Short on Roof Space? Adobe Plants Fuel Cells
To green up its operations, Adobe Systems, the maker of the ubiquitous Flash media player, has done everything from installing waterless urinals to building a wind farm at its downtown San Jose, Calif., headquarters.
Now the company has put a dozen 100-kilowatt Bloom Energy fuel cells on top of a parking garage that will supply nearly a third of the three-tower complex's electricity.
It will be the nation's largest installation of Bloom Energy Servers, a cutting-edge solid oxide fuel cell that has been bought by Google, eBay and other big corporations.
Bloom Energy, a long-secretive Sunnyvale, Calif., start-up that has raised $400 million from some of Silicon Valley's leading venture capitalists, introduced the energy servers to great fanfare at a February event attended by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California; Gen. Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state; and a host of technology chiefs.
Fuel cells convert hydrogen, natural gas or another fuel into electricity through an electrochemical process and then provide electricity directly to a building without the need for new transmission lines. Depending on the type of fuel used, Bloom claims its devices can sharply cut or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.
Randy Knox, Adobe's senior director for global workplace solutions, said the company aimed to obtain half of its electricity from renewable sources. But Adobe was stymied by the fact its operations are located in urban skyscrapers rather than on a sprawling corporate campus.
"We just don't have space on our tower rooftops for large solar arrays," said Mr. Knox.
Earlier this year, Adobe did install 20 1.2-kilowatt vertical wind turbines made by Windspire Energy on a sixth-floor plaza that connects two of its buildings. But the urban wind farm, which looks more like a modern art exhibit than a power plant, generates only enough electricity to power about 10 average homes –- when the wind is blowing.
A dozen Bloom Energy Servers, however, produce 1,200 kilowatts of power around the clock and fit comfortably on the roof of Adobe's parking garage. Visible from neighboring towers and the 101 freeway, the polished metal cubes' green-chic look owes more to Apple's tech aesthetic than to old-school industrial design.
Each of the Bloom Energy Servers sells for $700,000 to $800,000, although state and federal tax incentives can halve the cost.
To minimize the fuel cells' carbon footprint, Mr. Knox said Adobe had signed contracts to purchase methane, a potent greenhouse gas, emitted and captured at a landfill in Pennsylvania.
"In reality, the methane gas is probably not making it to San Jose," he said. "But we're actually paying for the gas in Pennsylvania and paying for the tariffs so it can be put in the pipeline and transported to California."
Stu Aaron, Bloom Energy's vice president for marketing and product management, said that about half of the company's customers are buying methane produced by such sources as landfills or farm animals under arrangements similar to the one Adobe has made. While the fuel cells can operate on such biogas, most customers are not located near the source of the methane, he said.
Mr. Aaron said that Bloom expects to have 100 energy servers installed by the end of the year and that, on average, customers are buying five to 10 of the units.
Except for one installation in Chattanooga, Tenn., all of the Bloom Energy Servers are in California.
"We're still focused on California because of a combination of the relatively high cost of electricity here, the cost of natural gas, the availability of incentives and the predisposition of customers' being green," Mr. Aaron said.
When incentives are taken into account, Bloom Energy Servers can generate electricity below retail rates, according to the company.
For Adobe's part, it will continue to search for ways to generate more renewable energy, Mr. Knox said.
One option: Joining with other Silicon Valley corporations to buy land outside the city to build a cooperative solar farm.