Apple's Options for North Carolina Fuel Cell Installation Point to Bloom Energy

[MacRumors]

While Apple has received a fair amount of attention for its planned solar farm at its massive data center in Maiden, North Carolina, the company publicly disclosed less than two weeks ago that it will also be installing the largest non-utility fuel cell farm in the United States to help power the facility.

Bloom's Energy Server​

GigaOm has assessed Apple's options for the 5-megawatt facility, determining that Bloom Energy appears to be Apple's partner in the project. Bloom, which is based in Sunnyvale, California near Apple's headquarters, is also said to already have "a few" of its fuel cells in operation on Apple's campus.

Bloom offers boxes capable of supplying 100 kW, which could translate into 50 Bloom Boxes being installed at Apple's data center. Bloom has been in negotiations for similarly large-sized deals in the past, such as its negotiations in Delaware to build a 30 MW fuel cell farm (300 Bloom Boxes), and it has already installed 12 Bloom Boxes at Adobe's campus in San Jose, Calif.

Apple is also touting the fact that its fuel cells will be run on biogas, and Bloom has substantial experience selling biogas-based fuel cells. Both Adobe and eBay are running their Bloom fuel cells on biogas. Bloom has also been the go-to fuel cell maker for Internet, telecom and computing giants' experiments with fuel cells.

The report notes that Apple's options for fuel cell partners are relatively few, with UTC Power's larger fuel cell boxes not cleanly adding up to Apple's stated 5-megawatt capacity for the facility and FuelCell Energy specifically denying that it is working with Apple.

Apple is clearly interested in pursuing alternative energy sources for its facilities, and data centers are popular laboratories for such projects given their energy requirements and their typically rural locations that make it cheaper to dedicate land to energy production. The company already touts that its facilities in Austin, Sacramento, Munich, and Cork are powered by 100% renewable energy sources as part of a broad effort to reduce minimize its environmental impact across its facilities and throughout its products' life cycles.

Article Link: Apple's Options for North Carolina Fuel Cell Installation Point to Bloom Energy

 

[Will do good]

Since Apple have so much money on reserve, it's great to see them trying to do some good with it.

Thanks for being good Apple.

 

[Nielsenius]

Very cool! Always nice to hear about new energy solutions, especially when big companies start using them.

 

[3N16MA]

I know in recent years Apple has worked hard to reduce their footprint by decreasing the size of their packaging and working on projects mentioned in the above article. However why is it when you order something like an Apple Keyboard, the box that it ships in is easily 5 times larger than the product box itself? Kind of defeats the purpose of having more minimal packaging.

 

[cvaldes]

I know in recent years Apple has worked hard to reduce their footprint by decreasing the size of their packaging and working on projects mentioned in the above article. However why is it when you order something like an Apple Keyboard, the box that it ships in is easily 5 times larger than the product box itself? Kind of defeats the purpose of having more minimal packaging.

They probably minimize the number of packaging types to save money and make handling easier. It's likely that most Internet orders have multiple items and that box will handle a typical smaller order of accessories.

The keyboard is a bit long, so it's not like the smaller box for a pair of earphones or the Mighty Mouse would work.

It really makes no sense for Apple (or any other online/mail order retailer for that matter) to have the perfect shipping box for every single SKU in their system.

Note that the smaller box sizes that Apple has strived for do result in cost savings. The decreased footprint allows more boxes to be shipped on a pallet (wholesale distribution) as well as more compact inventory in stores, warehouses, etc.

It's not just about the retail shipment to consumers.

 

[So Be It]

What?

Boom isn't a Chinese company? Surprised

 

[SuperCachetes]

This is awesome. Let's get this stuff into the mainstream, pronto.

 

[skinuca]

Bloom is good stuff

Their technology is great but also really cool is generating power at the point of use. Distributed generation like that relieves a great deal of pressure on the grid and will lower costs and increase efficiency for everyone in the long run.

 

[jayducharme]

This is awesome. Let's get this stuff into the mainstream, pronto.

Exactly. That's my hope for this. If big companies like Apple keep pushing alternative energy solutions for their business, hopefully that will increase research and production and push the cost of these solutions down. I'd love to take my house off the grid, but currently it's impossible for me to fund the up-front costs (even with government rebates). It makes so much sense to have individual homes generate most of their own energy.

 

[mjtomlin]

I know in recent years Apple has worked hard to reduce their footprint by decreasing the size of their packaging and working on projects mentioned in the above article. However why is it when you order something like an Apple Keyboard, the box that it ships in is easily 5 times larger than the product box itself? Kind of defeats the purpose of having more minimal packaging.

The reduction of packaging size saves in shipping from factory to distribution centers when items are shipped in mass/bulk.

When they're shipped individually to customers, then they need to be placed in a larger box for protection. There's not much you can do to get around that - have you seen how shipping companies handle packages!?

 

[mdriftmeyer]

I know in recent years Apple has worked hard to reduce their footprint by decreasing the size of their packaging and working on projects mentioned in the above article. However why is it when you order something like an Apple Keyboard, the box that it ships in is easily 5 times larger than the product box itself? Kind of defeats the purpose of having more minimal packaging.

Good overview about package redesigns: http://www.apple.com/environment/#transportation

 

[3N16MA]

The reduction of packaging size saves in shipping from factory to distribution centers when items are shipped in mass/bulk.

