Bloom Energy and Baker Hughes collaborate on hydrogen technology development

Baker Hughes and Bloom Energy will work together to commercialize and deploy integrated, low-carbon power generation and hydrogen solutions.

Baker Hughes and Bloom Energy will begin collaborating on potential customer engagements immediately, with the objective of launching pilot projects over the next 2-3 years and fully commercializing and scaling applications, products and solutions shortly thereafter.
The companies will focus efforts in three areas:

Integrate power solutions

By leveraging Bloom Energy’s solid oxide fuel cell technology (SOFC) and Baker Hughes’ light-weight gas turbine technology, the companies intend to provide efficient, resilient, and cost-effective solutions for cleaner energy generation, waste heat recovery, and grid independent power.

Bloom Energy’s SOFCs and Baker Hughes’ NovaLT gas turbines, which can run on up to 100% hydrogen, along with heat recovery turbines can create resilient microgrids ideal for large-scale applications.

Integrated hydrogen solutions

The companies will explore opportunities to pair Bloom Energy’s solid oxide electrolyzer cells (SOEC) that can produce green hydrogen with Baker Hughes’ compression technology for efficient production, compression, transport, and delivery of hydrogen. Waste heat utilization for steam generation will also be assessed to further increase efficiency and cost effectiveness of hydrogen production. The companies will target applications such as blending hydrogen into natural gas pipelines, as well as on-site hydrogen production for industrial use. These efforts are geared toward accelerating the transition to the hydrogen economy.

Bloom Energy’s SOEC technology coupled with Baker Hughes’ compression technology could facilitate faster adoption of hydrogen in process industries such as steel refining, where the use of heat recovery from the steel-making process could deliver higher overall system efficiencies and customer value.

Mutual technical collaborations

The companies will assess opportunities to leverage Baker Hughes’ technology portfolio and Bloom Energy’s SOFC and SOEC solutions. In addition to hydrogen and clean power, areas of collaboration may include carbon capture and emissions monitoring technologies, digital solutions, and additive manufacturing capabilities.

“The path to net-zero carbon emissions must include partnerships and collaboration,” said Uwem Ukpong, executive vice president of regions, alliances, and enterprise sales at Baker Hughes. “At the core of our collaboration agreement with Bloom Energy is the potential to develop integrated technology offerings for commercialization and deployment of smarter, cleaner, and more economic energy solutions. It’s a great example of how Baker Hughes is strategically pursuing ways to advance new energy frontiers and invest for growth in the industrial marketplace.”

“We believe that in combining our industry-leading technologies and expertise to provide differentiated and customized integrated solutions to customers, we can accelerate the adoption of clean energy technologies,” said Azeez Mohammed, executive vice president of international business for Bloom Energy. “This collaboration will serve as a model of how we need to look for innovative ways in which we can work together and integrate technologies and capabilities to achieve our common goals for global decarbonization and resiliency.”

For hydrogen, Baker Hughes provides compression and energy conversion technology and services, including production, transportation and utilization. Bloom Energy’s modular and fuel-flexible energy server platform can use biogas and hydrogen, in addition to natural gas, to create electricity at significantly higher efficiencies than traditional resources. In addition, Bloom Energy’s fuel cell technology can be used to create hydrogen, which is increasingly recognized as a critically important tool to enable the full decarbonization of the energy economy.