Bloom Energy to help bring fuel cell energy to South Korea

The California-based firm will be distributing its solid oxide fuel cell systems in the country.

Bloom Energy has announced a strategic partnership with SK Engineering and Construction (SK E&C) to bring fuel cell energy to South Korea. Under the new agreement, SK E&C will become a distributor of Bloom Energy Server solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) systems in the nation.

South Korea is a world leader in the deployment of fuel cells for utility-scale electric power production.

The country already has approximately 300 megawatts (MW) of fuel cell energy deployed. Now, South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) 8th Electricity Supply Demand Plan has called for further expansion of these fuel cells for utility-scale electric power generation. MOTIE wants to see these deployments expand to an estimated 600 MW by 2022.

Bloom Energy is the world leader in stationary fuel cells and its fuel cell technology delivers clean, resilient and highly reliable “Always On” electric power with low carbon emission and almost no criteria air pollutants.

The California-based company’s servers reportedly feature the highest delivered electrical efficiency of any commercial electric power generation system. This results in lower fuel consumption per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced.

The fuel cell energy agreement can help South Korea with its air pollution problem.

Due to the fact that Bloom Energy’s technology has virtually no criteria air pollutants, this means that it won’t contribute to South Korea’s “micro-dust” problem, which causes smog and respiratory diseases.

South Korea has the worst air quality among the 35 developed economies, according to the Organization from Economic Cooperation and Development. The nation’s dependency on coal power is a huge contributor to its air quality issues. According to MOTIE, coal power accounted for 45.3% of South Korea’s energy consumption last year.

“The leadership of SK Group shares our passionate belief that bringing clean and reliable electric power to people of South Korea can be good for business as well as for the environment,” said Bloom Energy Founder, Chairman and CEO KR Sridhar, in a Bloom Energy company press release.

The 8.53 MW Bloom Energy Server solution for a South Korean utility south of Seoul is completed and commercial operations are slated to begin later this year. The fuel cell energy project uses a very innovative “Power Tower” design and is believe to be the most energy-dense power plant in the world, producing 1 MW for every 787 square feet.