Do Bloom's Fuel Cells Work as Claimed? Data Says No
7 hours ago
- Hunterbrook's analysis of public data from New York, Delaware, California, and South Korea shows Bloom Energy's fuel cells consistently fall below their efficiency and output guarantees within two years, contradicting the company's claimed five-year replacement interval.
- In New York, all 37 monitored systems fell below Bloom's efficiency benchmark at a median of 20 months, with only one on pace to last five years; in California, 105 of 231 projects recorded at least one month below the repair-or-replace threshold.
- The 95% output benchmark was missed in 152 of 156 months in Delaware, 97.4% of months in California, and 22 of the last 24 months at a Korean plant, indicating pervasive underperformance.
- A part-owner of a Bloom project in New York disclosed that Bloom paid a multimillion-dollar penalty for failing to meet output guarantees, and some customers reported no longer working with Bloom due to performance issues.
- Bloom's warranty liability surged from $20 million to $77.8 million in six months due to fleet degradation, and the company's scandium sourcing from China (despite denials) and regulatory issues with Korean partner SK ecoplant add to concerns about its data center ambitions.