ITEM 1 - BUSINESS
Overview
Our mission is to make clean, reliable energy affordable for everyone in the world. We created the first large-scale, commercially viable solid oxide fuel-cell based power generation platform that empowers businesses, essential services, critical infrastructure and communities to responsibly take charge of their energy.
Our technology, invented in the United States, is one of the most advanced electricity and hydrogen producing platforms on the market today, with one gigawatt deployed in over 1,000 locations and 6 countries. Our fuel-flexible Bloom Energy Server™ can use biogas, hydrogen, natural gas, or a blend of fuels, to create resilient, sustainable, and cost-predictable power. It can perform at significantly higher efficiencies than traditional, combustion-based resources. In addition, the same solid oxide platform that powers our fuel cells is the basis for creating hydrogen efficiently. The Bloom Electrolyzer™ uses less electricity than other electrolyzers, thereby potentially lowering the overall cost of producing hydrogen, a critical factor towards accelerating the transition to hydrogen as a fuel. The Bloom Electrolyzer diversifies and expands our addressable market to industries that create hard-to-abate emissions, such as heavy industry, and industries seeking out zero-carbon transportation fuels.
We are committed to continuous improvement, innovation, and scale. We operated our electrolyzers at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, where we demonstrated that we could produce 1 kg of hydrogen using as little as 37.7 kWh of electricity, an industry leading result, with an average performance of 39.2 kWh per kg of hydrogen.
We are enhancing our production capabilities to support growth. We opened our new, multi-gigawatt factory in Fremont, California, in 2022, which was an investment of $200 million that significantly increased our capacity to produce our energy platforms. In Delaware, we also invested in our Newark factory to increase production capacity of Energy Servers and inaugurated a high volume electrolyzer manufacturing line for commercial deployment in the United States and Europe, where demand is ramping up. We are regularly taking deliberate steps to reduce costs and increase the efficiency of our platform. Our team has decades of experience in the various specialized disciplines and systems engineering concepts embedded in our technology. As of December 31, 2022, we have 313 issued patents in the United States and 164 issued patents internationally.
At Bloom Energy, we look forward to a net-zero future. Our technology is designed to help enable this future in order to deliver reliable, low-carbon, electricity in a world facing unacceptable levels of power disruptions. Our distributed platform most often generates energy in close proximity to where the same electricity is consumed, thus avoiding the vulnerabilities of conventional transmission and distribution lines. Our resilient platform is designed to keep electricity available for our customers through hurricanes, earthquakes, typhoons, forest fires, extreme heat and grid failures. Unlike traditional combustion power generation, our platform is community-friendly and designed to significantly reduce emissions of criteria air pollutants. We have made tremendous progress toward our goal of utilizing our platform in variety of new applications such as our waste to energy, hydrogen and marine programs, and we are well-positioned as a core platform in the new energy paradigm to help organizations and communities achieve their net-zero objectives.
The United States is currently our second-largest market in terms of revenues, but our largest market in terms of installed base of Energy Servers. Some of our major customers include companies in industries such as data centers, retail, hospitals, farming, semiconductors and other manufacturing. Our resilient technology provides secure power to critical facilities, including data centers, hospitals and high-tech manufacturing. We also work with a number of U.S. financing and distribution partners who purchase and deploy our systems at end-customers’ facilities in order to provide “electricity-as-a service.” We are actively pursuing new business opportunities based on incentives for microgrids and renewable energy in the landmark Inflation Reduction Action, passed in August 2022.
Our largest market in terms of revenue is the Republic of Korea, a world leader in the deployment of fuel cells for utility-scale electric power generation. We began commercial operation in the Republic of Korea in 2018 and have grown our footprint to more than 400MW’s of deployed Energy Servers across South Korea – by 2022, it had become our largest market. SK ecoplant Co., Ltd. (“SK ecoplant”, formerly known as SK Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd.), a subsidiary of the SK Group, serves as the primary distributor of our systems in the Republic of Korea. In October 2021, we announced an expansion of our existing partnership with SK ecoplant, that includes purchase commitments of at least 500MW of power for our Energy Servers between 2022 and 2025 on a take or pay basis, the creation of hydrogen innovation centers to advance green hydrogen commercialization, and an equity investment in Bloom Energy.
We are enhancing our capabilities and adding resources to expand our market reach internationally for our electrolyzer solutions, waste-to-energy solutions, and our resiliency solutions for off-takers such as data centers and other industrial processes. In 2022, we entered the European market by signing contracts with customers in Italy, and we signed a marketing initiative in Spain and Portugal with a regional renewable energy marketing enterprise. We strengthened our presence in Asia by expanding to Taiwan. We are also operating smaller deployments in India and Japan with commercial customers, with additional projects in development in other Southeast Asia locations and Australia. We plan to continue our efforts to increase our operations internationally in 2023.
Industry Background
There are numerous challenges facing the traditional system for producing and delivering electricity. We believe these challenges will be the foundation of a transformation in how electricity is produced, delivered, and consumed. We believe this transformation could be similar to the seismic shifts seen in the computer and telecommunications industries, where centralized mainframe computing and landline telephone systems ultimately gave way to the more distributed technologies seen today, as well as the reimagining of business processes, culture and customer experiences.
Providing a resilient energy solution is now a strategic imperative: The rising frequency and intensity of natural disasters and extreme weather in recent years underscores a critical need for greater grid resilience.
According to National Centers for Environmental Information, during 2022, there were eighteen separate billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events including severe storms, tropical cyclones, flooding, winter storms, and wildfires. The total cost from these events of 2022 was $165.0 billion and was the third most costly year on record, behind 2017 and 2005. 2022 was the eighth consecutive year (2015-2022) in which 10 or more billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events have impacted the United States.
Stakeholders across industries grapple with the question of how to continue providing energy during more frequent and intense natural disasters while maintaining course toward achieving their climate targets. These climate threats are compounded by an increasing concern over the threat of cyber-attacks and physical sabotage to the centralized grid infrastructure. These acute issues further add to a chronic concern; the fragility of decades-old energy system elements that have suffered from deferred maintenance and replacement, which can only be partially remedied by the billions of dollars of new investment from the recently passed infrastructure bill. In an increasingly electrified world, from electric vehicles, to automated manufacturing, to the digitalization of everything, power supply and reliability are more important now than ever. This has elevated the discussion around the essential role that distributed generation and microgrids can play in improving the resilience of both businesses and the grid. As outages increase, businesses are considering the “cost of not having power” instead of just the “cost of power.” Energy resilience is becoming an issue business leaders can no longer afford to neglect – both from a strategic and cost perspective.
There is a rise in centralized capacity constraints: The traditional centralized grid model is increasingly showing weaknesses. For example, in September of 2022, California issued an emergency proclamation order, documenting the drastic measures that must be taken to secure sufficient capacity to be able to avert catastrophic blackouts. Californians were asked to conserve energy, customers with diesel generators were being asked to run them and the state suspended many environmental permitting rules and regulations related to the deployment of power generation. This is one of the many reasons why microgrids, localized energy systems that can operate alongside a main grid or disconnect and operate autonomously, are playing an increasingly important role, providing a critical, twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week (“24x7”), always-on energy solution, powering critical infrastructure, offsetting demand on the grid, and supplying power to the grid when it is most needed.
There is an increasing focus on reducing harmful local emissions: Air pollution is the fifth leading risk factor for mortality worldwide. Calculations of the economic and health benefits associated with reducing localized air pollution such as nitrogen oxides, which are produced by combusting fuel, and particulate matter emissions have been found to exceed the economic and health benefits of reducing carbon emissions. The COVID-19 pandemic has only further shed light on these detrimental health impacts. Recent studies have linked long-term exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 death rates. They have also found that, nationwide, low-income communities of color are exposed to significantly higher levels of pollution, experiencing higher levels of lung disease and other ailments as a result.
Hydrogen is one of the keys to a zero-carbon future: We believe clean hydrogen will be a critical factor in the energy industry of the future, a truly clean alternative for both natural gas and transportation fuels and an alternative means to store energy. Hydrogen’s unique advantages – incredibly high energy density, zero carbon gas emissions when used as a fuel, and ease of storage and transportation – make it an especially attractive investment opportunity for those interested in a zero-carbon
energy mix. The key limiting factor in the use of hydrogen, which does not readily exist in nature as a separate molecule, is that it cannot be mined, extracted or otherwise produced in its desired state without a manufacturing process. As both the transportation and the electricity sectors transition to a zero-carbon future, there will thus be increasing demand for both technologies that can efficiently generate power using hydrogen and for large-scale electrolysis that can produce clean hydrogen at scale.
Our Solutions
Distributed Electricity Production
Our baseload-power fuel cell solution, the Bloom Energy Server, is designed to deliver reliable, resilient, clean and affordable energy for utilities and organizations alike. Suitable to operate parallel with the grid, independent of the grid, or as part of a larger microgrid ecosystem, the Bloom Energy Server is based on our proprietary solid oxide technology that converts fuel, such as natural gas, biogas, hydrogen, or a blend of these fuels, into electricity through an electrochemical process without combustion. The electrical output of our Energy Server is designed to be connected to the customer’s main electrical feed, thereby avoiding the transmission and distribution losses associated with a centralized grid system. The modular nature of our solution enables any number of Energy Servers to be clustered together in various configurations, providing solutions from hundreds of kilowatts to hundreds of megawatts. The Energy Server is designed to be easily integrated into community environments due to its aesthetically attractive design, compact space requirement, minimal noise profile and lack of criteria air pollutants. When fueled with biogas, Energy Servers convert methane, which would otherwise be let into our atmosphere or flared, into electricity. Increasing regulations against methane pollutions creates an opportunity for innovative solutions like Bloom Energy Servers.
Our Energy Servers, combined with another party’s carbon capture technology, can provide zero-carbon electricity. Our standard Energy Server vents CO2 into the atmosphere as a byproduct. Used for carbon capture, the Energy Server is configured to vent anode exhaust gas, including the CO2, which may then be consolidated, compressed and processed to separate the CO2 for sequestration, or other industrial applications. The compression and processing of the anode exhaust can be done by industrial gas companies. Bloom’s anode exhaust, once dried, has a 95% purity of CO2. This makes it one of the purest streams of CO2 out of any power generation technology using natural gas, making it comparatively simple and inexpensive to capture. The Inflation Reduction Act (the “IRA”) increases the tax credit for carbon capture and sequestration to $85/ton of CO2, in addition to lowering the annual threshold quantity of captured emissions required to qualify for the credit to 18,750 metric tons, as well as allowing direct pay for tax-exempt organizations and transferable credits for other taxpayers.
Hydrogen Generation
We believe we are uniquely positioned for the hydrogen future of tomorrow. Using the same solid oxide platform as our Energy Server, the Bloom Electrolyzer is designed to produce scalable and cost-effective hydrogen solutions. Our modular design makes the Bloom Electrolyzer ideal for applications across gas, utilities, nuclear, concentrated solar, ammonia and heavy industries. Our solid oxide, high-temperature electrolyzer is designed to produce hydrogen onsite more efficiently than low-temperature PEM and alkaline electrolyzers. Because it operates at high temperatures, the Bloom Electrolyzer is designed to require less energy to break up water molecules and produce hydrogen. As electricity accounts for nearly 80 percent of the cost of producing hydrogen from electrolysis, using less electricity improves the economics of hydrogen production and helps bolster adoption. The Electrolyzer is designed to produce green hydrogen from 100 percent renewable power. The hydrogen produced onsite at a customer’s facility can either be used as fuel or stored for consumption at a later point.
Marine Transportation
We have also adapted our Energy Servers to advance the decarbonization of the marine industry through the design and development of fuel cell powered ships. The marine transportation sector contributes to global pollution, as many ships continue to use carbon-rich fuels such as bunker fuel, diesel, and other hydrocarbons. As global infrastructure for low and emission-free fuels continue to develop, our modular, fuel-flexible and upgradable platform is designed to allow for existing ships in service to be upgraded, allowing the marine transportation sector long-term flexibility and scalability for improved ship design. Furthermore, noise pollution and mechanical vibrations are substantially reduced when Energy Servers are used as a power source aboard ships. Our platform is IMO 2040- and 2050-ready today, with the ability to operate on liquefied natural gas, biogas and blended hydrogen. We are committed to developing the platform to accommodate multiple renewable fuels, such as green methanol and bioethanol, as the marine fuel market develops.
Our Value Proposition
Our energy platform has three key value propositions: resiliency, sustainability and predictability. The three elements of our value proposition emphasize those areas where there is a strong customer need and where we believe we can deliver superior performance.
Resiliency: Our Energy Servers avoid the vulnerabilities of conventional transmission and distribution lines by generating power on-site where the electricity is consumed. The system operates at very high availability due to its modular and fault-tolerant design, which includes multiple independent power generation modules that can be hot-swapped to provide uninterrupted service. Unlike traditional combustion generation, Bloom Energy Servers can be serviced and maintained without powering down the system. Importantly, Bloom Energy Servers that utilize existing natural gas infrastructure rely on a redundant underground mesh network, intended to provide for extremely high fuel availability that is protected from the natural disasters that often disrupt the power grid.
Sustainability: Our Energy Servers uniquely address both the causes and consequences of climate change. Our projects lower carbon emissions by displacing less-efficient fossil fuel generation on the grid, which improves air quality, including in vulnerable communities, by generating electricity without combustion, offsetting combustion from grid resources as well as eliminating the need for dirtier diesel backup power solutions. Our microgrid deployments provide customers with critical resilience to grid instability, including disruptions resulting from climate-related extreme weather events. Our Energy Servers achieve this while consuming no water during operation, with optimized land use as a result of our high-power density.
A large part of our ongoing innovation is focused on the continued reduction of carbon emissions from our Energy Servers, and we are engaged in multiple efforts to align our product roadmap with a zero-carbon trajectory. We are developing new applications and market opportunities in sectors with dirtier grids and higher marginal emissions displacement.
In July 2021, we announced a commitment to match our customer’s gas consumption with certified low-leak natural gas, reducing the release of harmful methane emissions stemming from upstream gas production. We are doing this by off-setting the pipeline gas used by our customers with credits for low-leak gas. On April 21, 2022, Bloom Energy and EQT, the largest producer of natural gas in the United States, announced they had closed a trade agreement for the transfer of MiQ + Equitable Origin certificates representing a mix of social, environmental and governance attributes related to the production environment. Bloom has contracted for certificates to apply to its domestic fleet’s anticipated natural gas consumption for 2022 and 2023. This program provides a certified leak rate our customers can use to inform lifecycle carbon accounting of their Energy Servers and reinforces our commitment to environmental stewardship and gas sector transformation.
EQT’s certified natural gas production currently comprises 4.5% of all-natural gas produced in the United States, making EQT not only the nation’s largest natural gas producer, but also the nation’s largest producer of certified natural gas. Together, Bloom and EQT are leading the market for certified natural gas, which not only allows end-users to reduce the emissions associated with their value chain but also incentives emissions reduction efforts by producers. By converting its U.S. fleet of fuel cell installations – deployed at more than 700 sites – to EQT’s certified natural gas, an estimated 176,000 metric tons of CO2e emissions can be avoided per year when compared to the national average leak rate, the equivalent of more than 38,000 passenger vehicles taken off the road annually. By transitioning our domestic fleet of fuel cells to certified natural gas, we believe we are taking an immediate and impactful step to help eliminate harmful methane emissions as we lay the foundation for a net-zero future.
We are also focused on scaling the generation and use of renewable natural gas (RNG). RNG is pipeline quality natural gas derived from biogas produced from decomposing organic waste, generally from landfills, agricultural waste or wastewater treatment facilities. It can be used as low carbon or net-zero fuel for our Energy Servers, or directly as the power solution in the renewable fuel process which lowers the Carbon Intensity score associated with the renewable fuel commodity.
Carbon intensity is simply defined as CO2 emissions per unit of energy by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The carbon intensity score measures greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions associated with producing, distributing and consuming a fuel, which is measured in grams of CO2 equivalent to megajoule (gCO2e/MJ). Different fuels emit different amounts of carbon dioxide in relation to the energy they produce when burned. For example, biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel have been proven to emit significantly lower GHG emissions than petroleum-based fuels.
Additionally, we are pushing technology and business model boundaries to pioneer carbon capture and utilization and storage potential. It is both more feasible and cost-effective to capture CO2 emissions from our Energy Servers than from combustion generation, as no costly and complex separation of other gases like nitrogen is required. Captured CO2 emissions can be stored in underground geologic formations or utilized in new products or processes.
We continue to progress on our development and commercialization of scalable and cost-effective 100 percent hydrogen solutions and zero emission power generation. Our flexible and modular platform approach allows for customization at the time of equipment commissioning and a pathway to upgrade existing systems to align with the sustainability goals of our customers over time. In 2021, we announced the commercial availability of our hydrogen-powered fuel cells and electrolyzers capable of producing clean hydrogen. Our 100 kilowatt hydrogen-powered Energy Server project in the Republic of Korea commenced operations in April 2021 and our Electrolyzers have been successfully installed and began producing hydrogen in January 2022.
