Taiwan-based server manufacturer Quanta has acquired three fuel cell microgrid systems from Bloom Energy to power one of its California manufacturing plants.
It completed the purchase at a cost of just under $80 million. The deal follows the purchase of two other microgrid systems in April for a reported $20 million.
The April acquisition was part of a broader partnership between the two companies to support Quanta’s planned manufacturing expansion at its Fremont plant.
Bloom Energy’s microgrid solutions range from 200kW to 20MW. Microgrids generate electricity through an electrochemical process and are designed to operate independently from the power grid. They are usually powered by natural gas, biogas, or hydrogen.
DCD has reached out to clarify if the fuel cells at Quanta's site will be natural gas-powered.
The power solution provided to Quanta is a fully islanded microgrid, which will power Quanta’s operations 24/7, 365 days a year.
K.R Sridhar, CEO at Bloom Energy, commented on the April acquisition, stating, “In an era where the AI boom is simultaneously driving unprecedented electricity demand and economic growth, Bloom Energy's fuel cell technology offers a scalable and environmentally friendly alternative to conventional utility infrastructure that is unable to keep up."
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.
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.