Bloom Energy (NYSE:BE) turned up in two big data center announcements on Nov. 5. NTT DATA said it had agreed to deploy 900 megawatts of the fuel cell maker’s onsite power across data center projects around the world.
And Alphabet’s Google said Bloom would build the fuel cells for a 702-megawatt plant powering its first data center in Wyoming, a $17 billion project.
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The stock had a bad day anyway. Shares ended at $167.52, off around 16%, amid worries that rising opposition to new data centers after the Nov. 3 midterms might slow the build-out of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.
The growth stock is still up over 90% this year. But it now sits about 52% below the $345.85 record close it set on June 22.
How much new business did Bloom win on Nov. 5? Less than the headlines may suggest, because just one of the two deals is new. I think the other still matters, though, and the stock looks much more reasonably priced than it did in October.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Google’s fuel cells were ordered in January
Google won’t buy the fuel cells itself. American Electric Power plans to invest around $4 billion in the 702-megawatt project near Cheyenne, Wyoming, the utility said on Oct. 14. It’ll sell the plant’s output to Google under a 20-year power purchase agreement, and it expects the plant to be fully running by late 2028.
The fuel cell order came months earlier. In January, an AEP subsidiary agreed to buy solid oxide fuel cells for around $2.65 billion for a plant near Cheyenne. The purchase used most of an option for 900 extra megawatts under AEP’s 2024 supply deal with Bloom.
For a sense of scale, that one order is worth over half of Bloom’s full-year revenue forecast of $4.4 billion to $4.6 billion for 2026.
So, Google’s news didn’t add to Bloom’s orders. The fuel cells were bought in January, and AEP had already named Google as the plant’s customer in October.
That still means something, I think. A fuel cell order backed by a 20-year power contract with Google looks more likely to become revenue on time than one linked to an unnamed buyer.
NTT DATA is the new business
NTT DATA’s deal is the new business, and the companies called it Bloom’s biggest international project so far. NTT’s data center arm plans to use the fuel cells as its main power source, with the relationship meant to reach gigawatt scale across its global portfolio.