Finally, our Electrolyzer is the most efficient electrolyzer technology available today that splits water molecules to produce clean hydrogen. We collaborated with the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Lab to prove this efficiency using our electrolyzer and excess nuclear energy to produce clean hydrogen at record-breaking efficiencies. We are now working with many other industries on a variety of applications in the hydrogen economy.
Predictability: In contrast to the rising and unpredictable cost outlook for grid electricity, we offer our customers the ability to lock in cost for electric power over the long-term. Unlike the grid price of electricity, which reflects the cost to maintain and update the entire transmission and distribution system, our price to our customers is based solely on their individual project. In the regions where the majority of our Energy Servers are deployed, our solution typically provides electricity to our customers at a cost that is competitive with traditional grid power prices. In addition, our solution provides greater cost predictability versus rising grid prices. Whereas grid prices are regulated and subject to frequent change based on the utility’s underlying costs, customers can contract with us for a known price in each year of their contract. Moreover, we provide customers with a solution that offers all of the fixed equipment and maintenance costs for the life of the contract.
Our Energy Servers are designed to deliver 24x7 power with very high availability, mission-critical reliability and grid-independent capabilities. The Energy Server can be configured to eliminate the need for traditional backup power equipment, such as diesel generators, batteries and uninterruptible power systems, by seamlessly delivering power before and after a grid failure. Our Energy Servers are designed to offer consistent power supply for mission critical operations that require a high level of electrical reliability and uninterrupted availability, such as data centers, hospitals, and biotechnology facilities. This is particularly important as society becomes more reliant on digital systems and sophisticated operational technology. Power quality issues can cause equipment failure, downtime, data corruption and increased operational costs.
Further, our Energy Servers were designed to provide ‘quick time to power’– the ability to be deployed and begin generating power in as little as days or weeks – as an important value proposition for customers that need to ramp up power quickly. This capability is ideal for customers who need critical power but are facing utility capacity constraints, delays or additional costs. The modularity, quick deployment, ease of installation and small footprint of our Energy Servers facilitate ease of accessibility to power.
Our Energy Server can be augmented to provide grid-independent operation. Customers can elect an Energy Server technical solution for mission critical applications, such as in data centers or a more basic grid outage protection, such as for a retail store. Customers also have a variety of choices for financing vehicles, contract duration, pricing schedules and fuel procurement.
Technology
Our solid oxide technology platform is the foundation for both our Energy Servers and our Electrolyzers. Solid oxide is unique from other fuel cell chemistries in that it runs at a higher temperature, making it more efficient than other fuel cell technologies. The solid oxide fuel cells in our Energy Servers convert fuel, such as natural gas, biogas, hydrogen, or a blend of fuels, into electricity through an electrochemical reaction without burning the fuel. Each individual fuel cell is composed of three layers: an electrolyte sandwiched between a cathode and an anode. The electrolyte is a solid ceramic material, and the anode and cathode are made from inks that coat the electrolyte. Unlike other types of fuel cells, no precious metals, corrosive acids, or molten materials are required. These fuel cells are the foundational building block of our Energy Servers. Regardless of the starting size of a solution, further scaling can be accomplished after the initial system is deployed, creating ongoing flexibility and scalability for the customer.
Our electrolyzer technology dates to the 1980s, when our co-founders first developed electrolyzers to support the U.S. military and later NASA’s Mars exploration programs. In the early 2000s, 19 patents were awarded to Bloom Energy for its electrolyzer technology. With reduced renewable energy costs and the global movement to decarbonize, we believe it is the right moment to commercialize our hydrogen technology which is ready for deployment at scale. The Bloom Electrolyzer is based on our solid oxide technology and is designed to generate hydrogen from electricity at superior efficiencies compared to PEM and alkaline solutions. Our electrolyzer advances decarbonization efforts by providing a clean fuel for carbon-free
generation, injection into the natural gas pipeline, transportation, or for use in industrial processes. Because it operates at high temperatures, the Bloom Electrolyzer requires less energy to break up water molecules and produce hydrogen.
Research and Development
Our research and development organization has addressed complex applied materials, processing and packaging challenges through the invention of many proprietary advanced material science solutions. Over more than a decade, Bloom has built a world-class team of solid oxide fuel cell scientists and technology experts. Our team comprises technologists with degrees in Materials Science, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Nuclear Engineering, and includes 52 PhDs within these or related fields. This team has continued to develop innovative technology improvements for our Energy Servers. Since our first-generation technology, we have reduced the costs and increased the output of our systems through the next generation of our Energy Servers and increased the life of our fuel cells by over two and half times.
We have invested and will continue to invest a significant amount in research and development. See our discussion of research and development expenses in Part II, Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for further information.
Competition
We primarily compete against gas engines, combined heat and power systems, and the utility grid; for grid-independent operations, we compete with diesel generators. Our solutions are based on superior reliability, resiliency, cost savings, predictability and sustainability, all of which can be customized to the needs of individual customers. Customers do not currently have alternative solutions that provide all of these important attributes in one platform. As we drive our costs down and make technological improvements, we expect our value proposition to be competitive relative to grid power in additional markets.
Other sources of competition – and the attributes that differentiate us – include:
•Intermittent solar power paired with storage. Solar power is intermittent and best suited for addressing day-time peak power requirements, while our Energy Servers are designed to provide stable baseload generation. Storage technology is intended to address the intermittency of solar power, but the low power density of the combined technologies and the challenges of extended poor weather events that sharply decrease solar power production and battery recharging makes the solution impractical for most commercial and industrial customers looking to offset a significant amount of power. As a point of comparison, our Energy Servers provide the same power output in 1/125th of the footprint of a photovoltaic solar installation, allowing us to serve far more of a customer’s energy requirements based on a customer’s available and typically limited space.
•Intermittent wind power. Power from wind turbines is intermittent, similar to solar power. Typically, wind power is deployed for utility-side, grid-scale applications in remote locations but not as a customer-side, distributed power alternative due to prohibitive space requirements and permitting issues. Where distributed wind power is available, it can be combined with storage, with similar benefits and challenges to solar-and-storage combinations. Remote wind farms feeding into the grid do not help end customers avoid the vulnerabilities and costs of the transmission and distribution system.
•Traditional co-generation systems. These systems deliver a combination of electric power and heat from combustion sources. We believe we compete favorably because of our non-combustion platform, superior electrical efficiencies, significantly less complex deployment (avoiding heating systems integration and requiring less space), superior availability, aesthetic appeal and reliability. Unlike these systems, which depend on the full and concurrent utilization of waste heat to achieve high efficiencies, we can provide highly efficient systems to any customer based solely on their power needs.
•Traditional backup equipment. As our Energy Servers deliver reliable power, particularly in grid-independent configurations where our Energy Servers can operate during grid outages, they can obviate the need for traditional backup equipment, such as diesel generators. By providing combustion-free power 24x7 rather than just as backup, we generally offer a better integrated, more reliable, cleaner and cost-effective solution than these grid-plus-backup systems.
•Other commercially available fuel cells. Basic fuel cell technology is over 100 years old. Our Energy Server uses advanced solid oxide fuel cell technology, which produces electricity directly from oxidizing a fuel. The type of solid oxide fuel cell we compete against has a solid oxide or ceramic electrolyte. The advantages of our technology include higher efficiency, long-term stability, elimination of the need for an external fuel reformer, ability to use biogas, natural gas, or hydrogen as a fuel, low emissions and relatively low cost. There are a variety of fuel cell technologies, characterized by their electrolyte material, including:
◦Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (“PEM”). PEM fuel cells typically are used in onboard transportation applications, such as powering forklifts, because of their compactness and ability for quick starts and stops. However, PEM technology requires an expensive platinum catalyst, which is susceptible to poisoning by trace amounts of impurities in the fuel or exhaust products. These fuel cells require high-cost fuel input sources of energy or an external fuel reformer, which adds to the cost, complexity and electrical inefficiency of the product. As a result, they are not typically an economically viable option for stationary baseload power generation.
◦Molten carbonate fuel cells (“MCFC”). MCFCs are high-temperature fuel cells that use an electrolyte composed of a molten carbonate salt mixture suspended in a porous, chemically inert ceramic matrix of beta-alumina solid electrolyte. The primary disadvantages of current MCFC technology are durability and lower electrical efficiency compared to solid oxide fuel cells. Current versions of the product are built for 300 kilowatt systems, and they are monolithic rather than modular. Smaller sizes are typically not economically viable. In many applications where the heat produced by these fuel cells is not commercially or internally useable continuously, mitigating the heat buildup also becomes a liability.
◦Phosphoric acid fuel cells (“PAFC”). PAFCs are a type of fuel cell that uses liquid phosphoric acid as an electrolyte. Developed in the mid-1960s and field-tested since the 1970s, they were the first fuel cells to be commercialized. PAFCs have been used for stationary power generators with output in the 100 kilowatt to 400 kilowatt range. PAFCs are best suited to combined heat and power output applications that require carefully matching and constant monitoring of power and heat requirements (heat is typically not required all year long thus significant efficiency is lost), often making the technology difficult to implement. Further, disadvantages include low power density and poor system output stability.
◦Low temperature electrolyzers. In electrolysis, electrical efficiency is a function of temperature, with higher efficiency favored by higher temperature due to better reaction kinetics at higher temperatures and lower polarization losses. The Electrolyzer, which uses solid oxide electrolyzer cells (“SOEC”), is differentiated from Alkaline, Proton Exchange or Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM), and Anion Exchange Membrane (AEM) electrolysis which are low temperature electrolysis methodologies using liquid water. With high temperature electrolysis, the water needs to be heated, vaporized, and brought to operating temperature. By using steam at or near operating temperature as the input to the electrolyzer, the thermal energy requirements are reduced. Integration of SOEC with another process with available waste heat to provide the thermal energy provides additional efficiency gains.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual property is an essential differentiator for our business, and we seek protection for our intellectual property whenever possible. We rely upon a combination of patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and trademark laws, along with employee and third-party non-disclosure agreements and other contractual restrictions to establish and protect our proprietary rights.
We have developed a significant patent portfolio to protect elements of our proprietary technology. As of December 31, 2022, we had 313 issued patents and 136 patent applications pending in the United States, and we had an international patent portfolio comprising 164 issued patents and 345 patent applications pending. Our U.S. patents are expected to expire between 2023 and 2041. While patents are an important element of our intellectual property strategy, our business as a whole is not dependent on any one patent or any single pending patent application.
We continually review our development efforts to assess the existence and patentability of new intellectual property. We pursue the registration of our domain names and trademarks and service marks in the United States and in some international locations. “Bloom Energy” and the “BE” logo are our registered trademarks in certain countries for use with Energy Servers and our other products. We also hold registered trademarks for, among others, “Bloom Box,” “BloomConnect,” “BloomEnergy,” and “Energy Server” in certain countries. In an effort to protect our brand, as of December 31, 2022, we had
eight registered trademarks and two pending applications in the United States and 40 registered trademarks across Australia, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom.
When appropriate, we enforce our intellectual property rights against other parties. For more information about risks related to our intellectual property, please see the risk factors set forth under the caption Part I, Item 1A, Risk Factors - Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property.
Manufacturing Facilities
Our primary manufacturing facilities for fuel cells and Energy Servers assembly are in Sunnyvale, California, Fremont, California, and Newark, Delaware. We own our 178,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in Newark, which was our first purpose-built Bloom Energy manufacturing center and was designed specifically for copy-exact duplication as we expand, which we believe will help us scale more efficiently. Our Newark facility includes an additional 25 acres available for factory expansion and/or the co-location of supplier plants.
We lease various manufacturing facilities in California and Delaware. The current leases for our 50,000 square-foot principal Sunnyvale manufacturing facility and 44,000 square-foot Mountain View manufacturing facility expire in December 2023 and June 2023, respectively. We leased a new 89,000 square-foot R&D and manufacturing facility in Fremont, California that became operational in April 2021. The lease term of our 56,000 square-foot Repair & Overhaul manufacturing facilities in Newark, Delaware expires in December 2026 and April 2027. Additionally, we leased a new 164,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in Fremont, California that expires in February 2036. In July 2022 we announced the grand opening of this multi-gigawatt manufacturing facility, which represented a $200 million investment. This followed the recent expansion of the Company’s global headquarters in San Jose in June 2021 as well as the opening, in June 2022, of a new research and technical center and a global hydrogen development facility in Fremont with a total space of 73,000 square feet.
In 2020, we established a light-assembly facility in the Republic of Korea, in connection with our efforts to develop a local supplier ecosystem through a joint venture with SK ecoplant. Operations began in early July 2020. Based on the expanded relationship between us and SK ecoplant, the joint venture in 2022 was further extended.
Please see Part I, Item 2, Properties for additional information regarding our facilities.
Supply Chain
Our supply chain has been developed, since our founding, with a group of high-quality suppliers that support automotive, semiconductor and other traditional manufacturing organizations. The production of fuel cells requires rare earth elements, precious metals, scarce alloys and industrial commodities. Our operations require raw materials, and in certain cases, third-party services that require special manufacturing processes. We generally have multiple sources of supply for our raw materials and services except in cases where we have specialized technology and material property requirements. Our supply base is spread around many geographies in Asia, Europe and India, consisting of suppliers with multiple areas of expertise in compaction, sintering, brazing and dealing with specialty material manufacturing techniques. Where possible, we responsibly source components like interconnects and balance of system components from various manufacturers on both a contracted and a purchase order basis. We have multi-year supply agreements with some of our supply partners for supply continuity and pricing stability. We are working with our suppliers and partners along all steps of the value chain to reduce costs by improving manufacturing technologies and expanding economies of scale.
There have been a number of disruptions throughout the global supply chain as the global economy reopens; demand for certain components has outpaced the return of the global supply chain to full production. We have experienced an increase in lead times with respect to the delivery of most of our components due to a variety of factors, including supply shortages, shipping delays and labor shortages, and we expect this to continue into the first half of 2023. During 2022, we experienced delays from certain vendors and suppliers as a result of these factors, although we were able to mitigate the impact so that we did not experience delays in the manufacture of our Energy Servers. For additional information on our supply chain, please see Part II, Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations – Overview – Certain Factors Affecting our Performance.
Services
We provide operations and maintenance agreements (“O&M Agreements”) for all of our Energy Servers, which are typically renewable at the election of the customer on an annual basis. The customer agrees to pay an ongoing service fee and,
in return, we monitor, maintain and operate the Energy Servers systems on the customer’s or owner’s behalf. We currently service and maintain every installed Energy Server worldwide.
As of December 31, 2022, our in-house service organization had 136 dedicated field service personnel distributed across multiple locations in both the United States and internationally. Our standard O&M Agreements include full remote monitoring and 24x7 operation of the systems as well as scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, which in practice includes preventative maintenance, such as filter and adsorbents replacements and on-site part and periodic fuel cell replacements.
Our two Remote Monitoring and Control Centers (“RMCC”) provide 24x7 coverage of every installed Energy Server worldwide. By situating our RMCC centers in the United States and India we are able to provide 24x7 coverage cost effectively and also provide a dual redundant system with either site able to operate continuously should an issue arise. Each Energy Server we ship includes instrumentation and a secure telemetry connection that enables either RMCC to monitor over 500 system performance parameters in real time. This comprehensive monitoring capability enables the RMCC operators to have a detailed understanding of the internal operation of our Energy Servers. Using proprietary, internally developed software, the RMCC operators can detect changes and override the onboard automated control systems to remotely adjust parameters to ensure the optimum system performance is maintained. In addition, we undertake advanced predictive analytics to identify potential issues before they arise and undertake adjustments prior to a failure occurring.
Our services organization also has a dedicated Repair & Overhaul (“R&O”) facility, based in Delaware, in close proximity to our product manufacturing facility. This R&O facility undertakes full refurbishment of returned fuel cells with the capability to restore it to full power, efficiency and life with a less than three weeks turnaround. Close proximity to our Delaware manufacturing facility enables us to review the condition of returned modules and it informs improved manufacturing processes.
Purchase and Financing Options
In order to appeal to the largest variety of customers, we make available several options to our customers. Both in the United States and internationally, we sell Energy Servers directly to customers. In the United States, we also enable customers’ use of the Energy Servers through a power purchase or lease offering, made possible through third-party ownership financing arrangements.
Often, our offerings are designed to take advantage of local incentives. In the United States, our financing arrangements are structured to optimize both federal and local incentives, including the Investment Tax Credit (“ITC”) and accelerated depreciation. Internationally, our sales are made primarily to distributors who on-sell to, and install for, customers; these deals are also structured to use local incentives applicable to our Energy Servers. Increasingly, we use trusted installers and other sourcing collaborations in the United States to generate transactions.
With respect to the third-party financing options in the United States, a customer may choose a contract for the use Energy Servers in exchange for a capacity-based flat payment (a “Managed Services Agreement”) or one for the purchase of electricity generated by the Energy Servers in exchange for a scheduled dollars per kilowatt hour rate (a “Power Purchase Agreement” or “PPA”).
