eBay Bids Up Bloom Energy Fuel Cells

Following hard on Tonic's story on EEStor and a the wave of clean energy technologies about to break on the shores of global warming comes word that eBay is to get the largest installation to date of Bloom Energy's new fuel cell.

And we're not talking about a tiny demonstration project, of the sort we often read about; this is a gang of five commercial-grade cells turning out an impressive 500KW. That's a lot of output. It's no power station, but it's enough to run a neighborhood worth of homes.

Michael Kanellos, writing in greentechmedia, reports that the "City of San Jose has granted eBay permission to install five fuel cells from Bloom Energy that will generate up to 500 kilowatts of power." According to the San Jose Business Journal, eBay is "on a mission to reduce its overall carbon footprint by 15 percent by 2012 ... It’s using technology from the first green tech investment made by [venture capital firm] Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to do it."

The Journal reports that "the online auction site in February applied for a permit to construct and implement an electric fuel cell system from Bloom Energy of Sunnyvale. The system consists of five outdoor natural gas fuel cells capable of producing 500 kilowatts of electricity."

According to CNNMoney.com, Bloom wants to use "solid-oxide fuel cells to allow homes to generate their own electricity. The fuel cells would use (but not burn) hydrocarbon fuel, and produce just half the carbon dioxide that today's power plants do. One fuel cell should be enough to serve a home; homes could sell excess power back to the grid."

What's important to note is that Bloom is breaking out, although rumors flow that they are having manufacturing problems delaying a wider roll out. So far, Google is running a 100KW Bloom cell, as is the San Francisco Airport.

We reported on Volkswagen and its joint venture with a German company that makes high-efficiency gas turbines to deliver residential energy not only to homes but back into the grid, so we'll be keeping an eye on these technologies as they roll out.

In the meantime, it's great news that businesses are finally bringing real, useful clean energy products to market.

Photo courtesy of liewcf, via flickr