This is the 60 Minutes segment on Bloom Energy’s fuel cells.
Cost: ~$750,000 per 100kW “unit”
CA tax rebate: 20% of cost
Federal tax rebate: 30% of cost
After tax cost: ~$375,000 per 100kW “unit”
Google’s savings in 9 months on 5 units: $100,000 (just over 3 cents/kW)
Assumed annual energy price inflation: 5.5% (CA’s annual increase has been 6% over the past 40 years, according to Bloom)
Lifespan of unit: 10 years
Return on investment: -1.5% per year.
This is really cool, but they have to get the cost down. Taking production to scale should help, as would government incentives, and production in someplace with an undervalued currency, like China (though that would defeat the point).