Certain customer payments in a Managed Services Agreement are required, regardless of the level of performance of the Energy Server; in some cases it may also include a variable payment based on the Energy Server’s performance or a performance-related set-off. Managed Services Agreements are then financed pursuant to a sale-leaseback with a financial institution (a “Managed Services Financing”).
PPAs are typically financed on a portfolio basis. We have financed portfolios through tax equity partnerships, acquisition financings and direct sales to investors (each, a “Portfolio Financing”).
For additional information about our different financing options, please see Part II, Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations – Purchase and Financing Options.
Sales, Marketing and Partnerships
We sell our Energy Servers through a combination of direct and indirect sales channels. At present, most of our U.S. sales are through our direct sales force, which is segmented by vertical and type of account. A large part of our direct sales force is now focused on our expansion efforts in the United States and creating new opportunities internationally. We are also expanding our relationship with utilities and other commercial customers across the U.S, including hospitals, manufacturing facilities, data centers, agribusinesses, financial institutions, and telecom facilities. We have developed a network of strategic
energy advisors that originate new opportunities and referrals to Bloom Energy, which has been a valuable source of high-quality leads.
We pursue relationships with other companies and partners in areas where collaboration can produce product advancement and acceleration of entry into new geographic and vertical markets. The objectives and goals of these relationships can include one or more of the following: technology exchange, joint sales and marketing, installation, customer financing or service.
As we have cultivated sales as well as strategic and financing partners over the past several years, our sales have been concentrated among a few large customers and distributors each year. During the year ended December 31, 2022, revenue from two customers accounted for approximately 38% and 37% of our total revenue, respectively. Please see Note 1 – Nature of Business, Liquidity and Basis of Presentation – Concentration of Risk – Customer Risk.
SK ecoplant in the Republic of Korea is a strategic power generation and distribution partner. Together, we have transacted nearly 330MW of projects totaling more than $2.3 billion of equipment and expected service revenue. In October 2021, we announced an expansion of our existing partnership with SK ecoplant, that includes purchase commitments for at least 500MW of our Energy Servers between 2022 and 2025 on a take or pay basis, the creation of hydrogen innovation centers in the United States and the Republic of Korea to advance green hydrogen commercialization, and an equity investment in Bloom Energy. Please see Note 17 - SK ecoplant Strategic Investment in Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.
Sustainability
We are driven by the promise of our contribution to the transformation and decarbonization of energy and transportation sectors globally. We are working to make our technology available across a growing list of regions and applications including biogas, carbon capture, hydrogen, marine, combined heat and power and microgrid projects critical to aligning with a two-degree warming trajectory. Our natural gas based Energy Servers are also an important source of near-term emission reductions and we’re committed to evolving the gas sector though our technology development and leading market-based activity.
One manifestation of our market-based evolution is our responsibly sourced gas program. On April 21, 2022, Bloom Energy and EQT, a large producer of natural gas in the United States, announced a certificate trade agreement for MIQ+Equitable Origin certified natural gas. Bloom has purchased certificates for its U.S. fleet’s anticipated natural gas consumption for the next two years. This agreement reinforces our commitment to provide affordable, reliable and clean energy sources that were produced with the highest ESG standards.
We continue to progress our development and commercialization of scalable and cost-effective hydrogen and zero emission power generation solutions. Our flexible and modular platform approach allows for customization at the time of equipment commissioning and a pathway to upgrade existing systems to align with the sustainability goals of our customers over time.
As a manufacturer, our commitment to sustainability is reflected not only through the impacts of our products in operation but also through our internal commitment to resource efficiency, responsible design, materials management and recycling. We endeavor to consistently increase our supply chain responsibility and approach to human capital management in ways that help us to continue to deliver products that add long-term societal value.
We are driven by the promise of our contribution to the transformation and decarbonization of energy and transportation sectors globally. We are working to make our technology available across a growing list of applications including biogas, carbon capture, hydrogen, marine and microgrid projects critical to aligning with a two-degree warming trajectory.
Bloom Energy Servers produce clean, reliable energy without combustion that provide greenhouse gas, air quality, water, land-use and resilience benefits for customers and the communities they serve. The Bloom Electrolyzer is designed to utilize the same solid oxide technology platform in a highly efficient and cost-effective hydrogen production process. Our innovative solid oxide fuel cell platform technology offers modular and flexible solutions configurable to address both the causes and consequences of climate change.
Our Energy Servers withdraw water only during start-up and if the system needs to restart. Otherwise, Energy Servers use no water during operation, avoiding water withdrawals of more than 18,000 gallons per megawatt hour. Conversely, thermal power plants require significant amounts of water for cooling. In fact, the number one use of water in the United States is for cooling power plants. Based on data from the Energy Information Administration (“EIA”), total water withdrawal by U.S.
thermoelectric power plants is over 50 trillion gallons annually. The water intensity of U.S. thermoelectric power plants is approximately 13,000 gallons per megawatt hour. This results in over 108 Olympic-sized pools of water saved annually for a 1 megawatt Bloom fuel cell in the United States. Importantly, 55.4% of Bloom’s installed base of Energy Servers is in California where all 58 counties are under a drought emergency proclamation and the state is in the driest period in the last 1,200 years. Critically, Bloom projects contribute to enhanced water abundance, improved watershed and ecosystem health through avoided water withdrawal and consumption across the state.
We are focused on energy efficiency in our production and administrative processes and have introduced a significant amount of energy-efficient plant automation over the last several years. Our own Energy Servers power most of our facilities, where suitable, as efficient and resilient energy sources. We also use our Energy Servers to charge employee vehicles at manufacturing facility locations, and as we broaden the integration of our Energy Servers across our real estate portfolio, we will continue to support our employees with lower carbon intensity and resilient onsite electric vehicle charging.
We take a cradle-to-grave perspective on product design and use. We strive to reuse components and recoverable materials where feasible and use conflict-free, non-toxic new resources where needed. We design our equipment so that components can be easily refurbished as needed instead of requiring new equipment. Finally, we cover as many materials and components as possible during end-of-life management, reusing these materials and components. As a function of an approximately 30,000-pound Bloom Energy Server, the weight of components that go to the landfill without a recycling or refurbishment stream comprises approximately 510 pounds, or less than approximately 2% of the total server weight.
U.S. & Global Climate Issues
Global warming and resulting extreme weather are having significant economic, environmental and social impacts in the United States and around the world. These effects and anticipated future impacts have resulted in wide array of market and regulatory responses, and will continue to do so. Our business can be impacted by climate change, and by those market and regulatory responses, in a variety of ways. We closely follow the impacts of climate change on the energy system and its customers, as well as the regulatory, policy and voluntary measures taken in response to those impacts, so that we may understand and respond to changing conditions that may affect our company, our customers, and our investors and business partners. We are responsive to the recommendations from the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (“TCFD”), as well as disclosure guidance from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (“SASB”). We issued our first TCFD and SASB-aligned Sustainability Report in 2021 followed by another aligned report in 2022. We plan to issue a sustainability report annually.
The direct impacts of climate change on energy systems, including the increased risk they pose to energy service disruption, may provide an opportunity for our extremely reliable and resilient energy generation. New or more stringent international accords, national or state legislation, or regulation of greenhouse gas emission may increase demand for our bioenergy and hydrogen-based products, but they may also make it more expensive or impractical to deploy natural gas-fueled Energy Servers in some markets, notwithstanding their enhanced environmental performance relative to combustion-based technologies, or may cause the loss of regulatory or policy incentives for those deployments. Examples include an anticipated greenhouse gas standard for participation in favorable fuel cell tariffs under consideration in California, new climate emissions restrictions or the introduction of carbon pricing, and the adoption of bans or restrictions on new natural gas interconnections by some local jurisdictions. For more on climate and environmental related risks, see Part I, Item 1A, Risk Factors – Risks Related to Legal Matters and Regulations.
Permits and Approvals
Each Energy Server installation must be designed, constructed and operated in compliance with applicable federal, state, international and local regulations, codes, standards, guidelines, policies and laws. To operate our systems, we, our customers and our partners are each required to obtain applicable permits and approvals from federal, state and local authorities for the installation of Energy Servers and Electrolyzers and for the interconnection systems with the local electrical utility and, where the gas distribution system is used, the gas utility as well.
Government Policies and Incentives
There are varying policy frameworks across the United States and internationally designed to support and accelerate the adoption of clean and/or reliable distributed power generation and hydrogen technologies, such as the manufacturing and deployment of our Energy Servers and Electrolyzers. These policy initiatives often come in the form of tax incentives, cash grants, performance incentives, environmental attribute credits, permitting regimes, interconnection policies and/or applicable gas or electric tariffs.
The U.S. federal government provides businesses with an Investment Tax Credit (“ITC”) under Section 48 of the Internal Revenue Code, available to the owners of our Energy Servers for the tax year in which the systems are placed into service. On August 7, 2022, the U.S. Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (the “IRA”) under the fiscal year 2022 budget reconciliation instructions. On August 16, 2022, the IRA was signed into law. This new bill became the U.S. federal government’s largest-ever investment to fight climate change. The IRA includes numerous investments in climate protection, and, among them, an extension and expansion of the ITC and the Production Tax Credit under Section 45 of the Internal Revenue Code, the addition of expanded tax credits for other technologies and for manufacturing of clean energy equipment, as well as terms allowing parties to more easily monetize the tax credits. The IRA contains a multi-tiered credit-amount structure for many applicable tax credits. Specifically, many of the credits have a lower base credit amount that can be increased up to five times if the taxpayer can satisfy applicable prevailing wage or apprenticeship requirements. The IRA also creates certain bonus tax credit amounts relevant to Bloom products placed in service in 2023 and 2024, available by satisfying domestic content criteria and/or locating within an “energy community”. The IRA also creates tax credits for the production of hydrogen and carbon capture, as well as incentives for clean energy manufacturing. By implementing the IRA, the government aims to make an impact on energy markets so that cleaner options are more affordable to consumers.
Our Energy Servers are currently installed at customer sites in eleven states in the United States, each of which has its own enabling policy framework. Some states have utility procurement programs and/or renewables portfolio standards for which our technology is eligible. Our Energy Servers currently qualify for a variety of benefits and incentives, such as tax exemptions, interconnection benefits, relief from utility charges and other forms of economic and energy benefits, in many states including Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, These policy provisions are subject to change.
Some municipal jurisdictions are considering or have recently enacted building codes or local ordinances that limit access to the natural gas pipeline distribution network, primarily in California and the Northeast. Specific policies vary widely as to whether or not they impact our ability to do business in a given jurisdiction and the vast majority apply only to new, rather than existing, buildings. While these jurisdictions comprise a small minority of our current and prospective business footprint, local consideration of such codes and ordinances continues to evolve.
Government Regulations
Our business is subject to a changing patchwork of energy and environmental laws and regulations that prevail at the federal, state, regional and local level as well as in those foreign jurisdictions in which we operate. Most existing energy and environmental laws and regulations preceded the introduction of our innovative fuel cell technology and were adopted to apply to technologies existing at the time, namely large coal, oil or gas-fired power plants, and more recently solar and wind plants.
Although we generally are not regulated as a utility, existing and future federal, state, international and local government statutes and regulations concerning electricity heavily influence the market for our Energy Servers and services. These statutes and regulations often relate to electricity pricing, net metering, incentives, taxation, competition with utilities, the interconnection of customer-owned electricity generation, interconnection to the gas distribution system, and other issues relevant to the deployment and operation of our products, as applicable. Federal, state, international and local governments continuously modify these statutes and regulations. Governments, often acting through state utility or public service commissions, change and adopt or approve different requirements for regulated entities and rates for commercial customers on a regular basis. These changes can have a positive or negative impact on our ability to deliver cost savings to customers.
At the federal level, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) has authority to regulate, under various federal energy regulatory laws, wholesale sales of electric energy, capacity, and ancillary services, and the delivery of natural gas in interstate commerce. Some of our tax equity partnerships in which we participate are subject to regulation under FERC with respect to market-based sales of electricity, which requires us to file notices and make other periodic filings with FERC. In addition, our project with Delmarva Power & Light Company is subject to laws and regulations relating to electricity generation, transmission, and sale at the federal level and in Delaware. To operate our systems, we obtain interconnection agreements from the applicable local primary electricity and gas utilities. In almost all cases, interconnection agreements are standard form agreements that have been pre-approved by the state or local public utility commission or other regulatory bodies with jurisdiction over interconnection agreements. As such, no additional regulatory approvals are typically required for deployment of our systems once interconnection agreements are signed, although they may be required for the export and subsequent sale of electricity or other regulated products.
Product safety standards for stationary fuel cell generators have been established by the American National Standards Institute (“ANSI”). These standards are known as ANSI/CSA FC-1. Our products are designed to meet these standards. Further,
we utilize the Underwriters’ Laboratory, or UL, to certify compliance with these standards. Energy Server installation guidance is provided by NFPA 853: Standard for the Installation of Stationary Fuel Cell Power Systems. Installations at sites are carried out to meet the requirements of these standards.
Currently, there is little guidance from environmental agencies on whether or how certain environmental laws and regulations may apply to our technologies. These laws can give rise to liability for administrative oversight costs, cleanup costs, property damage, bodily injury, fines, and penalties. Capital and operating expenses needed to comply with environmental laws and regulations can be significant, and violations may result in substantial fines and penalties or third-party damages. In addition, maintaining compliance with applicable environmental laws, such as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act in the United States, requires significant time and management resources.
Several states in which we currently operate, including California, require permits for emissions of hazardous air pollutants based on the quantity of emissions, most of which require permits only for quantities of emissions that are higher than those observed from our Energy Servers. Other states in which we operate, including New York, New Jersey and North Carolina, have specific exemptions for fuel cells.
For more information about the regulations to which we are subject and the risks to our costs and operations related thereto, please see the risk factors set forth under the caption Part I, Item 1A, Risk Factors - Risks Related to Legal Matters and Regulations.
Backlog
The timing of delivery and installations of our products has a significant impact on the timing of the recognition of our product and installation revenues. Many factors can cause a lag between the time a customer signs a contract and our recognition of product revenue. These factors include the number of Energy Servers installed per site, local permitting and utility requirements, environmental, health and safety requirements, weather, and customer facility construction schedules. Many of these factors are unpredictable and their resolution is often outside of our or our customers’ control. Customers may also ask us to delay an installation for reasons unrelated to the foregoing, including delays in their financing arrangements. Further, due to unexpected delays, deployments may require unanticipated expenses to expedite delivery of materials or labor to ensure the installation meets our timing objectives. These unexpected delays and expenses can be exacerbated in periods in which we deliver and install a larger number of smaller projects. In addition, if even relatively short delays occur, there may be a significant shortfall between the revenue we expect to generate in a particular period and the revenue that we are able to recognize. For our installations, revenue and cost of revenue can fluctuate significantly on a periodic basis depending on the timing of acceptance and the type of financing used by the customer.
Human Capital
We are committed to attracting and retaining exceptional talent. Investing in and inspiring our people to do their best work is critical for our success. As of December 31, 2022, we had approximately 2,530 full-time employees worldwide, of which 2,166 were located in the United States, 327 were located in India, and 37 were located in other countries. During 2022, our workforce grew by 47% as compared to 2021.
In order to attract and retain our employees, we strive to maintain an inclusive, diverse and safe workplace, with opportunities for our employees to grow and develop in their careers. This is supported by strong compensation, benefits, and health and wellness programs. We are mission driven and hire and develop talent with a passion toward achieving our mission.
Inclusion and Diversity
Our cultural foundation is that of innovation, results, respect, and doing the right thing. One of our greatest strengths is a very talented and diverse employee population. We believe diverse talent leads to better decision making and best positions us to meet the needs of our customers, stockholders, and the communities in which we live and work.
We continuously evolve our hiring strategies, track our progress and hold ourselves accountable to advancing global diversity. We seek to hire employees from a broad pool of talent with diverse backgrounds, perspectives and abilities, and we believe diverse leaders serve as role models for our inclusive workforce. We are proud of our progress, yet we strive for continuous improvement. Our talent acquisition strategy includes recruiting candidates from underrepresented groups through targeted outreach and advertising. In 2022, we also introduced an Effective Interviewing course for hiring managers and interviewers, which covered unconscious bias, legal questions, and a positive candidate experience.
Our continued engagement with organizations that partner with diverse communities have been essential to our efforts to increase women, veteran, and minority representation in our workforce. With the recent hiring efforts in Manufacturing, we’ve made concerted efforts to advertise and reach out to underrepresented minorities and women in the surrounding counties of our California and Delaware sites. We are actively engaged with local community leaders to broaden our reach to underserved communities. One example is participation in the manufacturing cohort program with Ohlone College in Fremont, California. We hired 10 cohort candidates to train and to obtain business experience, with the ultimate goal of hiring them as employees. We also partner with several veteran search firms to identify talent leaving the military. In 2022, we filled with veterans 50% of Bloom’s field service and remote monitoring service roles and 10% of manufacturing maintenance roles.
