Bloom Energy Inc. was recently awarded up to $75 million in tax credits by the Department of Energy, Department of Treasury, and the Internal Revenue Service under the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project 48C initiative.
Bloom was selected for this award for its commitment to expand domestic manufacturing and fuel cell and electrolyzer production capacity at its multi-gigawatt Fremont, CA manufacturing plant, a release stated. The plant is in the San Francisco Bay area. The city is also the home of a Tesla assembly plant.
Bloom Energy’s recently opened Fremont facility has the ability to manufacture high-efficiency fuel cell stacks, which serve as the foundation for the company’s Energy Server fuel cell platform and Bloom hydrogen Electrolyzer.
The hydrogen technology is being tested to see if it can economically produce hydrogen from excess power generated by nuclear power plants.
Bloom’s fuel cells and electrolyzers are assembled and shipped out of its plant in Newark. It was learned earlier this year that some maintenance work at the Delaware plant will be moved to Mexico.
The funding is part of the $4 billion in tax credits recently announced by the White House under the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Tax Credit to accelerate domestic clean energy manufacturing and reduce greenhouse gas emissions at industrial facilities.
“The $75 million of funding from the Federal government is a vote of confidence in Bloom’s commitment to domestic manufacturing, in our solid oxide technology, and in our mission to facilitate the energy industry’s decarbonization,” said KR Sridhar, CEO of Bloom Energy. “These funds will enable us to invest in the operational efficiency of our Fremont facility and accelerate the expansion of our stack capacity, so that we can continue to deliver timely, resilient power solutions to our customers.”
Bloom’s 164,000 square foot Fremont manufacturing facility, which had its grand opening in 2022, expanded Bloom’s footprint to more than 524,000 square feet and has created hundreds of jobs. The facility’s annual output can produce over 1 gigawatt, the equivalent capacity of adding a nuclear power plant every year.
