How Sand Generates Power in Bloom Box?
In college, we have studied how beach sand transforms to a silicon wafer from a silicon ingot . This happens when sand subjects to a high temperature, thus extracting silicon element from it. It is then used as an important base for semiconductor manufacturing such as integrated circuit.
Today, silicon is not just for electronics, it is now used to compete with those traditional power generating grids. It will also minimize the electricity bills.
How do we use silicon to minimize electricity bills?
Bloom Energy developed what they called the “Bloom Box” where electricity is generated inside the box to power our home and industries.
It started from a silicon base which is integrated on to a square wafer and with the combination of other elements including fuel, which is natural gas applied to one side of the wafer and oxygen to the other, thus produces electricity.
silicon wafer piled to form a Bloom Box
These wafers are then piled to form a box, the “Bloom Box” and placed with the components to form the Energy Servers. This will be connected to the main supply as the electrical source for home and industry. Bloom Energy had installed 5 boxes of this at eBay and have generated a power five times as much than eBay can use.
Bloom Energy Servers
They are now trying to develop a box that will be more affordable as $3,000 (P150,000).
Currently, they are selling it to corporations for $700,000 to $800,000 (around P40M). It has a generation cost of about 8 cents (P4.00) per kilowatt hour.
