Bloom Energy Pursues Government Support to Drive Fuel-Cell Based Power Generation

Bloom Energy has announced that it has pursued the Union government’s support in enhancing use of such alternative sources of energy.

The US-based company, which was established by former NASA scientist K R Sridhar, said it could generate and distribute electricity for domestic use at “grid parity”, given the government supports by making policies, bringing natural gas under Goods and Services Tax (GST) etc.

Bloom Energy Server generates power through an electro-chemical process that can operate using natural gas, biogas from landfills, food or animal waste, or hydrogen as fuel. The company counts technology giants such as Google, Walmart, E-Bay globally and has installed capacity for electricity generation for chipmaker Intel in Bengaluru.

Bloom Energy presently uses natural gas supplied by Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) and has installed another capacity at an upcoming commercial space in Bengaluru.

Venkat Venkataraman, chief technology officer, Bloom Energy, said providing a GST concession for fuel cells would help boost industries to adopt such non-polluting source of energy; while exemption of customs duty on equipment to set up capacities could encourage more use of fuel-cell based energy.

While policy support and initiatives for cost reduction would play a key role; pushing fuel-cell based power generation should mean a huge gain for environmental sustainability, said B C Tripathi, former chairman and managing director, GAIL.