Bloom Energy has signed a supply agreement with American Electric Power (AEP) for up to 1GW of its solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs).

AEP has placed an initial order for 100MW of cells, with an expansion order expected in 2025.

AEP will colocate the SOFCs at AI data center sites to help support the installation's immediate power needs.

“I am delighted that there is strong market recognition that the Bloom Energy platform is the ideal choice for powering AI data centers. We are thrilled to be working with AEP as they lead the charge to bring innovative solutions to the transforming electricity market,” said KR Sridhar, CEO of Bloom Energy.

Bloom fuel cells can run on hydrogen or any natural gas blend. However, currently, the cells are powered entirely by natural gas.

Bloom has signed several high-profile deals in the data center sector over 2024. For example, in July, GPU cloud provider CoreWeave announced it was set to deploy Bloom fuel cells at a data center owned by Chirisa Technology Parks in Volo, Illinois. The fuel cells are set to be commissioned in Q3 2025.

Before this, in July, it inked a 15-year 20MW offtake agreement to supply AWS with fuel cells for a planned data center in Silicon Valley.

However, Bloom has also suffered some setbacks in 2024. In June, Amazon canceled a contract with the firm to provide gas-powered fuel cells to its data center operations in Oregon.

In 2023, the two companies signed an agreement that would have seen Bloom provide fuel cells with a capacity of 24MW to three of Amazon's data center sites. At the time, Amazon was promoting the technology as a low-carbon alternative to using energy from the grid.

However, Morrow County gets most of its electricity via hydropower, and the state regulator, the Oregon Department of Environment Quality, said that using fuel cells would lead to facilities emitting the equivalent of 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. Ultimately, Amazon withdrew from the plan to use fuel cells.