, Bloom Energy (NYSE:BE) Founder, Chairman and CEO KR Sridhar spoke to Italy’s leading business newspaper about the company’s solid oxide fuel cell technology and its plans for growth in Italy and beyond.
Sridhar stressed that joining the transition to clean energy is becoming more compelling all the time. “Traditional fuels are destined to increase in price, while technology will gradually have lower costs,” he told Monica D’Ascenzo of Il Sole 24 Ore. “We, for example, have grown by 30% a year over the last five years and our costs have gone down by 15%. This means that, within the next 10 years, our solution will be increasingly more economically more competitive, as well as being installed close to where energy is used, without poles and wires, without interruption, and without emissions.”
Bloom’s Energy Servers are more efficient, he added. “With the same amount of natural gas we produce more energy than any other solution available.”
Bloom entered the Italian market in June 2022, with a one megawatt Energy Server installation at Ferrari’s manufacturing facility and headquarters in Maranello. Operating at superior efficiencies, the Energy Server® installation will initially provide 5 percent of the energy needed there. In November 2022, Bloom announced a partnership with Cefla, a leading Italian engineering, procurement and construction company to deploy multiple megawatts of fuel cells through 2025. That work will begin in September.
“We believe that Italy is an interesting country due to the opportunities for our technology in sectors such as the steel industry, which has a particular impact on the Italian economy and is particularly energy intensive,” said Sridhar.
He also singled out the Italian chemicals sector, where Bloom fuel cells could use hydrogen as a fuel to produce energy, but also produce hydrogen by implementing the Bloom Electrolyzer™. “Finally,” Sridhar said, “there is the data center sector and all applications related to the development of artificial intelligence, because they require a high amount of energy and at the same time the guarantee of non-interruptions.” Sridhar was in Italy at the end of May for the Data Center Nation 2023 Conference in Milan and also to discuss partnerships and agreements. Bloom’s Energy Servers help to power many data centers in the United States, where companies are having difficulty getting power on a schedule to match their growth.
Sridhar’s interview with Il Sole 24 Ore was published on June 3, 2023. It is available to subscribers, in Italian, here: https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/bloom-energy-punta-sull-italia-le-sue-fuel-cell-senza-emissioni-AE0ZH8ZD
