Page 102 - Innovation Delaware 2019

If you want an example of Delaware’s of electricity onsite for any variety had a highly skilled workforce.”
leadership in clean technology, you can’t do much better than this: “Bloom Energy, at our Delaware
facility, is the world’s primary produc- er of fuel cell technology,” says David McCullough, VP for communications for Bloom Energy.
Fuel cells are one of the most promising forms of alternative energy. They produce electricity by means of a chemical reaction — usually involving hydrogen and oxygen.
Bloom’s technology grew out of a NASA-funded project two decades ago
to convert Martian atmospheric gases to oxygen for propulsion and life support. The project was led by K.R. Sridhar, Bloom’s founder and CEO. In 2006, Bloom shipped its first 5kW field trial unit of what it calls its energy servers. However, they became popularly known as “Bloom Boxes” and were featured on TV’s “60 Minutes.”
“Bloom Boxes” allow the production
of business, but they are especially important in those industries where uninterrupted supply of energy is crucial. “We have retail customers such as AT&T, Home Depot and Walmart. Hospitals are important because they need a reliable power source, as do banks, who need backup power for their many transactions. Data centers are
also important customers,” says Susan Brennan, Bloom’s chief operations officer. “Energy demand is growing,
and there is a trend to have more on-site power generation.”
Several years ago, Bloom looked
at several different states for a fuel-
cell manufacturing site. “Eventually, Delaware was chosen as the best location,” says Brennan, who is also
in charge of Bloom’s Newark facility. “It had the old Chrysler facility where we located as part of the University of Delaware STAR Campus, and the state
Over the last two or three years, Bloom has moved more and more of its research from California to Delaware, “because we have the trained electrical energy [experts] here as well as trained mechanical technicians,” she says.
In fact, Brennan has become somewhat of an ambassador for the state. “I tell people [in the energy industry that]
if you’re looking for a place to locate, consider STAR Campus,” she says. “I tell them to come look at what the state is doing with job training in its high schools and research training in its colleges.”
In southern Delaware, a different type of energy production is being tested. There, a Maryland-based firm — CleanBay Renewables — received approval last summer from Sussex County to construct and operate a
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