Finally, our University/Early Careers Program has allowed the company to focus on hiring a diverse early careers workforce. In addition to Ohlone College, we are also partnering with City College of New York/Colin Powell School to identify summer intern talent. These are students from underrepresented minorities, with the majority of them being the first to attend college in their family. We also have partnerships with a number of HBCUs, including State and Howard University. The result of these outreach commitments represents 20% African American, 22% Hispanic and 40% Women of overall newly graduated hires.
Our continued engagement with organizations that work with diverse communities has been vital to our efforts to increase women and minority representation in our workforce. Our “Careers at Bloom Silicon Valley” campaign targets recruiting diverse talent from underserved communities for hourly manufacturing roles. To promote inclusivity, we advertise our jobs in multiple languages and participate in community job fairs giving equal access to opportunities. We actively engage local community leaders to gain access to untapped underserved communities to attract talent that is generally not easily accessible. We are building a diverse talent slate of future generation leaders through our progressive university program.
We recruit talent in diverse communities through:
•Veteran outreach programs
•Society of Women Engineers
•Society of Hispanic Engineers
•Society of Black Engineers
•Historical Black Colleges and Universities
We believe that our statistics are strong, our culture of inclusivity is stronger (as of December 31, 2022):
•68% of our employee population in the United States is ethnically diverse
•Women make up 23% of our employee population globally
•Our senior leadership team of eleven individuals includes three ethnically diverse individuals and three women
•Women make up 17% of our leadership population (Director-level and above)
•Ethnic minorities represent 42% of our leadership (Director-level and above)
In addition, BEWL (Bloom Energy Women Leadership) was launched in 2022 with the mission of creating a positive environment for women of Bloom to thrive. BEWL is global, targeting for experiential learning, networking, and development for the women at Bloom.
Talent Development and Employee Engagement
We have introduced a comprehensive Contribution Assessment Program designed to link performance to business results, enabling each employee to make a direct connection between their role and contributions and the success of Bloom. This comprehensive program includes goal setting, monthly check-ins, feedback solicitation, and self-assessments. Our Contribution Assessment Program provides employees with the opportunities to achieve their goals and engage in meaningful feedback discussions with their manager leading to development, exposure to new experiences, and real-time learning.
We provide a series of global employee learning sessions to support our employees’ ability to effectively engage with their managers. We delivered a “management essentials” training in 2022. We have expanded our development focus by investing in building management capabilities. Our employees have easy access to resources to empower their success via our newly introduced internal website.
We place tremendous emphasis on employee engagement and retention. We administered our first employee engagement survey (“We’re Listening”) with a record participation rate of 77%. Follow-up actions included specific focus groups with concrete initiatives (investment in development programs and benefits enhancement).
BE Inspired, a new learning series taught by Bloom leaders and employees to the broader Bloom organization strives to increase the depth and breadth of understanding of strategy, our products, and business operations. This series provides the opportunity for all Bloom employees to gain real time knowledge they can use immediately for their roles in the company.
Compensation and Benefits
Our talent strategy is integral to our business success and we design competitive and innovative compensation and benefits programs to help meet the needs of our employees. In addition to salaries, these programs (which vary by country/region) include: annual bonuses, stock awards, an employee stock purchase plan, a 401(k) plan, healthcare and insurance benefits, health savings and flexible spending accounts, paid time off, parental leave, flexible work schedules, an extensive mental health program and fitness center. We also added access to financial planning and education for all levels of the organization, muskulo-skeletal health. In 2023, we are also introducing Tuition Reimbursement and family forming benefits. In addition to our broad-based equity award programs, we have used targeted equity-based grants to facilitate retention of critical talent with specialized skills and experience.
Building Connections – With Each Other and our Communities
Building connections between our employees and community is key to achieving our mission. Employee engagement is enhanced through connections, education, and the pride of giving back. Our Connected Employee Series offers cross-functional education to all employees and our Employee Community Series introduces influential community leaders to our increasing role in the broader community and world.
Health, Safety and Wellness
The success of our business is fundamentally connected to the well-being of our people. Accordingly, we are committed to the health, safety and wellness of our employees. We provide our employees and their families with access to a variety of innovative, flexible and convenient health and wellness programs, including benefits that provide and encourage proactive protection and to support their financial, physical and mental well-being by providing tools and resources accessible at or outside of work.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020-2022, we implemented significant changes that we determined were in the best interest of our employees, as well as the communities in which we operate, and which comply with government regulations. This included having some of our employees work from home in 2020 and the first half of 2021 and moving to a hybrid model effective from summer 2021 through the whole year 2022, while implementing additional safety measures for the 49% of our employees continuing critical on-site work in our manufacturing, installation and service organizations. For these populations, we have developed a robust program of on-site testing. Starting during the summer of 2021, we reopened our offices, with testing and vaccination requirements, but we continue to remain flexible and attentive to our employees concerns and safety. As of January 2023, in coordination with local laws, we maintain limited testing requirements and have reinstituted a five-day a week back to office schedule.
Community Investment in 2022
Our employees are mission-driven and passionately invest their time in support of our local communities. Our annual Bloom Energy Stars and Strides charity race in San Jose raises money for the Valley Medical Center Foundation, and funds raised for the inaugural Stars and Strides Delaware race in 2022 directly supported the Delaware Center for Homeless Veterans and the Delaware National Guard Youth Foundation. In California, our employees partnered with the City of San Jose for an Earth Day Tree Planting, helping increase North San Jose’s tree canopy as part of a larger effort to address climate change locally, and participated in a holiday toy drive with Family Giving Tree.
In Delaware, our employees supported events to raise funds and provided volunteer hours to support the American Heart Association, the Blood Bank of Delmarva, Delaware Foundation for Science and Math Education, The Newark Partnership, and Delaware Energy Access and Equity Collaborative.
Seasonal Trends and Economic Incentives
Our business and results of financial operations are not subject to industry-specific seasonal fluctuations. The desirability of our solution can be impacted by the availability and value of various governmental, regulatory and tax-based incentives which may change over time.
Corporate Facilities
Our corporate headquarters and principal executive offices are located at 4353 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95134, and our telephone number is (408) 543-1500. Our headquarters is used for administration, research and development, and sales and marketing and also houses one of our RMCC facilities.
Please see Part I, Item 2, Properties for additional information regarding our facilities.
Available Information
Our website address is www.bloomenergy.com and our investor relations website address is https://investor.bloomenergy.com. Websites are provided throughout this document for convenience only. The information contained on the referenced websites does not constitute a part of and is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Through a link on our website, we make available the following filings as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC: our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act, as well as proxy statements and certain filings relating to beneficial ownership of our securities. The SEC also maintains a website at www.sec.gov that contains all reports that we file or furnish with the SEC electronically. All such filings, including those on our website, are available free of charge.
ITEM 1A - RISK FACTORS
Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the material risks and uncertainties described below that make an investment in us speculative or risky, as well as the other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our consolidated financial statements and the related notes and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” before you decide to purchase our securities. A manifestation of any of the following risks could, in circumstances we may or may not be able to accurately predict, render us unable to conduct our business as currently planned and materially and adversely affect our reputation, business, prospects, growth, financial condition, cash flows, liquidity and operating results. In addition, the occurrence of one or more of these risks may cause the market price of our Class A common stock to decline, and you could lose all or part of your investment. It is not possible to predict or identify all such risks and uncertainties, as our operations could also be affected by factors, events or uncertainties that are not presently known to us or that we currently do not consider to present significant risks to our operations. Therefore, you should not consider the following risks to be a complete statement of all the potential risks or uncertainties that we face.
Risk Factor Summary
The following summarizes the more complete risk factors that follow. It should be read in conjunction with the complete Risk Factors section and should not be relied upon as an exhaustive summary of all the material risks facing our business.
Risks Related to Our Business, Industry and Sales
•The distributed generation industry is an emerging market and distributed generation may not receive widespread market acceptance or demand may be lower than we expect, which may make evaluating our business and future prospects difficult.
•Our products involve a lengthy sales and installation cycle, and if we fail to close sales on a regular and timely basis, our business could be harmed.
•Our Energy Servers have significant upfront costs, and we will need to attract investors to help customers finance purchases.
•The economic benefits of our Energy Servers to our customers depend on both the price of gas and the cost of electricity available from alternative sources, including local electric utility companies, and such cost structure is subject to change.
•If we are not able to continue to reduce our cost structure in the future or to meet service performance expectations, our ability to become profitable may be impaired.
•Deployment of our Energy Servers relies on interconnection requirements, export tariff arrangements and utility tariff requirements that are each subject to change.
•Deployment of our Energy Servers relies on fuel supply and fuel specification requirements, both of which are subject to change.
•We currently face and will continue to face significant competition.
•We derive a substantial portion of our revenue and backlog from a limited number of customers, and the loss of or a significant reduction in orders from a large customer could have a material adverse effect on our operating results and other key metrics.
•Our future growth will depend in part on expanding and diversifying our new product and market opportunities, and if we do not successfully execute on our new product and market opportunities, or if our new product and market opportunities are more limited than we expect, our operating results and future growth prospects could be adversely affected.
•Our ability to develop new products and enter into new markets could be negatively impacted if we are unable to identify and successfully engage with partners to assist in such development or expansion, where necessary or useful.
•Our products may not be successful if we are unable to maintain alignment with evolving industry standards and requirements.
Risks Related to Our Products and Manufacturing
•Our future success depends in part on our ability to increase our production capacity for our Energy Servers and new features and products, and we may not be able to do so in the time frame required, due to availability of parts and equipment among other factors, or not be able to do so in a cost-effective manner.
•If our products contain manufacturing defects, our business and financial results could be harmed.
•The performance of our products may be affected by factors outside of our control, which could result in harm to our business and financial results.
•If our estimates of the useful life for our Energy Servers are inaccurate or we do not meet our performance warranties and performance guaranties, or if we fail to accrue adequate warranty and guaranty reserves, our business and financial results could be harmed.
•Our business is subject to risks associated with construction, utility interconnection, fuel supply, cost overruns and delays, including those related to obtaining government permits and other contingencies that may arise in the course of completing installations.
•The failure of our suppliers to continue to deliver necessary raw materials or other components of our products in a timely manner and to specification could prevent us from delivering our products within required time frames and could cause installation delays, cancellations, penalty payments and damage to our brand and reputation.
•We have, in some instances, entered into long-term supply agreements that could result in excess or, if one or more suppliers do not produce for any reason, insufficient inventory, above market pricing or higher costs, and negatively affect our results of operations.
•We face supply chain competition, including competition from businesses in other industries, which could result in insufficient inventory and negatively affect our results of operations.
•We, and some of our suppliers, obtain capital equipment used in our manufacturing process from sole suppliers and, if this equipment is damaged or otherwise unavailable, our ability to deliver our products on time will suffer.
•Our business has been and continues to be adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
•Possible new trade tariffs could have a material adverse effect on our business.
•A failure to properly comply with foreign trade zone laws and regulations could increase the cost of our duties and tariffs.
•Any significant disruption in the operations at our headquarters or manufacturing facilities could delay the production of our products, which would harm our business and results of operations.
•Our limited history manufacturing new products, such as our Electrolyzers, makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and challenges we may encounter.
Risks Related to Government Incentive Programs
•Our business currently benefits from the availability of rebates, tax credits and other financial programs and incentives, and the reduction, modification, or elimination of such benefits could cause our revenue to decline and harm our financial results.
•In the United States, we rely on tax equity financing arrangements to realize the benefits provided by federal tax credits and accelerated depreciation and in the event these programs are terminated, our financial results could be harmed. We also rely on incentives in the Korean, European and other international markets.
Risks Related to Legal Matters and Regulations
•We are subject to various national, state and local laws and regulations that could impose substantial costs upon us and cause delays in the delivery and installation of our products.
•The installation and operation of our products are subject to environmental laws and regulations in various jurisdictions, and there have been in the past and could continue to be uncertainty with respect to both how these laws and regulations may change over time and the interpretation of these environmental laws and regulations to our products, especially as they evolve.
•As we expand into international markets, we may be subject to local content requirements or pressures which could increase cost or reduce demand for our products.
•With respect to our products that run, in part, on natural gas, we may be subject to a heightened risk of regulation, a potential for the loss of certain incentives, and/or changes in our customers’ energy procurement policies.
•Existing regulations and changes to such regulations impacting the electric power industry may create technical, regulatory, and economic barriers, which could significantly reduce demand for our Energy Servers or affect the financial performance of current sites.
•We may become subject to product liability claims, which could harm our financial condition and liquidity if we are not able to successfully defend or insure against such claims.
•Current or future litigation or administrative proceedings could have a material adverse effect on our business, our financial condition and our results of operations.
Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property
•Our failure to effectively protect and enforce our intellectual property rights may undermine our competitive position, and litigation to protect our intellectual property rights may be costly.
•Our patent applications may not result in issued patents, and our issued patents may not provide adequate protection, either of which may have a material adverse effect on our ability to prevent others from commercially exploiting products similar to ours.
•We may need to defend ourselves against claims that we infringed, misappropriated, or otherwise violated the intellectual property rights of others, which may be time-consuming and would cause us to incur substantial costs.
Risks Related to Our Financial Condition and Operating Results
•We have incurred significant losses in the past and we may not be profitable for the foreseeable future.
•Our financial condition and results of operations and other key metrics are likely to fluctuate on a quarterly basis in future periods, which could cause our results for a particular period to fall below expectations, resulting in a severe decline in the price of our Class A common stock.
•If we fail to manage our growth effectively, our business and operating results may suffer.
•If we fail to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting in the future, the accuracy and timing of our financial reporting may be adversely affected.
•Our ability to use our deferred tax assets to offset future taxable income may be subject to limitations that could subject our business to higher tax liability.
Risks Related to Our Liquidity
•We must maintain the confidence of our customers in our liquidity, including in our ability to timely service our debt obligations and in our ability to support and grow our business over the long-term.
•Our indebtedness, and restrictions imposed by the agreements governing our and our PPA Entities’ outstanding indebtedness, may limit our financial and operating activities and may adversely affect our ability to incur additional debt to fund future needs.
•We may not be able to generate sufficient cash to meet our debt service obligations or our growth plans.
•Under some circumstances, we may be required to or elect to make additional payments to our PPA Entities or the Equity Investors.
Risks Related to Our Operations
•Expanding operations internationally could expose us to additional risks.
•Data security breaches and cyberattacks could compromise our intellectual property or other confidential information and cause significant damage to our business, the performance of our fleet of Energy Servers, our brand and our reputation.
•If we are unable to attract and retain key employees and hire qualified management, technical, engineering, finance and sales personnel, our ability to compete and successfully grow our business could be harmed.
•Competition for manufacturing employees is intense, and we may not be able to attract and retain the qualified and skilled employees needed to support our business.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock
•The stock price of our Class A common stock has been and may continue to be volatile.
•We may issue additional shares of our Class A common stock in connection with any future conversion of the Green Notes (as defined herein) or in connection with our transaction with SK ecoplant, which may dilute our existing stockholders and potentially adversely affect the market price of our Class A common stock.
•The dual class structure of our common stock and the voting agreements among certain stockholders have the effect of concentrating voting control of our Company with KR Sridhar, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and also with those stockholders who held our capital stock prior to the completion of our initial public offering, which limits or precludes your ability to influence corporate matters and may adversely affect the trading price of our Class A common stock.
•We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.
•Provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of us more difficult, limit shareholders’ rights, and limit the market price of our Class A common stock.
•Increased scrutiny regarding ESG practices and disclosures could result in additional costs and adversely impact our business, brand and reputation.
Risks Related to Our Business, Industry and Sales
The distributed generation industry is an emerging market and distributed generation may not receive widespread market acceptance or demand may be lower than we expect, which may make evaluating our business and future prospects difficult.
The distributed generation industry is still an emerging market in an otherwise mature and heavily regulated energy utility industry, and we cannot be sure that potential customers will accept distributed generation broadly, or our Energy Servers specifically. Enterprises may be unwilling to adopt our Energy Server solution over traditional or competing power sources like distributed solar or electricity from the grid, for any number of reasons, including the perception that our technology or our company is unproven, lack of confidence in our business model, the unavailability of third-party service providers to operate and maintain the Energy Servers, and lack of awareness of our product or their perception of regulatory or political headwinds.
The viability and demand for our Energy Servers in the distributed generation market may be impacted by many factors outside of our control, including:
•market acceptance of our products;
•cost competitiveness, reliability, and performance of our products compared to traditional or competing power sources;
•availability and amount of government subsidies and incentives;
•the emergence, continuance, or success of, or increased government support for, other alternative energy generation technologies and products;
•prices of traditional or competing power sources;
•geopolitical and macroeconomic instability, including wars, terrorism, political unrest (including, for example, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and tensions between China and Taiwan), actual or threatened public health emergencies and outbreak of disease (including for example, the COVID-19 pandemic), inflation, the recessionary environment, boycotts, adoption or expansion of government trade restrictions, and other business restrictions which may negatively impact the demand for our products or which may cause our customers to push out, cancel, or refrain from placing orders; and
•an increase in interest rates or tightening of the supply of capital in the global financial markets (including a reduction in total tax equity availability) which could make it difficult to finance our products.
