Comments on: Bloom Energy Launches Electricity Service, With No Upfront Fee

By: Rich Hilt

Rich Hilt — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 00:44:29 +0000

Bilsko,
If you nix the SCR & Heat Exchanger, you can get the cost of a perfectly good small recip to the point where you can provide electricity to most big box retailers (350-650kW) — think Home Depot, Costco, WalMart etc. There are loads of them paying 15¢+. Bloom’s challenge is to find firm supplies of methane for 10yrs and to have residuals on the leasing of the units so that they can get the yearly lease payments to about the cost of the methane (per kWh).(Ok, maybe 1.2 times the methane costs).

By: Bilsko

Bilsko — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:52:26 +0000

Nope. The UTC is a PAFC unit. Operating temps are around 400F. Much lower than the 1100F+ temps that the SOFC must operate at. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

So, what is the stack replacement interval for the Bloombox?

We’ll just have to disagree on the installed cost for a recip project. Just so you know ,The Western Energy Systems pdf you sent lists installed costs for a recip project at $900-$1,200, *after incentives*. I don’t disagree that 1x2MW engine is cheaper than 20×100 fuel cells. I don’t even like fuel cells, but I am being realistic about the price of a recip-based CHP system (perhaps you’re talking engine only and I’m talking engine+SCR+Heat Exchange+Switchgear…? I mean, really, why else would you install the engine if you weren’t using it in CHP mode)

I have enough project experience and have drafted enough 30% design budgets to know what realistic numbers are for a recip project.

And enough with the snide ad hominem attacks. It doesn’t do anything to improve the tenor of the conversation.

By: BeAnon

BeAnon — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:33:55 +0000

Bilsko,

Is UTC SOFC system? What are the operating temps for UTCs system?

I had asked you about your data point, for a specific reason, and it is obvious that you have no clue about Bloombox stack life. The extrapolation that you have used shows lack of technical understanding on your part.

How much is the cost of a Jenbacher engine with BOP and installation costs?

As far as the installation costs go. The cost of installing a 2 MWatt recip engine is going to be far cheaper than installing 20 x 100kW Bloom Boxes. Yup, this cost will vary as the size of the engine goes up, but again, just throwing a $2000 or for than matter $3000 figure is naive. There has to be a context and comparison.

http://aeepnwc.org/images/meeting/091808/aee_presentation_091808_garrett_smith_rev_1.pdf

http://cambodia.usembassy.gov/media2/pdf/economic_utilization_of_biomass_and_municipal_waste_for_power_generation.pdf

And BTW, you seem like a dump VC, biz dev, MBA guy from your level of discussion.

By: Indu Das

Indu Das — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:03:22 +0000

So this is NOT a renewable energy source ?!
you feed the bio/natural gas and it generates electricity at little more efficiently (48%) ?! Was that all the fuss about ?!

By: Bilsko

Bilsko — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:00:13 +0000

Stack replacement will probably be somewhere in the 60-80k hour range, unless these SOFC units are really poorly built. Talk to any of the guys at UTC about their Purecell units and they’ll tell you 80k run-hours before stack replacement. So I went with 60k. If you’ve got a better more reliable number, then throw it out there – but don’t just come up with a snarky reply if you don’t have better info.

Sure – the capital cost for a recip engine can get as low as $800/kW – if you want to buy an incredibly inefficiency CAT or Waukesha (try 35-38%)… you’ll pay a premium for engines that can get efficiencies into the 42%+ range. And that $800 figure you site is the equipment cost – that doesn’t include any installation, BOP, etc. $3,000 is on the high end, but you wont do much better than $2,000/kW…and thats for the bigger systems.
You certainly won’t get any financial backers for a project if you go tell them that you can get the equipment for $800/kW.

By: BeAnon

BeAnon — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:51:53 +0000

Stack replacement of 60,000 hours. Where did you get that from? And what is the cost /kw of recip engine in your model? $3000/kw or more like $800/kW?

By: Bilsko

Bilsko — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:32:28 +0000

Its not terribly surprising that they can produce 10c power with the right mix of incentives. The Sec. 1603-ITC and CA $2500/kW buy the cost down to around $3000/kW. Add the Accelerated Depreciation (which is effectively another 10% reduction in capital costs) and you’ve got a Fuel Cell for just about the price of a recip engine.

With efficiencies around 48% and gas at $7, you should be able to hit 10c power. Assume the have pretty high leverage for the financing and get a competitive 7.5% interest rate. O&M (including stack replacement somewhere around 60,000 hours) somewhere in the neighborhood of 2c/kWh.

You can produce the same results using a highly efficienct recip engine — the caveat is that to get efficiencies comparable to the fuel cell, you need a big engine (think 4MW+). Wartsilla and Mitsubishi both make models that can hit 46-47% efficiency. For smaller systems (1-2MW range) you can expect 42-43% efficiency from engine builders like Jenbacher and MWM/MAN. The financials come out just about the same if you have a favorable spark spread with $7 gas.

The emissions from the engine (lean burn with SCR) will be about the same as what you’ll get from the Fuel Cell’s reformer…