Bloom wins round in legal battle over city’s plan to ban its fuel cells

655
Bloom servers in the Brookside area near Newark.
Advertisement

Bloom Energy won a victory in a at least one round in legal  battle with a California city  over banning its fuel cells.

Superior Court of California overturned a resolution by the City of Santa Clara that would ban future installations of Bloom Energy’s fuel cells. Santa Clara is near Bloom’s northern California headquarters in San Jose. 

Bloom’s fuel cells are assembled at its Newark production site.

The court found that Santa Clara violated the California Environmental Quality Act   which requires that an impact study be conducted so the public is aware of any issues to the environment or health of its citizens prior to implementing such a resolution.

By failing to do so,  the City of Santa Clara not only broke the law, but attempted to implement a policy that could do more harm to the environment, Bloom stated. 

Advertisement

Critics of Bloom have long claimed that Bloom’s fuel cells, which are primarily powered by a fossil fuel (natural gas),  do not qualify  as a renewable  energy source.  Bloom says their energy servers  typically  replace dirtier diesel powered generators.

Bloom Energy stated that it  produced evidence  that a ban of this nature would likely result in increased greenhouse gases, air pollutants, and reliance on  diesel generators. 

The court reaffirmed Bloom’s position in its ruling that fuel cell deployment decreases the City’s dependence on combustion-based power plants, and could reduce harmful emissions and improve air quality.

“Environmental policy should actually work to reduce harmful environmental impacts, serve the public good, and be carefully crafted in consultation with experts. But in this case, officials in the City of Santa Clara made the inaccurate claim that their policy was good for the environment and would contribute to reduced emissions – ignoring the views of environmental experts on the policy’s potential environmental harm and the needs of the community for clean, resilient power sources,” said Josh Richman, Bloom’s vice president of business development and policy. “This case should serve as a cautionary tale to policymakers who would seek to use the false pretense of sustainability to garner support for interests that have nothing to do with addressing the causes or consequences of climate change.”

According to Bloom, court documents revealed emails from city officials that shed light on the  motivations behind the City’s ban on Bloom’s technology – to stop Bloom Energy Servers from impacting the revenue forecast of sales of electricity from its municipal utility.

Bloom servers operate continuously and therefore lead to less consumption of municipal electricity at companies that deploy the fuel cells.

Bloom noted that the decision comes at a time when utilities address the challenges of climate change through energy technologies that reduce harmful emissions and the need to increase the resiliency of the  electric power supply at a time when power can be shut off for days at a time due to fire danger or natural disasters.

Bloom says its systems can address those challenges through “mini grids” that can keep electricity flowing to key facilities, such as hospitals, first responder stations and retailers.

Advertisement
Advertisement