If the market for our products and services does not continue to develop as we anticipate, our business will be harmed. As a result, predicting our future revenue and appropriately budgeting for our expenses is difficult, and we have limited insight into trends that may emerge and affect our business. If actual results differ from our estimates or if we adjust our estimates in future periods, our operating results and financial position could be materially and adversely affected.
Our products involve a lengthy sales and installation cycle, and if we fail to close sales on a regular and timely basis, our business could be harmed.
Our sales cycle is typically 12 to 18 months but can vary considerably. In order to make a sale, we must typically provide a significant level of education to prospective customers regarding the use and benefits of our product and our technology. The period between initial discussions with a potential customer and the eventual sale of even a single product usually depends on a number of factors, including the potential customer’s budget, selection of financing type, and term of the contract. Prospective customers often undertake a significant evaluation process that may further extend the sales cycle, and which evaluation may be negatively impacted by general market and economic conditions such as inflation, rising interest rates, availability of capital, a recessionary environment, geopolitical instability, energy availability and costs, and the availability and effects of government initiatives. Once a customer makes a formal decision to purchase our product, the fulfillment of the sales order by us requires a substantial amount of time. Generally, the time between the entry into a sales contract with a customer and the installation of our Energy Servers can range from nine to twelve months or more. This lengthy sales and installation cycle is subject to a number of significant risks over which we have little or no control. Because of both the long sales and long installation cycles, we may expend significant resources without having certainty of generating a sale.
These lengthy sales and installation cycles increase the risk that an installation may be delayed and/or may not be completed. In some instances, a customer can cancel an order for a particular site prior to installation, and we may be unable to recover some or all of our costs in connection with design, permitting, installation and site preparations incurred prior to cancellation. Cancellation rates can be as high as 5% to 10% in any given period due to factors outside of our control, including an inability to install an Energy Server at the customer’s chosen location because of permitting or other regulatory issues, delays or unanticipated costs in securing interconnection approvals or necessary utility infrastructure, unanticipated changes in the cost, or other reasons unique to each customer. Our operating expenses are based on anticipated sales levels, and many of our expenses are fixed. If we are unsuccessful in closing sales after expending significant resources or if we experience delays or cancellations, our business could be materially and adversely affected. Since, in general, we do not recognize revenue on the sales of our products until delivery or complete installation, a small fluctuation in the timing of the completion of our sales transactions could cause our operating results to vary materially from period to period.
Our Energy Servers have significant upfront costs, and we will need to attract investors to help customers finance purchases.
Our Energy Servers have significant upfront costs. In order to expand our offerings to customers who lack the financial capability to purchase our Energy Servers directly and/or who prefer to lease the product or contract for our services on a pay-as-you-go model, we subsequently developed various financing options that enabled customers use of the Energy Servers without a direct purchase through third-party ownership financing arrangements. For an overview of these different financing arrangements, please see Part II, Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations – Purchase and Financing Options. If in any given quarter we are not able to secure funding in a timely fashion, or our customers are unable to secure their own financing in a timely fashion, our results of operations and financial condition will be negatively impacted. We continue to innovate our customer contracts to attempt to attract new customers and these may have different terms and financing conditions from prior transactions.
We rely on and need to grow committed financing capacity with existing partners or attract additional partners to support our growth, finance new projects and new types of product offerings. In addition, at any point in time, our ability to deploy our backlog is contingent on securing available financing. Our ability to attract third-party financing depends on many factors that are outside of our control, including an investors’ ability to utilize tax credits and other government incentives, interest rate and/or currency exchange fluctuations, our perceived creditworthiness and the condition of credit markets generally. Our financing of customer purchases of our Energy Servers is subject to conditions such as the customer’s credit quality and the expected minimum internal rate of return on the customer engagement, and if these conditions are not satisfied, we may be unable to finance purchases of our Energy Servers, which would have an adverse effect on our revenue in a particular period. If we are unable to help our customers arrange financing for our Energy Servers generally, our business will be harmed. Additionally, the Managed Services Financing option, as with all leases, is also limited by the customer’s willingness to commit to making fixed payments regardless of the performance of the Energy Servers or our performance of our obligations under the customer
agreement. To the extent we are unable to arrange future financings for any of our current projects, our business would be negatively impacted.
Further, our sales process for those transactions, that require financing, require that we make certain assumptions regarding the cost of financing capital. Actual financing costs may vary from our estimates and financing may be more difficult or costly to secure, or may not be available, due to factors outside of our control, including changes in customer creditworthiness, macroeconomic factors, such as inflation, interest rates, a recessionary environment, geopolitical instability, and volatility in capital markets, the returns offered by other investment opportunities available to our financing partners, and other factors. If the cost of financing ultimately exceeds our estimates, or we or our customers are unable to secure financing, we may be unable to proceed with some or all of the impacted projects or our revenue from such projects may be less than our estimates.
The economic benefits of our Energy Servers to our customers depend on both the price of gas available from the local gas utilities and the cost of electricity available from alternative sources, including local electric utility companies, and such cost structure is subject to change.
We believe that a customer’s decision to purchase our Energy Servers is significantly influenced by its price, the price predictability of electricity generated by our Energy Servers in comparison to the retail price, and the future price outlook of electricity from the local utility grid and other energy sources. These prices are subject to change and may affect the relative benefits of our Energy Servers. Factors that could influence these prices and are beyond our control include the impact of energy conservation initiatives that reduce electricity consumption; construction of additional power generation plants (including nuclear, coal or natural gas); technological developments by others in the electric power industry; the imposition of “departing load,” “standby,” power factor charges, greenhouse gas emissions charges, or other charges by local electric utility or regulatory authorities; and changes in the rates offered by local electric utilities and/or in the applicability or amounts of charges and other fees imposed or incentives granted by such utilities on customers. In addition, even with available subsidies for our products, the current low cost of grid electricity in some states in the United States and some foreign countries does not render our product economically attractive.
Furthermore, an increase in the price of natural gas or other fuels or curtailment of availability (e.g., as a consequence of physical limitations or adverse regulatory conditions for the delivery of production of natural gas or other fuels) or the inability to obtain natural gas or other fuel service could make our Energy Servers less economically attractive to potential customers and reduce demand. While our Energy Servers can operate using hydrogen or biofuels, the availability and current high cost of those natural gas alternatives in a particular location may make them less attractive to potential customers, reducing the differentiation of our products.
If we are not able to continue to reduce our cost structure in the future or to meet service performance expectations with respect to our Energy Servers, our ability to become profitable may be impaired.
We must continue to reduce the manufacturing costs for our Energy Servers to expand our markets. Additionally, certain of our existing service contracts were entered into based on projections regarding service costs reductions that assume continued advances in our manufacturing and services processes that we may be unable to realize. Future increases to the cost of components and raw materials would offset our efforts to reduce our manufacturing and services costs. For example, during the second half of 2021, we experienced price increases in raw materials, which are used in our components and subassemblies for our Energy Servers. Any increases in the costs of components, raw materials and/or labor, whether as a result of supply chain constraints or pressures, inflation or rising interest rates, could slow our growth and cause our financial results and operational metrics to suffer.
In addition, we may face increases in our other expenses including increases in wages or other labor costs as well as installation, marketing, sales or related costs. In order to expand into new markets (in which the price of electricity from the grid is lower) while still maintaining our current margins, we will need to continue to reduce our costs. Increases in any of these costs or our failure to achieve projected cost reductions could adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition and harm our business and prospects. If we are unable to reduce our Energy Server cost structure in the future, we may not be able to achieve profitability, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and our prospects.
Deployment of our Energy Servers relies on interconnection requirements, export tariff arrangements and utility tariff requirements that are each subject to change.
Because our Energy Servers are designed to operate at a constant output 24x7, while our customers’ demand for electricity typically fluctuates over the course of the day or week, there are often periods when our Energy Servers are
producing more electricity than a customer may require, and such excess electricity must generally be exported to the local electric utility. Export of customer-generated power from our Energy Servers is generally provided for in the markets in which we offer our fuel cells pursuant to applicable laws, regulations and tariffs, but not under all circumstances, and may be restricted due to interconnection, relevant tariff or other issues. Many, but not all, local electric utilities provide compensation to our customers for such electricity under “fuel cell net metering” (which often differs from solar net metering) or other customer generation programs.
Utility tariffs and fees, interconnection agreements and fuel cell net metering requirements are subject to changes in availability and terms, and some jurisdictions do not allow interconnections or export at all. At times in the past, such changes have had the effect of significantly reducing or eliminating the benefits of such programs. Changes in the availability of, or benefits offered by, utility tariffs, the applicable net metering requirements or interconnection agreements in the jurisdictions in which we operate or in which we anticipate expanding into in the future could adversely affect the demand for our Energy Servers. For example, in California, the fuel cell net metering tariff expressly addressing fuel cells (referred to as the “Fuel Cell Net Energy Metering” (“FC NEM”)) currently expires at the end of 2023, although other more generally applicable tariffs are available for customers deploying fuel cells. We cannot predict the outcome of regulatory proceedings addressing tariffs that would include customers utilizing fuel cells. If there an economical tariff for customers utilizing fuel cells is not available in a given jurisdiction, it may limit or end our ability to sell and install our Energy Servers in that jurisdiction. Further, permitting and other requirements applicable to electric and gas interconnections are subject to change. For example, some jurisdictions are limiting new gas interconnections, although others are allowing new gas interconnections for non-combustion resources like our Energy Servers.
Deployment of our Energy Servers relies on fuel supply and fuel specification requirements, and fuel supply and fuel specifications are subject to change.
Because our Energy Servers are designed to operate at a constant output 24x7, our Energy Servers require a constant source of fuel such as natural gas, biogas, or hydrogen. Fuel for our Energy Servers is typically provided by local gas utilities. We rely on local gas utilities to provide constant fuel supply within our fuel specifications. Additionally, new regulations may require a switch to a different fuel for which there may be limited availability, such as biogas. Adverse fuel supply constraints or fuel outside of our fuel specifications may create challenges for our Energy Servers to be deployed consistent with our project timelines or our customers’ expectations.
We currently face and will continue to face significant competition.
We compete for customers, financing partners and incentive dollars with other electric power providers. Our Bloom Energy Servers compete with a broad range of companies and technologies, including traditional energy suppliers, such as public utilities, and other energy providers utilizing traditional co-generation systems, nuclear, hydro, coal or geothermal power, companies utilizing intermittent solar or wind power paired with storage, and other commercially available fuel cell companies utilizing PEM, MCFC or PAFC. We also compete with traditional backup energy equipment such as diesel generators. Our Electrolyzers compete with low temperature electrolyzer companies using Alkaline, Proton, PEM or AEM electrolysis. See our discussion of competition in Item 1 – Business – Competition.
Many of our competitors, such as traditional utilities and other companies offering distributed generation products, have longer operating histories, customer incumbency advantages, access to and influence with local and state governments, and access to more capital resources than us. Significant developments in alternative technologies, such as energy storage, wind, solar or hydro power generation, or improvements in the efficiency or cost of traditional energy sources, including coal, oil, natural gas used in combustion, or nuclear power, may materially and adversely affect our business and prospects in ways we cannot anticipate. We may also face new competitors who are not currently in the market, including companies with newer or better technologies or products, larger providers or traditional utilities or other existing competitors that may enter our market segments. If we fail to adapt to changing market conditions and to compete successfully with grid electricity or new competitors, our growth will be limited, which would adversely affect our business results.
We derive a substantial portion of our revenue and backlog from a limited number of customers, and the loss of or a significant reduction in orders from a large customer could have a material adverse effect on our operating results and other key metrics.
In any particular period, a substantial amount of our total revenue has and could continue to come from a relatively small number of customers. As an example, in the year ended December 31, 2022, two customers accounted for approximately 38% and 37% of our total revenue. The loss of any large customer order or any delays in installations of new products with any large customer would materially and adversely affect our business results.
Our future growth will depend on expanding and diversifying our new product and new market opportunities, and if we do not successfully execute on our new product and new market opportunities, or if our new product and new market opportunities are more limited than we expect, our operating results and future growth prospects could be adversely affected.
We are attempting to enhance our future growth opportunities by expanding the features of and uses for our Energy Servers, including providing carbon capture and heat capture features, enabling use in marine transportation and by developing and launching our Electrolyzer. Additionally, we are expanding the markets in which we sell our Energy Servers. These are new features, products, and markets for us. As a result, these opportunities will require our attention, which may include personnel, financial resources and management attention. If we do not appropriately allocate our resources in line with the market and the developing opportunities, our business and results of operations could be adversely affected.
Our investments also may not result in the growth we expect, or the timing of when we expect it, for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to, changes in growth trends, evolving and changing markets and increasing competition, market opportunities, and technology and product innovation. We may introduce new technologies or products that do not work, are not delivered on a timely basis, are not developed according to product and/or cost specifications, or are not well received by customers. Moreover, there may be fewer opportunities than we expect due to a decline in business or economic conditions or a decreased demand in these markets or for our new products from our expectations, our inability to successfully execute our sales and marketing plans, or for other reasons. In addition to our current growth opportunities, our future growth may be reliant on our ability to identify and develop potential new growth opportunities. This process is inherently risky and may result in investments in time and resources for which we do not achieve any return or value. These risks are enhanced by attempting to introduce multiple breakthrough technologies and products simultaneously.
Our growth opportunities and those opportunities we may pursue are subject to constant and rapidly changing and evolving technologies and evolving industry standards and may be replaced by new technology concepts or platforms. If we do not develop innovative and reliable product offerings and enhancements in a cost-effective and timely manner that are attractive to customers in these markets, if we are otherwise unsuccessful entering and competing in these new product categories, if the new product categories in which we invest our limited resources do not emerge as the opportunities or do not produce the growth or profitability we expect, or when we expect it, or if we do not correctly anticipate changes and evolutions in technology and platforms, our business and results of operations could be adversely affected.
Our ability to develop new products and enter into new markets could be negatively impacted if we are unable to identify and successfully engage with partners to assist in such development or expansion, where necessary or useful.
We continue to develop new features and products as well as enter into new markets. As we sell new features and products, such as our Energy Servers for marine transport and our Electrolyzers, and move into new markets, including international markets, we may need to identify business partners and suppliers in order to facilitate such development and expansion. Identifying such partners and suppliers is a lengthy process and is subject to significant risks and uncertainties, such as an inability to negotiate mutually acceptable terms or such partner’s inability to execute as negotiated. In addition, there could be delays in the design, manufacture and installation of new products and we may not be timely in the development of new products or entry into new markets, limiting our ability to expand our business and harming our financial condition and results of operations.
Our products may not be successful if we are unable to maintain alignment with evolving industry standards and requirements.
As we continue to invest in research and development to sustain or enhance our existing products, such as our Energy Server, the introduction of new technologies and the emergence of new industry standards or requirements could render them obsolete. Further, in developing our products, we have made, and will continue to make, assumptions with respect to which standards or requirements will be required by our customers, standards-setting organizations and applicable law. If market acceptance of our products is reduced or delayed or the standards-setting organizations or legislative or regulatory authorities fail to develop timely commercially viable standards our business would be harmed.
Risks Related to Our Products and Manufacturing
Our future success depends in part on our ability to increase our production capacity for our Energy Servers and new features and products, and we may not be able to do so in the time frame required, due to availability of parts an equipment among other factors, or not be able to do so in a cost-effective manner.
To the extent we are successful in growing our business, we may need to increase our production capacity of our Energy Servers. Our ability to plan, construct and equip additional manufacturing facilities is subject to significant risks and uncertainties, including the following:
•The risks inherent in the development and construction of new facilities, including risks of delays and cost overruns as a result of factors outside our control, which may include delays in government approvals, burdensome permitting conditions, geopolitical instability, inflation, labor shortages and delays in the delivery of manufacturing equipment and subsystems that we manufacture or obtain from suppliers (including due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
•Adding manufacturing capacity in any international location will subject us to new laws and regulations including those pertaining to labor and employment, environmental and export / import. In addition, it brings with it the risk of managing larger scale foreign operations.
•We may be unable to achieve the production throughput necessary to achieve our target annualized production run rate at our current and future manufacturing facilities.
•Manufacturing equipment may take longer and cost more to engineer and build than expected, and may not operate as required to meet our production plans.
•We may depend on third-party relationships in the development and operation of additional production capacity, which may subject us to the risk that such third parties do not fulfill their obligations to us under our arrangements with them.
•We may be unable to attract or retain qualified personnel. For example, currently the market for manufacturing labor has been constrained, which could pose a risk to our ability to increase production.
If we are unable to expand our manufacturing facilities or develop our existing facilities in a timely manner to meet increased demand, we may be unable to further scale our business, which would negatively affect our results of operations and financial condition. Conversely, if the demand for our products or our production output decreases or does not rise as expected, we may not be able to spread a significant amount of our fixed costs over the production volume, resulting in a greater than expected per unit fixed cost, which would have a negative impact on our financial condition and our results of operations.
If our products contain manufacturing defects, our business and financial results could be harmed.