When they're shipped individually to customers, then they need to be placed in a larger box for protection. There's not much you can do to get around that - have you seen how shipping companies handle packages!?

My keyboard came with one piece of that big air filled bubble and was moving around in the box.

 

[SPUY767]

Let's hope that an infusion of cash by Apple helps develop fuel cells as they are the best renewable energy source atm.

 

[Thunderhawks]

I know in recent years Apple has worked hard to reduce their footprint by decreasing the size of their packaging and working on projects mentioned in the above article. However why is it when you order something like an Apple Keyboard, the box that it ships in is easily 5 times larger than the product box itself? Kind of defeats the purpose of having more minimal packaging.

I personally ship over 6,000 packages a year to consumers.

They order one item, multiple items etc.

So, to streamline things one buys a variety of sizes of shipping boxes to take care of say 99 percent of all the items that might be shipped.

Some fit perfectly with a little cushioning (I don't use styrofoam peanuts or plastic film) , some are more loose and need more filler material.

The keyboard is an odd size a different problem and a box that long would often break the keyboard in transit with other heavy boxes being placed on top etc.

If you ever look into a FEDEX or UPS truck you'd see how much they have to stack. Then they drive over bad roads , stop and go and shake things up etc.etc.

Same problem for everybody who ships individual products to consumers, not just Apple.
.

 

[MeanAndy]

Liking where this is heading

I love how Apple is trying to be as 'green' as possible. And as so many companies follow in Apple's path in regards to their products, lets hope they do so with their ideals too about restrainable energy.

I live in Cork, and have been up to the Apple campus, but I am curious where they get their 100% renewable energy from. Does anyone know?

And on the packaging argument, my latest iMac, including two keyboards were pact tightly with minimal packaging around them. If you were to buy both an Apple computer and a standard other name brand, my guessing is that Apple would have the least amount of waste packaging between them.

Plus their packaging that they use is recycled.

 

[iScott428]

Their technology is great but also really cool is generating power at the point of use. Distributed generation like that relieves a great deal of pressure on the grid and will lower costs and increase efficiency for everyone in the long run.

Spot on sir, I am not sure what the percentage is exactly but a huge amount of energy is lost when electricity is produced and moving the energy creation onsite is the best option. Not to mention bloom touts their energy as having superior electrons, just can not wait for a cost effective home application! Power transfer to the building is wireless as well.

 

[Darkflame808]

Since Apple have so much money on reserve, it's great to see them trying to do some good with it.

Thanks for being good Apple.

It's also a long term investment. With the craziness going on in the oil rich countries right now they are using their billions to prepare for the future. I do hope that they continue upon this technology cause none of us will be able to afford to use their electronics once our electric bills start taking hold on our throats.

 

[SPUY767]

Spot on sir, I am not sure what the percentage is exactly but a huge amount of energy is lost when electricity is produced and moving the energy creation onsite is the best option. Not to mention bloom touts their energy as having superior electrons, just can not wait for a cost effective home application! Power transfer to the building is wireless as well.

I assume you mean distributed, but yes, all those power lines, high tension or not are generating their own electrical fields, generating heat, and generally wasting energy in transit.

 

[ArcaneDevice]

Very cool! Always nice to hear about new energy solutions, especially when big companies start using them.

Google have been using Bloom boxes for a few years now.

 

[alephnull12]

Sounds like a waste of shareholder money. They should declare a dividend instead.

Let's see them publish how their fuel cells compare with alternatives in therm of total cost. I bet it's a money losing proposition, and if it is, they should admit it publicly.

 

[JimmyDago]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Nice to see a post mentioning my small state of Delaware. We were to have many of these types and similar installations and about 90% of these company's fell through.

 

[3460169]

Let's hope that an infusion of cash by Apple helps develop fuel cells as they are the best renewable energy source atm.

Considering that the current administration has no interest in lowering energy costs, let's hope that the private sectors -- especially technology behemoths like Apple -- help influence in whatever way possible the innovation of renewable energy technologies.

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Very cool! Always nice to hear about new energy solutions, especially when big companies start using them.

Google have been using Bloom boxes for a few years now.

Couple of big names, yes.

 

[JHankwitz]

I know in recent years Apple has worked hard to reduce their footprint by decreasing the size of their packaging and working on projects mentioned in the above article. However why is it when you order something like an Apple Keyboard, the box that it ships in is easily 5 times larger than the product box itself? Kind of defeats the purpose of having more minimal packaging.

I don't know what box you got your keyboard in, but mine was minimally designed. There needs to be adequate protection from shipping damage, and they provided that very efficiently and effectively.

My 27" iMac came in a box that seemed smaller than the Mac itself. What their packaging department does is truely amazing.

 

[alephnull12]

So which is the relative electricity rate for comparison in North Carolina?

Large General Service ($0.05 - $0.07 per kWh)

http://www.duke-energy.com/pdfs/NCScheduleLGS.pdf

or Industrial Service (also $0.05 - $0.07 per kWh)

http://www.duke-energy.com/pdfs/ncschedulei.pdf

If Apple is planning to use Bloom Boxes with natural gas, how would the operating costs and financing costs compare to that and to alternatives (backup turbine generators)?

Anyone know how many years it would take to pay off (if ever), presuming comparison to the General and Industrial services above?

 

[ArcaneDevice]

Sounds like a waste of shareholder money.

As opposed to wasting money on overly elaborate architectural designs?

What? No complaints about that?