Biotech/Pharma
Bloom Energy enables manufacturing, test, measurement, R&D, and other critical biotech and pharma facilities to operate independently when disruption occurs, safeguarding against the operational risks that come from loss of power
Industry at
a Glance
From research and development, to production, supply, and distribution, biotechnology and pharmaceutical manufacturers are large energy consumers whose operations/processes depend on available, reliable, high quality power.
The industry is highly regulated with government organizations like the FDA enforcing strict health and safety protocols at every step of the process.
Maintaining an environment that is productive, compliant, and ensures product integrity means taking every opportunity to mitigate risk and avoid production disruptions.
Quick Facts about
the Biotech/Pharma Industry
- Industry experts estimate the Total Downtime Cost (TDC) of a production disruption in pharmaceutical manufacturing to be quite high – costing $100K to $500K per hour of downtime.
- Pharmaceutical manufacturers experience an average of 6-8 disruptions per year, often caused by voltage sags.
- And, industry experts estimate 30-70 percent of disruptions are caused by poor power quality.
- Reducing disruptions and improving power quality can have a substantial impact to operations and profitability.
Overcoming Energy
Challenges
Maximizing Uptime
Operational risks that come from loss of power are extremely high for pharma and biotech companies. Outage events often lead to long and expensive delays in production, research, development and warehousing.
Resilient Solution
Bloom’s AlwaysON Microgrid can operate independently of the grid. Because they receive fuel through the underground pipeline system, they are less susceptible to the impacts of extreme weather, enabling safe, continuous operation and avoiding costly consequences of unplanned downtime.
Lowering Emissions
With its relatively large global carbon footprint, biotechnology and pharmaceutical organizations are beginning to transition towards more sustainable practices, continuously looking at ways they can produce their products more efficiently and in a environmentally-friendly way.
Sustainable Solution
Fuel cells generate electricity though an electrochemical process rather than combustion. This avoids emitting harmful criteria air pollutants that cause severe respiratory diseases and poor air quality worldwide. Fuel cells reduce carbon emissions compared to the grid and combustion-based technologies, and are also fuel flexible with the ability to run on biogas or hydrogen for carbon neutral emissions options.
Controlling Costs
Pharma and biotech buildings are often complex, mixed-use, highly resource intensive structures that can be costly to build, operate, and maintain. What’s more, these companies face scrutiny on costs, so low cost and predictability are important factors for energy decisions.
Predictable Solution
In addition to avoiding outage-related costs that can reach into the millions of dollars, Bloom enables customers to hedge against volatility and price escalation by fixing a large portion of their electricity cost, providing multiple financing options and flexible term lengths.
“Moving ‘off the grid’ using innovative sources of alternative energy like Bloom Energy helps reduce our carbon footprint and continues to demonstrate our commitment to ongoing sustainability initiatives. But Bloom also enhances our electricity reliability for a very critical part of our business — the large freezers and refrigerators that house millions of dollars in inventory. It’s important we don’t have a system that can fail and possibly lose all that inventory.” —Cristina Amorim Chief Sustainability Officer at Life Technologies