Our products are complex and they may contain undetected or latent errors or defects. In the past, we have experienced latent defects only discovered once the Energy Server was deployed in the field. Changes in our supply chain or the failure of our suppliers to otherwise provide us with components or materials that meet our specifications could introduce defects into our products. As we grow our manufacturing volume, the chance of manufacturing defects could increase. In addition, new feature launches, product introductions or design changes made for the purpose of cost reduction, performance improvement, fulfilling new customer requirements or new market demand or improved reliability could introduce new design defects that may impact product performance and life. Any design or manufacturing defects or other failures of our products to perform as expected could cause us to incur significant service and re-engineering costs, divert the attention of our engineering personnel from product development efforts, and significantly and adversely affect customer satisfaction, market acceptance, and our business reputation.
If any of our products are defective or fail because of their design, or if changes in applicable laws or regulations, or in the enforcement thereof, require us to redesign or recall our products, we also may incur additional costs and expenses. The process of identifying and recalling a product may be lengthy and require significant resources, and we may incur significant replacement costs, contract damage claims from our customers, product liability, property damage, personal injury or other claims and liabilities, and brand and reputational harm. Significant costs or payments made in connection with warranty and product liability claims and product recalls could harm our financial condition and results of operations.
Furthermore, we may be unable to correct manufacturing defects or other failures of our products in a manner satisfactory to our customers, which could adversely affect customer satisfaction, market acceptance, and our business reputation.
The performance of our products may be affected by factors outside of our control, which could result in harm to our business and financial results.
Field conditions, such as the quality of the natural gas or alternative fuel supply and utility processes, which vary by region and may be subject to seasonal fluctuations or environmental factors such as smoke from wild fires, have affected the performance of our Energy Servers and are not always possible to predict until the Energy Server is in operation. As we move into new geographies and deploy new features, products and service configurations, we may encounter new and unanticipated field conditions (including as a result of climate change). Adverse impacts on performance may require us to incur significant service and re-engineering costs or divert the attention of our engineering personnel from product development efforts. Furthermore, we may be unable to adequately address the impacts of factors outside of our control in a manner satisfactory to our customers. Any of these circumstances could significantly and adversely affect customer satisfaction, market acceptance, and our business reputation.
If our estimates of the useful life for our Energy Servers are inaccurate or we do not meet our performance warranties and performance guaranties, or if we fail to accrue adequate warranty and guaranty reserves, our business and financial results could be harmed.
We offer certain customers the opportunity to renew their O&M Agreements (defined herein) on an annual basis, for up to 20 years, at prices predetermined at the time of purchase of the Energy Server. We also provide performance warranties and performance guaranties covering the efficiency and output performance of our Energy Servers. Our pricing of these contracts and our reserves for warranty and replacement are based upon our estimates of the useful life of our Energy Servers and those components that are replaced as a part of standard maintenance, including assumptions regarding improvements in power module life that may fail to materialize. We do not have a long history with a large number of field deployments, and our estimates may prove to be incorrect. Failure to meet these warranty and performance guaranty levels may require us to replace the Energy Servers at our expense or refund their cost to the customer, or require us to make cash payments to the customer based on actual performance, as compared to expected performance, capped at a percentage of the relevant equipment purchase prices. We accrue for product warranty costs and recognize losses on service or performance warranties when required by U.S. GAAP based on our estimates of costs that may be incurred and based on historical experience. However, as we expect our customers to renew their O&M Agreements each year, the total liability over time may be more than the accrual. Actual warranty expenses have in the past been and may in the future be greater than we have assumed in our estimates, the accuracy of which may be hindered due to our limited history operating at our current scale. Therefore, if our estimates of the useful life for our products are inaccurate or we do not meet our performance warranties and performance guaranties, or if we fail to accrue adequate warranty and guaranty reserves, our business and financial results could be harmed.
Our business is subject to risks associated with construction, utility interconnection, fuel supply, cost overruns and delays, including those related to obtaining government permits and other contingencies that may arise in the course of completing installations.
Because we often do not recognize revenue on the sales of our products until installation, our financial results depend to some degree on the timeliness of the installation of our products. Furthermore, in some cases, the installation of our products may be on a fixed price basis, which subjects us to the risk of cost overruns or other unforeseen expenses in the installation process.
The construction, installation, and operation of our products at a particular site is also generally subject to oversight and regulation in accordance with national, state, and local laws and ordinances relating to building codes, safety, environmental protection, and related matters, and typically require various local and other governmental approvals and permits, including environmental approvals and permits, that vary by jurisdiction. In some cases, these approvals and permits require periodic renewal. For more information regarding these restrictions, please see the risk factors in the section entitled “Risks Related to Legal Matters and Regulations.” As a result, unforeseen delays in the review and permitting process could delay the timing of the construction and installation of our products and could therefore adversely affect the timing of the recognition of revenue related to the installation, which could harm our operating results in a particular period.
In addition, the completion of many of our installations depends on the availability of and timely connection to the natural gas grid and the local electric grid. In some jurisdictions, local utility companies or the municipality have denied our request for connection or have required us to reduce the size of certain projects. In addition, some municipalities have recently adopted restrictions that prohibit any new construction that allows for the use of natural gas. For more information regarding these restrictions, please see the risk factor entitled “As a technology that runs, in part, on fossil fuel, we may be subject to a heightened risk of regulation, to a potential for the loss of certain incentives, and to changes in our customers’ energy
procurement policies.” Any delays in our ability to connect with utilities, delays in the performance of installation-related services, or poor performance of installation-related services by our general contractors or sub-contractors will have a material adverse effect on our results and could cause operating results to vary materially from period to period.
Furthermore, we rely on the ability of our third-party general contractors to install products at our customers’ sites and to meet our installation requirements. We currently work with a limited number of general contractors, which has impacted and may continue to impact our ability to make installations as planned. Our work with contractors or their sub-contractors may have the effect of our being required to comply with additional rules (including rules unique to our customers), working conditions, site remediation, and other requirements, which can add costs and complexity to an installation project. The timeliness, thoroughness, and quality of the installation-related services performed by some of our general contractors and their sub-contractors in the past have not always met our expectations or standards and may not meet our expectations and standards in the future.
The failure of our suppliers to continue to deliver necessary raw materials or other components of our products in a timely manner and to specification could prevent us from delivering our products within required time frames and could cause installation delays, cancellations, penalty payments and damage to our brand and reputation.
We rely on a limited number of third-party suppliers, and in some cases sole suppliers, for some of the raw materials and components used to manufacture our products, including certain rare earth materials and other materials that may be of limited supply. If our suppliers provide insufficient inventory to meet customer demand or such inventory is not at the level of quality required to meet our standards or if our suppliers are unable or unwilling to provide us with the contracted quantities (as we have limited or in some case no alternatives for supply), our results of operations could be materially and negatively impacted. If we fail to develop or maintain our relationships with our suppliers, or if there is otherwise a shortage or lack of availability of any required raw materials or components, we may be unable to manufacture our products or our products may be available only at a higher cost or after a long delay.
Due to increased demand across a range of industries, the global supply chain for certain raw materials and components, including semiconductor components and specialty metals, has experienced significant strain. The COVID-19 pandemic, the macroeconomic environment, and geopolitical instability have also contributed to and exacerbated this strain. There can be no assurance that the impact of these issues on the supply chain will not continue, or worsen, in the future. Significant delays and shortages could prevent us from delivering our products to our customers within required time frames and cause order cancellations, which would adversely impact our cash flows and results of operations.
In some cases, we have had to create our own supply chain for some of the components and materials utilized in our fuel cells. We have made significant expenditures to expand and bolster our supply chain. In many cases, we entered into contractual relationships with suppliers to jointly develop the components we needed. These activities are time and capital intensive. In addition, some of our suppliers use proprietary processes to manufacture components. We may be unable to obtain comparable components from alternative suppliers without considerable delay, expense, or at all, as replacing these suppliers could require us either to make significant investments to bring the capability in-house or to invest in a new supply chain partner. Some of our suppliers are smaller, private companies, heavily dependent on us as a customer. If our suppliers face difficulties obtaining the credit or capital necessary to expand their operations when needed, they could be unable to supply necessary raw materials and components needed to support our planned sales and services operations, which would negatively impact our sales volumes and cash flows.
The failure by us to obtain raw materials or components in a timely manner or to obtain raw materials or components that meet our quantity and cost requirements could impair our ability to manufacture our products, increase the costs of our products or increase the costs of servicing our existing portfolio of Energy Servers. If we cannot obtain substitute materials or components on a timely basis or on acceptable terms, we could be prevented from delivering our products to our customers within required time frames or service our existing fleet of Energy Servers in accordance with their respective O&M Agreements, which could result in sales and installation delays, cancellations, penalty payments, warranty breaches, or damage to our brand and reputation, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations. In addition, we rely on our suppliers to meet quality standards, and the failure of our suppliers to meet those quality standards could cause delays in the delivery of our products, unanticipated servicing costs, and damage to our brand and reputation.
We have, in some instances, entered into long-term supply agreements that could result in excess or, if one or more suppliers do not produce for any reason, insufficient inventory, above market pricing or higher costs, and negatively affect our results of operations.
We have entered into long-term supply agreements with certain suppliers. Some of these supply agreements provide for fixed or inflation-adjusted pricing, substantial prepayment obligations and in a few cases, supplier purchase commitments. These arrangements could mean that we end up paying for inventory that we do not need or that is at a higher price than the market. Further, we face significant specific counterparty risk under long-term supply agreements when dealing with suppliers without a long, stable production and financial history. Given the uniqueness of our product, many of our suppliers do not have a long operating history and are private companies that may not have substantial capital resources. In the event any such supplier experiences financial difficulties, it may be difficult or impossible, or may require substantial time and expense, for us to recover any or all of our prepayments. We do not know whether we will be able to maintain long-term supply relationships with our critical suppliers or whether we may secure new long-term supply agreements. Additionally, many of our parts and materials are procured from foreign suppliers, which exposes us to risks including unforeseen increases in costs or interruptions in supply arising from changes in applicable international trade regulations such as taxes, tariffs, or quotas. Any of the foregoing could materially harm our financial condition and our results of operations.
We face supply chain competition, including competition from businesses in other industries, which could result in insufficient inventory and negatively affect our results of operations.
Certain of our suppliers also supply parts and materials to other businesses, including businesses engaged in the production of consumer electronics and other industries unrelated to fuel cells. As a relatively low-volume purchaser of certain of these parts and materials, we may be unable to procure a sufficient supply of the items in the event that our suppliers fail to produce sufficient quantities to satisfy the demands of all of their customers, which could materially harm our financial condition and our results of operations.
We, and some of our suppliers, obtain capital equipment used in our manufacturing process from sole suppliers and, if this equipment is damaged or otherwise unavailable, our ability to deliver our products on time will suffer.
Some of the capital equipment used to manufacture our products and some of the capital equipment used by our suppliers have been developed and made specifically for us, are not readily available from multiple vendors, and would be difficult to repair or replace if they did not function properly. If any of these suppliers were to experience financial difficulties or go out of business or if there were any damage to or a breakdown of our manufacturing equipment and we could not obtain replacement equipment in a timely manner, our business would suffer. In addition, a supplier’s failure to supply this equipment in a timely manner with adequate quality and on terms acceptable to us could disrupt our production schedule or increase our costs of production and service.
Our business has been and continues to be adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
We continue to monitor and adjust as appropriate our operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While we maintain protocols to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission within our facilities, there is no guarantee that these measures will prevent an outbreak.
If a significant number of employees are exposed and sent home, particularly in our manufacturing facilities, our production could be significantly impacted. Furthermore, since our manufacturing process involves tasks performed at both our California and Delaware facilities, an outbreak at either facility would have a substantial impact on our overall production, and in such case, our cash flow and results of operations including revenue will be adversely affected.
We have experienced and continue to experience delays from certain vendors and suppliers, which, in turn, could cause delays in the manufacturing and installation of our products and adversely impact our cash flows and results of operations including revenue. Alternative or replacement suppliers may not be available and ongoing delays could affect our business and growth. In addition, new and potentially more contagious variants of the COVID-19 virus may develop, which can lead to future disruptions in the availability or price of these or other parts, and we cannot guarantee that we will succeed in finding alternate suppliers that are able to meet our needs. In addition, international air and sea logistics systems have been and continue to be heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Actions by government agencies may further restrict the operations of freight carriers and the operation of ports, which would negatively impact our ability to receive the parts and supplies we need to manufacture our products or to deliver them to our customers.
Our installation operations have also been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, our installation projects have experienced delays relating to, among other things, shortages in available labor for design, installation and other work; the inability or delay in our ability to access customer facilities due to shutdowns or other restrictions; the decreased productivity of our general contractors, their sub-contractors, medium-voltage electrical gear suppliers, and the wide range of engineering and construction related specialist suppliers on whom we rely for successful and timely installations; the stoppage of work by gas and electric utilities on which we are critically dependent for hook-ups; and the unavailability of necessary civil and utility inspections as well as the review of our permit submissions and issuance of permits by multiple authorities that have jurisdiction over our activities.
We are not the only business impacted by these shortages and delays, which means that we are subject to risk of increased competition for scarce resources, which may result in delays or increases in the cost of obtaining such services, including increased labor costs and/or fees. An inability to install our products would negatively impact our acceptances, and thereby impact our cash flows and results of operations, including revenue.
As to maintenance operations, if we are delayed in or unable to perform scheduled or unscheduled maintenance, our previously-installed products will likely experience adverse performance impacts including reduced output and/or efficiency, which could result in warranty and/or guaranty claims by our customers and increase our service costs. Further, due to the nature of our products, if we are unable to replace worn parts in accordance with our standard maintenance schedule, we may be subject to increased costs in the future.
We continue to remain in close communication with our manufacturing facilities, employees, customers, suppliers, and partners, but there is no guarantee we will be able to mitigate the impact of this ongoing situation. As the COVID-19 pandemic reaches endemic stages, the future impact on our business operations, supply chain, and demand for our products remains highly dependent on future developments.
Possible new trade tariffs could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Our business is dependent on the availability of raw materials and components for our products, particularly electrical components common in the semiconductor industry, specialty steel products / processing and raw materials. For example, prior tariffs imposed on steel and aluminum imports increased the cost of raw materials for our Energy Servers and decreased the available supply. Additional new trade tariffs or other trade protection measures that are proposed or threatened and the potential escalation of a trade war and retaliation measures could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Consequently, the imposition of tariffs on items imported by us from China or other countries could increase our costs and could have a material adverse effect on our business and our results of operations.
A failure to properly comply with foreign trade zone laws and regulations could increase the cost of our duties and tariffs.
We have established two foreign trade zones, one in California and one in Delaware, through qualification with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and are approved for “zone to zone” transfers between our California and Delaware facilities. Materials received in a foreign trade zone are not subject to certain U.S. duties or tariffs until the material enters U.S. commerce. We benefit from the adoption of foreign trade zones by reduced duties, deferral of certain duties and tariffs, and reduced processing fees, which help us realize a reduction in duty and tariff costs. However, the operation of our foreign trade zones requires compliance with applicable regulations and continued support of U.S. Customs and Border Protection with respect to the foreign trade zone program. If we are unable to maintain the qualification of our foreign trade zones, or if foreign trade zones are limited or unavailable to us in the future, our duty and tariff costs would increase, which could have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
Any significant disruption in the operations at our headquarters or manufacturing facilities could delay the production of our products, which would harm our business and results of operations.
We monitor our fleet of Energy Servers from our headquarters and an offshore location and manufacture our products in a limited number of manufacturing facilities, any of which could become unavailable either temporarily or permanently for any number of reasons, including equipment failure, material supply, public health emergencies, cyber-attacks or catastrophic weather, including extreme weather events or flooding resulting from the effects of climate change, or geologic events. Our headquarters and several of our manufacturing facilities are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, an area that is susceptible to earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters. The occurrence of a natural disaster such as an earthquake, drought, extreme heat, flood, fire, localized extended outages of critical utilities (such as California’s public safety power shut-offs) or transportation systems, or any critical resource shortages could cause a significant interruption in our business, damage or
destroy our facilities, our manufacturing equipment, or our inventory, and cause us to incur significant costs, any of which could harm our business, our financial condition and our results of operations. Our disaster recovery plans and readiness may not be sufficient to restore our headquarters, manufacturing facilities or operations. The insurance we maintain against fires, earthquakes and other natural disasters may not be adequate to cover our losses in any particular case.
Our limited history manufacturing new products, such as our Electrolyzers, makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and the challenges we may encounter.
With respect to the manufacture and sale of Electrolyzers, while we have a history of manufacturing and selling our Energy Servers, which are based in part on the same technology, there is little historical basis to make judgments on the capabilities associated with our enterprise, management, and our ability to produce an Electrolyzer specifically. Our ability to generate the profits we expect to achieve from the sale of Electrolyzers will depend, in part, on our ability to respond to market demand and add new manufacturing capacity in a cost-effective manner. In addition, we must continue to increase the efficiency of our manufacturing process to compete successfully.
Risks Related to Government Incentive Programs
Our business currently benefits from the availability of rebates, tax credits and other financial programs and incentives, and the reduction, modification, or elimination of such benefits could cause our revenue to decline and harm our financial results.
