4 May, 2023
Bloom Energy nears $1/kg hydrogen with high-efficiency electrolyzer – CTO
By Siri Hedreen
Bloom Energy Corp. said May 3 that its hydrogen production technology, endorsed last year by US Department of Energy researchers as the most efficient electrolyzer yet tested, is just as successful at 40 times its initial scale and brings an ambitious DOE production cost target within reach.
Bloom recently started producing hydrogen at a 4-MW demonstration project at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. The solid-oxide electrolyzer was built and installed in just two months and has the capacity to produce 2.4 metric tons of hydrogen daily (t/d), the company said.
The speed of installation, one of the attributes being demonstrated, "is primarily because of Bloom's modular architecture," Ravi Prasher, Bloom's chief technology officer, said in an interview.
The project is relatively small in output. By comparison, Air Products & Chemicals Inc. and AES Corp.'s planned green hydrogen plant in north Texas is expected to produce at least 200 t/d. But unlike most electrolyzer vendors, Bloom uses a high-temperature process that splits oxygen and hydrogen from steam, as opposed to water. The California demonstration project is the largest electrolyzer of its kind in the world, according to the company.
 Bloom Energy's solid-oxide electrolyzer, pictured above at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. |
Bloom said the technology can produce up to 25% more hydrogen per MW than proton exchange membrane and alkaline electrolyzers, which currently dominate the market.
An Idaho National Laboratory (INL) test found that a 100-kW Bloom Electrolyzer consumes only 37.7 kWh of energy per kilogram (kWh/kg) of hydrogen produced. This compares to 52-54 kWh/kg for other electrolyzer technologies, according to Bloom.
The INL simulation replicated nuclear power conditions, allowing the electrolyzer to run nearly around the clock with a continuous supply of electricity. Hydrogen producers say electrolyzers are most economic when operating at a high capacity factor due to the high capital expenditures involved.
But even when ramped down to 5% rated power, the Bloom Electrolyzer was as efficient or even more so than its competitors at 100% rated power, the company said.
"The Bloom electrolyzer is, without a doubt, the most efficient electrolyzer we have tested to date at INL," John Wagner, director of the US Energy Department lab, said in an August 2022 statement about the experiment.
$1 or bust
The DOE has sought to create a market for clean hydrogen as a fossil fuel substitute, setting an "EarthShot" goal in 2021 to lower production costs within 10 years to less than $1 per kilogram.
Prasher, who has worked for the DOE at ARPA-E and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said he was still an employee during the DOE's "SunShot" initiative to reduce the cost of utility-scale solar 75% to less than $1 per watt or 6 cents per kWh. The target was successfully met in 2017, three years earlier than planned.
"So they got used to this idea of $1," Prasher said, though the hydrogen goal is "fairly achievable."
Prasher said the key is to reduce energy costs, whether zero-carbon electricity, in the case of so-called "green" or "pink" hydrogen, or natural gas, in the case of "blue."
"Energy is going to be the biggest cost driver for affordable, carbon-free hydrogen," Prasher said. "So that is where efficiency matters; that's where our technology matters a lot."
Combined with the Inflation Reduction Act's $3 per kilogram tax credit for clean hydrogen production, enacted in 2022, "we feel that we would be pretty close to the $1 per kilogram target," the chief technology officer said.
Bloom was founded in 2001, but its work did not become known until the company unveiled its solid oxide fuel cell in 2010. The gas-fueled generator, designed to provide cheap electricity on a distributed scale, was heralded in the press at the time as a potential industry disruptor.
"We believe that we can have the same kind of impact on energy that the mobile phone had on communications," K.R. Sridhar, founder, chairman and CEO of Bloom, said in February 2010. However, the company, which went public in 2018, has yet to turn a profit from its flagship technology.
Prasher, who joined Bloom in 2022, said the hydrogen market is fundamentally different.
"I would say here, you don't have a choice," said Prasher, who became a self-described hydrogen "convert" as of about three years ago after considering its potential in industries like steelmaking or chemicals. "If you want carbon-free hydrogen, there's no other way out of it. So now the question is going to become which electrolyzer technology is better."
Bloom reported in February a record $10 billion backlog for its products and services, the company's "strongest order book" yet, according to Sridhar.
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