Bloom Energy can trace its roots to work performed at the University of Arizona as part of the NASA Mars space program. Dr. KR Sridhar and his team were charged with creating a technology that could sustain life on Mars. They built a device capable of producing air and fuel from electricity, and/or electricity from air and fuel.

They soon realized that their technology could have an even greater impact here on Earth.

In 2001, when their project ended, the team decided to continue their research and start a company. Originally called Ion America, Bloom Energy, was founded with the mission to make clean, reliable energy affordable for everyone on earth.

In 2002, John Doerr, and Kleiner Perkins became the first investors in the company. Kleiner Perkins was legendary for its early backing of other industry changing companies, like Google, Amazon.com, Netscape, and Genentech, but Bloom was its first clean tech investment. In fact, at that time, clean tech was not even really a word.

With financing in place, the team packed three U-hauls and headed to NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley to set up shop. Over the next few years, the technology quickly developed from concept, to prototype, to product, as the major technological challenges were solved and the systems became more powerful, more efficient, more reliable, and more economical.

In early 2006 Bloom shipped its first 5kW field trial unit to the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. After two years of successful field trials in Tennessee, California, and Alaska, to validate the technology, the first commercial (100kW) products were shipped to Google in July 2008.

Since that time Bloom’s Energy Servers have helped our customers generate millions of kWhs of electricity and eliminate millions of pounds of CO2 from the environment.

From humble beginnings on Mars, Bloom Energy is now changing the Earth for the better.

Man behind Bloom Energy Technology is KR Sridhar, Ph.D. Principal Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer. Prior to founding Bloom Energy, KR Sridhar was Director of the Space Technologies Laboratory (STL) at the University of Arizona where he was also a professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. Under his leadership, STL won several nationally competitive contracts to conduct research and development for Mars exploration and flight experiments to Mars. KR has served as an advisor to NASA and has led major consortia of industry, academia, and national labs. His work for the NASA Mars program to convert Martian atmospheric gases to oxygen for propulsion and life support was recognized by Fortune Magazine, where he was cited as “one of the top five futurists inventing tomorrow, today.” As one of the early pioneers in green tech, KR also serves as a strategic limited partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and as a special advisor to New Enterprise Associates. He has also served on many technical committees, panels and advisory boards and has several publications and patents. KR received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering with Honors from the University of Madras (now called NIT, Trichy), India, as well as his master’s degree in Nuclear Engineering and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Tags: Bloom Box, Bloom Energy, clean energy source, clean energy technology, Dr. KR Sridhar, energy technology, man behind Bloom Energy, Mars space program, University of Arizona

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