We utilize governmental rebates, tax credits, and other financial incentives to lower the effective price of our products to our customers in the United States and Japan, India and the Republic of Korea (collectively, our “Asia Pacific region”).
The U.S. federal government and some state and local governments provide incentives to current and future end users and purchasers of our Energy Servers in the form of rebates, tax credits and other financial incentives, such as system performance payments and payments for renewable energy credits associated with renewable energy generation. Our Energy Servers have qualified for tax exemptions, incentives, or other customer incentives in many states including the states of California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. Some states have utility procurement programs, Renewable Portfolio Standards (“RP Standards”) and/or Clean Energy Standards (“CE Standards”) for which our technologies are eligible. Our Energy Servers are currently installed in eleven U.S. states, each of which may have its own enabling policy framework. Financiers and Equity Investors may also take advantage of these financial incentives, lowering the cost of capital and energy to our customers.
For example, many of our installations in California interconnect with investor-owned utilities on Fuel Cell Net Energy Metering (“FC NEM”) tariffs. FC NEM tariffs will be available for new California installations until December 31, 2023. However, to remain eligible for those FC NEM tariffs, at least some installations currently on those tariffs are likely to be required to meet greenhouse gas emissions standards. Other generally applicable tariffs are available for customers deploying fuel cells, and we are working through the appropriate regulatory channels to establish alternative tariffs as well. If our customers are unable to interconnect under FC NEM tariffs or suitable alternatives, interconnection and tariff costs may increase, and such an increase may negatively impact demand for our products. Additionally, the uncertainty regarding requirements for service under any of these tariffs could negatively impact the perceived value of or risks associated with our products, which could also negatively impact demand.
The U.S. federal government offers certain federal tax benefits, including the Production Tax Credit under Section 45 of the Internal Revenue Code (the “PTC”) and the ITC. The recent passing of the IRA offers a number of new federal tax benefits, many of which we may utilize in the future in connection with the sale of our Energy Servers and Electrolyzers. Our customers, Financiers, and Equity Investors may expect us to be able to facilitate their optimization of the tax benefits available pursuant to the IRA. Each of these federal tax benefits have certain legal and operational requirements. For example, any taxpayer taking the benefit of the ITC must meet certain requirements regarding ownership and use for a period of five years. If the energy property is disposed or otherwise ceases to be qualified investment credit property before expiration of such five-year, it could result in a partial reduction in incentives. There may be uncertainty as to how the new regulations promulgated under the IRA are interpreted. Our failure to either (i) interpret the new requirements under the IRA regarding among other things, prevailing wage, apprenticeship, domestic content, siting in an “energy community,” accurately or (ii) adequately update our supply-chain, manufacturing, installation, and record-keeping processes to meet such requirements, may result a partial or full reduction in the related federal tax benefit and our customers, Financiers, and Equity Investors may require us to indemnify them for certain of such reductions. Change in federal tax benefits over time also may affect our future performance. For example, currently commercial purchasers of fuel cells are eligible to claim the federal bonus depreciation benefit. Unless legislation extends the bonus depreciation deadlines, under current rules it will be phased down beginning in 2023 and will expire at the end of 2026.
Similarly, commercial fuel cell purchasers can claim the ITC. Under current law, fuel cell projects must begin construction on or before December 31, 2024 in order to claim up to 50% ITC, after which part of this benefit will expire unless extended.
Some countries outside the United States also provide incentives to current and future end users and purchasers of our Energy Servers and Electrolyzers. For example, in the Republic of Korea, RP Standards and CE Standards are in place to promote the adoption of renewable, low- or zero-carbon power generation. The Korean RP Standards are scheduled to be replaced in 2023 with the Clean Hydrogen Portfolio Standard (“CHPS”). This may impact the demand for our Energy Servers in the Republic of Korea. Initially, we do not expect the CHPS to require 100% hydrogen as a feedstock for fuel cell projects. The Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Economy is expected to announce details of the CHPS incentive mechanism in 2023. For the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, our revenue in the Republic of Korea accounted for 44% and 38% of our total revenue, respectively. Therefore, if sales of our Energy Servers to this market decline in the future, this may have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.
Changes in the availability of rebates, tax credits, and other financial programs and incentives could reduce demand for our Energy Servers or future products, impair sales financing, and adversely impact our business results. Additionally, these incentives and procurement programs or obligations may expire on a particular date, end when the allocated funding is exhausted, or be reduced or terminated as a matter of regulatory or legislative policy. The continuation of these programs and incentives depends upon political support which to date has been bipartisan and durable.
In the United States, we rely on tax equity financing arrangements to realize the benefits provided by federal tax benefits and accelerated tax depreciation and in the event these programs are terminated, our financial results could be harmed. We also rely on incentives in the Korean, European and other international markets.
U.S. Equity Investors typically derive a significant portion of their economic returns through tax benefits when they finance an Energy Server. Equity Investors are generally entitled to substantially all of the project’s tax benefits, such as those provided by the ITC and Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (“MACRS”) or bonus depreciation. We expect that future Equity Investors will also be interested in taking the benefit of the PTC in connection with financing our Electrolyzers. The number of and available capital from potential Equity Investors is limited, we compete with other energy companies eligible for these tax benefits to access such investors, and the availability of capital from Equity Investors is subject to fluctuations based on factors outside of our control such as macroeconomic trends and changes in applicable taxation regimes. Concerns regarding our limited operating history, lack of profitability and that we are the only party who can perform operations and maintenance on our Energy Servers have made it difficult to attract investors in the past. Our ability to obtain additional financing in the future depends on the continued confidence of banks and other financing sources in our business model, the market for our Energy Servers and Electrolyzers, and the continued availability of tax benefits applicable to our Energy Servers and Electrolyzers, regardless of whether we arrange the financing, or our customers finance the products themselves. In addition, conditions in the general economy and financial and credit markets may result in the contraction of available tax equity financing. Similarly, in international markets such as Korea and Europe, economic benefits applicable to fuel cells may include subsidies for deployment as well as exemptions or reductions from taxes and fees. If as a result of changes to these benefits we, or in some cases our customers, as the case may be, are unable to enter into tax equity or other financing agreements with attractive pricing terms, or at all, neither we nor our customers, may be able to obtain the capital needed to finance the purchase of our Energy Servers or Electrolyzers. Such circumstances could also require us to reduce the price at which we are able to sell our products in the applicable markets and therefore harm our business, our financial condition, and our results of operations.
Risks Related to Legal Matters and Regulations
We are subject to various national, state and local laws and regulations that could impose substantial costs upon us and cause delays in the delivery and installation of our products.
The construction, installation, and operation of our products at a particular site are generally subject to oversight and regulation in accordance with national, state, and local laws and ordinances relating to building codes, safety, environmental and climate protection, domestic content requirements and related matters, as well as national, regional and/or local energy market rules, regulations and tariffs, and typically require various local and other governmental approvals and permits, including environmental approvals and permits, that vary by jurisdiction. In some cases, these approvals and permits change or require periodic renewal. These laws and regulations can affect the markets for our products and the costs and time required for their installation, and may give rise to liability for administrative oversight costs, compliance costs, clean-up costs, property damage, bodily injury, fines, and penalties. Capital and operating expenses needed to comply with the various laws and regulations can be significant, and violations may result in substantial fines and penalties or third-party damages.
It is difficult and costly to track the requirements of every individual authority having jurisdiction over our installations, to design our products to comply with these varying standards, and to obtain all applicable approvals and permits. We cannot predict whether or when all approvals or permits required for a given project will be granted or whether the conditions associated with the approvals or permits will be achievable. The denial of a permit or utility connection essential to a project or the imposition of impractical conditions or excessive costs, such as costs for upgrading utility interconnection equipment, would impair our ability to develop the project. In addition, we cannot predict whether the approval or permitting process will be lengthened due to complexities and appeals. Delay in the review and approval or permitting process for a project can impair or delay our and our customers’ abilities to develop that project or may increase the cost so substantially that the project is no longer attractive to us or our customers. Furthermore, unforeseen delays in the review and permitting process could delay the timing of the installation of our products and could therefore adversely affect the timing of the recognition of revenue related to the installation, which could harm our operating results in a particular period. In many cases we contractually commit to performing all necessary installation work on a fixed-price basis, and unanticipated costs associated with approval, permitting and/or compliance expenses may cause the cost of performing such work to exceed our revenue. The costs of complying with all the various laws, regulations and customer requirements, and any claims concerning non-compliance, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or our operating results.
In addition, the rules and regulations regarding the production, transportation and storage of hydrogen, including with respect to safety, environmental and market regulations and policies, are in flux and may limit the market for our Energy Servers that operate using hydrogen.
The installation and operation of our products are subject to environmental laws and regulations in various jurisdictions, and there has been in the past and could continue to be uncertainty with respect to both how these laws and regulations may change over time and the interpretation of these environmental laws and regulations to our products, especially as they evolve.
We are committed to compliance with applicable environmental laws and regulations including health and safety standards, and we continuously review the operation of our products for health, safety, and environmental compliance. Our Energy Servers, like other fuel cell technology-based products of which we are aware, produce small amounts of hazardous wastes and air pollutants, and we seek to address these in accordance with applicable regulatory standards. In addition, environmental laws and regulations in the United States, such as the Comprehensive Environmental Response and Compensation and Liability Act, impose liability on several grounds including for the investigation and clean-up of contaminated soil and ground water, impacts to human health and damages to natural resources. If contamination is discovered in the future at properties formerly owned or operated by us or currently owned or operated by us, or properties to which hazardous substances were sent by us, it could result in our liability under environmental laws and regulations. Many of our customers who purchase our products have high sustainability standards, and any environmental non-compliance by us could harm our brand and reputation and impact a current or potential customer’s buying decision.
Maintaining environmental compliance can be challenging given the changing patchwork of environmental laws and regulations that prevail at the federal, state, regional, and local level. Most existing environmental laws and regulations preceded the introduction of our innovative fuel cell technology and were adopted to apply to technologies existing at the time (i.e., large coal, oil, or gas-fired power plants). Guidance from these agencies on how certain environmental laws and regulations may or may not be applied to our technology can be inconsistent.
For example, natural gas, which is the primary fuel used in our Energy Servers, contains benzene, which is classified as a hazardous waste if it exceeds 0.5 milligrams per liter. A small amount of benzene found in the public natural gas supply (equivalent to what is present in one gallon of gasoline in an automobile fuel tank, which are exempt from federal regulation) is collected by the gas cleaning units contained in our Energy Servers; these gas cleaning units are typically replaced at customers’ sites once every 15 to 36 months. From 2010 to late 2016 and in the regular course of maintenance of the Energy Servers, we periodically replaced the units in our servers relying upon a federal environmental exemption that permitted the handling of such units without manifesting the contents as containing a hazardous waste. Although over the years and with the approval of two states, we believed that we operated appropriately under the exemption, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) issued guidance for the first time in late 2016 that differed from our belief and conflicted with the state approvals we had obtained. We have complied with the new guidance and, given the comparatively small quantities of benzene produced, we do not anticipate significant additional costs or risks from our compliance with the revised 2016 guidance. In order to put this matter behind us and with no admission of law or fact, we agreed to a consent agreement that was ratified and incorporated by reference into a final order that was entered by an Environmental Appeals Judge for EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board in May of 2020. Consistent with the consent agreement and final order, a final payment of approximately $1.2 million was made
in the fourth quarter of 2020 and EPA has confirmed the matter is formally resolved. Additionally, a nominal penalty was paid to a state agency under that state’s environmental laws relating to the same issue.
Some states in which we operate, including New York, New Jersey and North Carolina, have specific permitting or environmental exemptions for fuel cells. Other states in which we currently operate, including California, have emissions-based requirements, most of which require permits or other notifications for quantities of emissions that are higher than those observed from our Energy Servers. For example, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in California has an air permit and risk assessment exemption for emissions of chromium in the hexavalent form (“CR+6”) that are less than 0.00051 lbs/year. Emissions above this level may trigger the need for a permit. Also, California’s Proposition 65 requires notification of the presence of CR+6 unless public exposure is below 0.001 µg/day, the level determined to represent no significant health risk. Since the California standards are more stringent than those in any other state or foreign location in which we have installed Energy Servers to date, we are focused on California’s standards. If stricter standards are adopted in other states or jurisdictions or our servers can’t meet applicable standards, it could impact our ability to obtain regulatory approval and/or could result in us not being able to operate in a particular local jurisdiction.
These examples illustrate that our technology is moving faster than the regulatory process in many instances and that there are inconsistencies between how we are regulated in different jurisdictions. It is possible that regulators could delay or prevent us from conducting our business in some way pending agreement on, and compliance with, shifting regulatory requirements. Such actions could delay the installation of our products, could result in penalties, could require modification or replacement or could trigger claims of performance warranties and defaults under customer contracts that could require us to repurchase equipment, any of which could adversely affect our business, our financial performance, and our brand and reputation. In addition, new energy or environmental laws or regulations or new interpretations of existing laws or regulations could present marketing, political or regulatory challenges and could require us to upgrade or retrofit existing equipment, which could result in materially increased capital and operating expenses.
As we expand into international markets, we may be subject to local content requirements or pressures which could increase cost or reduce demand for our products.
Certain countries where we conduct or wish to conduct business may impose domestic content requirements (requiring goods, materials, components, services or labor to be supplied from or made in country). Domestic or local content requirements favor domestic industry over foreign competitors and there has been a significant increase in the use of these programs in recent years. For example, in the Republic of Korea, customers and prospective customers may be pressured to select domestic competitors over Bloom.
With respect to our products that run, in part, on fossil fuel, we may be subject to a heightened risk of regulation, to a potential for the loss of certain incentives, and to changes in our customers’ energy procurement policies.
The current generation of our Energy Servers that run on natural gas produces nearly 23% fewer carbon emissions than the average U.S. marginal power generation sources that our projects displace. However, the operation of our current Energy Servers does produce some carbon dioxide (“CO2”), which contributes to global climate change. As such, we may be negatively impacted by CO2-related changes in applicable laws, regulations, ordinances, rules, or the requirements of the incentive programs on which we and our customers currently rely. Changes (or a lack of change to sufficiently recognize both the risks of climate change and the benefit of our technology as one means to maintain reliable and resilient electric service with a lower greenhouse gas emission profile) in any of the laws, regulations, ordinances, or rules that apply to our installations and new technology could make it more difficult or more costly for us or our customers to install and operate our Energy Servers on particular sites, thereby negatively affecting our ability to deliver cost savings to customers. Certain municipalities in the United States have banned or are considering banning new interconnections with gas utilities, while others have adopted bans that allow new interconnections for non-combustion resources, such as our Energy Servers. Some local municipalities have also banned or are considering banning the use of distributed generation products that utilize fossil fuel. We may face similar challenges in international markets in the future. Additionally, our customers’ and potential customers’ energy procurement policies may prohibit or limit their willingness to procure our natural gas-fueled Energy Servers. Our business prospects may be negatively impacted if we are prevented from completing new installations or our installations become more costly as a result of laws, regulations, ordinances, or rules applicable to our Energy Servers, or by our customers’ and potential customers’ energy procurement policies.
Existing regulations and changes to such regulations impacting the electric power industry may create technical, regulatory, and economic barriers, which could significantly reduce demand for our Energy Servers or affect the financial performance of current sites.
The market for electricity generation products is heavily influenced by U.S. federal, state, local, and foreign government laws, regulations and policies as well as by tariffs, internal policies and practices of electric utility providers. These regulations, tariffs and policies often relate to electricity pricing and technical interconnection of customer-owned electricity generation. These regulations, tariffs and policies are often modified and could continue to change, which could result in a significant reduction in demand for our Energy Servers. For example, utility companies commonly charge fees to industrial customers for disconnecting from the electric grid. These fees could change, thereby increasing the cost to our customers of using our Energy Servers and making them less economically attractive.
For example, our project with Delmarva Power & Light Company (the “Delaware Project”) is subject to laws and regulations relating to electricity generation, transmission, and sale in Delaware and at the regional and federal level. A law governing the sale of electricity from the Delaware Project was necessary to implement part of several incentives that Delaware offered to us to build our major manufacturing facility (“Manufacturing Center”) in Delaware. Those incentives have proven controversial in Delaware, in part because our Manufacturing Center, while a significant source of continuing manufacturing employment, has not expanded as quickly as projected. The opposition to the Delaware Project is an example of potentially material risks associated with electric power regulation.
At the federal level in the United States, FERC has authority to regulate under various federal energy regulatory laws, wholesale sales of electric energy, capacity, and ancillary services, and the delivery of natural gas in interstate commerce. Also, several of the tax equity partnerships in which we have an interest are subject to regulation under FERC with respect to market-based sales of electricity, which requires us to file notices and make other periodic filings with FERC, which increases our costs and subjects us to additional regulatory oversight.
