Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Contracts for Bloom Energy Fuel Cells On-site
Bloom Energy will deploy its on-site fuel-cell power systems at select Oracle Cloud Infrastructure data centers in the U.S., the companies announced Thursday.
The move is the latest by microgrid developers and generation fuels firms to meet exponentially growing data center and artificial intelligence (AI) load needs for the coming decade. Bloom and other forecasters have predicted an additional 75 to 125 GW in data center demand will come online through the mid-2030s.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a hyperscaler which can accommodate AI-enabled and workforce data systems globally. Parent company Oracle Corp. is the fourth largest software company in market capitalization.
“Oracle Cloud Infrastructure requires power solutions engineered to meet the performance, and reliability demands of today’s most advanced AI and compute workloads,” said Aman Joshi, chief commercial officer of Bloom Energy, in a statement. “This significant collaboration provides Oracle with ultra-reliable, clean and cost-efficient power that supports its growth strategy with the speed and certainty it needs.”
Bloom Energy says it can deliver the on-site power fuel cell systems for an entire data center within 90 days.
“We continue to see strong global demand for OCI services across our entire data center portfolio including our large gigawatt AI data centers,” said Mahesh Thiagarajan, executive vice president, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. “Customers expect to run their AI workloads and new AI applications at peak performance. Bloom's fuel cell technology will join OCI’s extensive energy portfolio, further supporting our cutting-edge AI infrastructure with reliable, clean power that can be quickly deployed and easily scaled.”
Fuel cells use an electrochemical process to convert fuels like natural gas and hydrogen into electricity with lower emissions than combustion engines, or zero if using hydrogen. Sector companies such as Fuel Cell Energy and Bloom believe that their technology may flourish over the next few years while production tax credits such as 48E and 45V, which create incentives for hydrogen use, are still on the books and offering baseload-level energy capacity.
“We can provide power where they are putting in data centers,” Fuel Cell Energy CEO Jason Few told Microgrid Knowledge in a story posted earlier this month. “We can deliver that solution in a microgrid architecture that will deliver resilience and reliability that data centers need, in combination with batteries or other assets needed for peaking demand.”
Bloom Energy previously has enacted supply deals with Quanta Computing, American Electric Power and data center developer Equinix (pictured) to provide power for new and existing digital infrastructure.
The energy needs of the U.S. data center industry will be front and center in content presented at the upcoming Data Center Frontier Trends Summit, happening August 26-28 in Reston, Virginia.
About the Author
Rod Walton, Microgrid Knowledge Managing Editor
Managing Editor
For Microgrid Knowledge editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].
I’ve spent the last 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. I was an energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World before moving to business-to-business media at PennWell Publishing, which later became Clarion Events, where I covered the electric power industry. I joined Endeavor Business Media in November 2021 to help launch EnergyTech, one of the company’s newest media brands. I joined Microgrid Knowledge in July 2023.
I earned my Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. My career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World, all in Oklahoma . I have been married to Laura for the past 33-plus years and we have four children and one adorable granddaughter. We want the energy transition to make their lives better in the future.
Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech are focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.