Although we generally are not regulated as a utility, U.S. federal, state and local government statutes and regulations concerning electricity and natural gas, as well as organized market rules such as the PJM tariffs affecting the Delaware Project, heavily influence the market for our product and services in the United States. These statutes, regulations, tariffs and market rules often relate to electricity and natural gas pricing, fuel cell net metering, incentives, taxation, and the rules surrounding the interconnection of customer-owned electricity generation for specific technologies. In the United States, governments and market operators frequently modify these statutes, regulations, tariffs and market rules. Governments, often acting through state utility or public service commissions, as well as market operators, change, adopt or approve different utility requirements and rates for commercial and industrial customers on a regular basis. Changes, or in some cases a lack of change, in any of the laws, regulations, tariffs ordinances, or other rules that apply to our installations and new technology could make it more costly for us or our customers to install and operate our products on particular sites and, in turn, could negatively affect our ability to deliver cost savings to customers.
We may become subject to product liability claims, which could harm our financial condition and liquidity if we are not able to successfully defend or insure against such claims.
We may in the future become subject to product liability claims. Our Energy Servers are considered high energy systems because they consume or produce flammable fuels and may operate up to 480 volts. High-voltage electricity poses potential shock hazards, while natural gas and hydrogen, associated with both our Energy Servers and our Electrolyzers, are flammable gases and therefore a potentially dangerous fuel capable of causing fires and other harms. Although our Energy Servers are certified to meet ANSI, IEEE, ASME, IEC and NFPA design and safety standards, if our equipment is not properly handled in accordance with our servicing and handling standards and protocols or if there are unforeseen or undiscovered issues with our equipment, there could be a system failure and resulting damage, injury and/or liability.
In either case, these claims could require us to incur significant costs to defend. Furthermore, any successful product liability claim could require us to pay a substantial monetary award. Moreover, a product liability claim could generate substantial negative publicity about us and could materially impede widespread market acceptance and demand for our products, which could harm our brand, our business prospects, and our operating results. Our product liability insurance may not be sufficient to cover all potential product liability claims. Any lawsuit seeking significant monetary damages either in excess of our coverage or outside of our coverage may have a material adverse effect on our business and our financial condition.
Current or future litigation or administrative proceedings could have a material adverse effect on our business, our financial condition and our results of operations.
We have been and continue to be involved in legal proceedings, administrative proceedings, claims, and other litigation that arise in the ordinary course of business. Purchases of our products have also been the subject of litigation. For information regarding pending legal proceedings, please see Part I, Item 3, Legal Proceedings and Note 13 - Commitments and Contingencies in Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data. In addition, since our Energy Server and Electrolyzers are new types of products in nascent markets, we have in the past needed and may in the future need to seek the administrative guidance, amendment of existing regulations, or in some cases the development of new regulations, in order to operate our business in some jurisdictions. Such regulatory processes may require public hearings concerning our business, which could expose us to subsequent litigation.
Unfavorable outcomes or developments relating to proceedings to which we are a party or transactions involving our products such as judgments for monetary damages, injunctions, or denial or revocation of permits, could have a material adverse effect on our business, our financial condition, and our results of operations. In addition, settlement of claims could adversely affect our financial condition and our results of operations.
Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property
Our failure to effectively protect and enforce our intellectual property rights may undermine our competitive position, and litigation to protect our intellectual property rights may be costly.
Policing unauthorized use of proprietary technology can be difficult and expensive, and the protective measures we have taken to protect our intellectual property rights, including our trade secrets, may not be sufficient to prevent such use. For example, many of our engineers reside in California where it is not legally permissible to prevent them from working for a competitor. Also, litigation may be necessary to enforce our intellectual property rights, including to protect our trade secrets, or to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others. Such litigation may result in our intellectual property rights being challenged, limited in scope, or declared invalid or unenforceable. We cannot be certain that the outcome of any litigation will be in our favor, and an adverse determination in any such litigation could impair our intellectual property rights, our business, our prospects, and our brand and reputation.
We rely primarily on patent, trade secret, and trademark laws, and non-disclosure, confidentiality, and other types of contractual restrictions to establish, maintain, and enforce our intellectual property and proprietary rights. However, our rights under these laws and agreements afford us only limited protection and the actions we take to establish, maintain, and enforce our intellectual property rights may not be adequate. For example, our trade secrets and other confidential information could be discovered by or disclosed in an unauthorized manner to third parties. Additionally, our owned or licensed intellectual property rights could be challenged, invalidated, or declared unenforceable in judicial or administrative proceedings, or circumvented, designed around by our competitors, infringed, or misappropriated. Competitors could copy or reverse engineer our products, or develop and market products that are substantially equivalent to or superior to our own. Any of these issues, including the unauthorized use of our intellectual property by others, could reduce our competitive advantage and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, or operating results. In addition, the laws of some countries do not protect intellectual property rights as fully as do the laws of the United States. Many U.S.-based companies have encountered substantial intellectual property infringement in foreign countries, including countries where we sell products. Even if foreign patents are granted, effective enforcement in foreign countries may not be available. We may not be able to effectively protect our intellectual property rights in these markets or elsewhere. If an impermissible use of our intellectual property or trade secrets were to occur, our ability to sell our products at competitive prices may be adversely affected and our business, financial condition, operating results, and cash flows could be adversely affected.
In connection with our expansion into new markets, we may need to develop relationships with new partners, including project developers and/or financiers who may require access to certain of our intellectual property in order to mitigate perceived risks regarding our ability to service their projects over the contracted project duration. If we are unable to come to agreement regarding the terms of such access or find alternative means to address this perceived risk, such failure may negatively impact our ability to expand into new markets. Alternatively, we may be required to develop new strategies for the protection of our intellectual property, which may be less protective than our current strategies and could therefore erode our competitive position.
Our patent applications may not result in issued patents, and our issued patents may not provide adequate protection, either of which may have a material adverse effect on our ability to prevent others from commercially exploiting products similar to ours.
We cannot be certain that our pending patent applications will result in issued patents or that any of our issued patents will afford protection against a competitor. The status of patents involves complex legal and factual questions, and the breadth of claims allowed is uncertain. As a result, we cannot be certain that the patent applications that we file will result in patents being issued or that our patents and any patents that may be issued to us in the future will afford protection against competitors with similar technology. In addition, patent applications filed in foreign countries are subject to laws, rules, and procedures that differ from those of the United States, and thus we cannot be certain that foreign patent applications related to issued U.S. patents will be issued in other regions. Furthermore, even if these patent applications are accepted and the associated patents issued, some foreign countries provide significantly less effective patent enforcement than the United States.
In addition, patents issued to us may be infringed upon or designed around by others and others may obtain patents that we need to license or design around, either of which would increase costs and may adversely affect our business, our prospects, and our operating results.
We may need to defend ourselves against claims that we infringed, misappropriated, or otherwise violated the intellectual property rights of others, which may be time-consuming and would cause us to incur substantial costs.
Companies, organizations, or individuals, including our competitors, may hold or obtain patents, trademarks, or other proprietary rights that they may in the future believe are infringed by our products or services. These companies holding patents or other intellectual property rights allegedly relating to our technologies could, in the future, make claims or bring suits alleging infringement, misappropriation, or other violations of such rights, or otherwise assert their rights by seeking royalties or injunctions. Several of the proprietary components used in our Energy Servers have been subjected to infringement challenges in the past. We generally indemnify our customers against claims that the products we supply don’t infringe, misappropriate, or otherwise violate third party intellectual property rights, and we therefore may be required to defend our customers against such claims. If a claim is successfully brought in the future and we or our products are determined to have infringed, misappropriated, or otherwise violated a third party’s intellectual property rights, we may be required to do one or more of the following:
•cease selling or using our products that incorporate the challenged intellectual property;
•pay substantial damages (including treble damages and attorneys’ fees if our infringement is determined to be willful);
•obtain a license from the holder of the intellectual property right, which may not be available on reasonable terms or at all; or
•redesign our products or means of production, which may not be possible or cost-effective.
Any of the foregoing could adversely affect our business, prospects, operating results, and financial condition. In addition, any litigation or claims, whether or not valid, could harm our brand and reputation, result in substantial costs and divert resources and management attention.
We also license technology from third parties and incorporate components supplied by third parties into our products. We may face claims that our use of such technology or components infringes or otherwise violates the rights of others, which would subject us to the risks described above. We may seek indemnification from our licensors or suppliers under our contracts with them, but our rights to indemnification or our suppliers’ resources may be unavailable or insufficient to cover our costs and losses.
Risks Related to Our Financial Condition and Operating Results
We have incurred significant losses in the past and we may not be profitable for the foreseeable future.
Since our inception in 2001, we have incurred significant net losses and have used significant cash in our business. As of December 31, 2022, we had an accumulated deficit of $3.6 billion. We expect to continue to expand our operations domestically and internationally, including by investing in manufacturing, sales and marketing, research and development, staffing, and infrastructure to support our growth. We may continue to incur net losses for the foreseeable future. Our ability to achieve profitability in the future will depend on a number of factors, including our ability to:
•grow our sales volume;
•increase sales to existing customers and attract new customers;
•expand into new geographical markets and industry market sectors;
•attract and retain financing partners who are willing to provide financing for sales on a timely basis, with attractive terms;
•continue to improve the useful life of our fuel cell technology and reduce our warranty servicing costs;
•reduce the cost of producing our products;
•improve the efficiency and predictability of our installation process;
•introduce new products, including products for the hydrogen market;
•improve the effectiveness of our sales and marketing activities; and
•attract and retain key talent in a competitive labor marketplace.
Even if we do achieve profitability, we may be unable to sustain or increase our profitability in the future.
Our financial condition and results of operations and other key metrics are likely to fluctuate on a quarterly basis in future periods, which could cause our results for a particular period to fall below expectations, resulting in a severe decline in the price of our Class A common stock.
Our financial condition and results of operations and other key metrics have fluctuated significantly in the past and may continue to fluctuate in the future due to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. For example, the amount of product revenue we recognize in a given period is materially dependent on the volume of installations of our products in that period and the type of financing used by the customer.
In addition to the other risks described herein, the following factors could also cause our financial condition and results of operations to fluctuate on a quarterly basis:
•the timing of installations, which may depend on many factors such as availability of inventory, product quality or performance issues, local permitting requirements, utility requirements, environmental, health, and safety requirements, weather, availability of labor, the COVID-19 pandemic or such other health emergency, and customer facility construction schedules;
•size of particular installations and number of sites involved in any particular quarter;
•the mix in the type or availability of purchase or financing options used by customers in a period, the geographical mix of customer sales, and the rates of return required by financing parties in such period;
•disruptions in our supply chain;
•whether we are able to structure our sales agreements in a manner that would allow for the product and installation revenue to be recognized upfront;
•delays or cancellations of product installations;
•fluctuations in our service costs, particularly due to unexpected costs and rising labor costs;
•fluctuations in our research and development expense, including periodic increases associated with the pre-production qualification of additional tools as we expand our production capacity;
•the length of the sales and installation cycle for a particular customer;
•the timing and level of additional purchases by new and existing customers, which may be impacted by macroeconomic factors including inflation, interest rates, the recessionary environment, and availability of capital;
•the timing of the development of the market for our new features and products, including our Electrolyzer;
•unanticipated expenses or installation delays associated with changes in governmental regulations, permitting requirements by local authorities at particular sites, utility requirements and environmental, health and safety requirements;
•disruptions in our sales, production, service or other business activities resulting from disagreements with our labor force or our inability to attract and retain qualified personnel; and
•unanticipated changes in federal, state, local, or foreign government incentive programs available for us, our customers, and tax equity financing parties.
Fluctuations in our operating results and cash flow could, among other things, give rise to short-term liquidity issues. In addition, our revenue, key operating metrics, and other operating results in future quarters may fall short of our projections or the expectations of investors and financial analysts, which could have an adverse effect on the price of our Class A common stock.
If we fail to manage our growth effectively, our business and operating results may suffer.
Our current growth and future growth plans may make it difficult for us to efficiently operate our business, challenging us to effectively manage our capital expenditures and control our costs while we expand our operations to increase our revenue. If we experience a significant growth in orders without improvements in automation and efficiency, we may not be able to meet the demands of our growth in a timely manner. We may need additional manufacturing capacity and we and some of our suppliers may need additional capital-intensive equipment. Any growth in manufacturing must include a scaling of quality control as the increase in production increases the possible impact of manufacturing defects. In addition, any growth in the volume of sales of our products may outpace our ability to engage sufficient and experienced personnel to manage the higher number of installations and to engage contractors to complete installations on a timely basis and in accordance with our expectations and standards. Any failure to manage our growth effectively could materially and adversely affect our business, our prospects, our operating results, and our financial condition. Our future operating results depend to a large extent on our ability to manage this expansion and growth successfully.
If we fail to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting in the future, the accuracy and timing of our financial reporting may be adversely affected.
We are required to comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“Sarbanes-Oxley Act”). The provisions of the act require, among other things, that we maintain effective internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures. Preparing our financial statements involves a number of complex processes, many of which are done manually and are dependent upon individual data input or review. These processes include, but are not limited to, calculating revenue, deferred revenue and inventory costs. While we continue to automate our processes and enhance our review and put in place controls to reduce the likelihood for errors, we expect that for the foreseeable future many of our processes will remain manually intensive and thus subject to human error if we are unable to implement key operation controls around pricing, spending and other financial processes. For example, prior to our adoption of Section 404B of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, we identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting at December 31, 2019 related to the accounting for and disclosure of complex or non-routine transactions, which has been remediated. If we are unable to successfully maintain effective internal control over financial reporting, we may fail to prevent or detect material misstatements in our financial statements, in which case investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports. Any failure to maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures or internal control over financial reporting could have a material adverse effect on our business and operating results and cause a decline in the price of our Class A common stock.
Our ability to use our deferred tax assets to offset future taxable income may be subject to limitations that could subject our business to higher tax liability.
We may be limited in the portion of net operating loss carryforwards (“NOLs”) that we can use in the future to offset taxable income for U.S. federal and state income tax purposes. Our NOLs will expire, if unused, beginning in 2022 through 2028. A lack of future taxable income would adversely affect our ability to utilize these NOLs. In addition, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”), a corporation that undergoes an “ownership change” is subject to limitations on its ability to utilize its NOLs to offset future taxable income. Changes in our stock ownership as well as other
changes that may be outside of our control could result in ownership changes under Section 382 of the Code, which could cause our NOLs to be subject to certain limitations. Our NOLs may also be impaired under similar provisions of state law. Our deferred tax assets, which are currently fully reserved with a valuation allowance, may expire unutilized or underutilized, which could prevent us from offsetting future taxable income.
Risks Related to Our Liquidity
We must maintain the confidence of our customers in our liquidity, including in our ability to timely service our debt obligations and in our ability support and to grow our business over the long-term.
Currently, we are the only provider able to fully support and maintain our products. If potential customers believe we do not have sufficient capital or liquidity to operate our business over the long-term or that we will be unable to maintain the products acquired from us and provide satisfactory support, customers may be less likely to purchase or lease our products, particularly in light of the significant financial commitment required. In addition, financing sources may be unwilling to provide financing on reasonable terms. Similarly, suppliers, financing partners, and other third parties may be less likely to invest time and resources in developing business relationships with us if they have concerns about the success of our business.
Accordingly, in order to grow our business, we must maintain confidence in our liquidity and long-term business prospects among customers, suppliers, financing partners and other parties. This may be particularly complicated by factors such as:
•our limited operating history at a large scale;
•the size of our debt obligations;
•our lack of profitability;
•unfamiliarity with or uncertainty about our products and the overall perception of the distributed generation market;
•prices for electricity or natural gas in particular markets;
•competition from alternate sources of energy;
•warranty or unanticipated service issues we may experience;
•the environmental consciousness and perceived value of environmental programs to our customers;
•the size of our expansion plans in comparison to our existing capital base and the scope and history of operations;
•the availability and amount of tax incentives, credits, subsidies or other incentive programs; and
•the other factors set forth in this “Risk Factors” section.
Several of these factors are largely outside our control, and any negative perceptions about our liquidity or long-term business prospects, even if unfounded, would likely harm our business.
Our indebtedness, and restrictions imposed by the agreements governing our and our PPA Entities’ outstanding indebtedness, may limit our financial and operating activities and may adversely affect our ability to incur additional debt to fund future needs.
As of December 31, 2022, we and our subsidiaries had approximately $411.6 million of total consolidated indebtedness, of which an aggregate of $285.8 million represented indebtedness that is recourse to us, $12.7 million of which is classified as current and $273.1 million of which is classified as non-current. Of this $285.8 million in debt, $61.0 million represented debt under our 10.25% Senior Secured Notes due March 2027, and $224.8 million represented debt under the $230.0 million aggregate principal amount of our 2.50% Green Convertible Senior Notes due August 2025 (the “Green Notes”). In addition, our PPA Entities’ (defined herein) outstanding indebtedness of $125.8 million represented indebtedness that is non-recourse to us. For a description and definition of PPA Entities, please see Part II, Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis – Purchase and Financing Options – Portfolio Financings. As of December 31, 2022, we had $26.0 million in short-term debt and $385.6 million in long-term debt. Given our substantial level of indebtedness, it may be difficult for us to secure additional debt financing at an attractive cost, which may in turn impact our ability to expand our operations and our product development activities and to remain competitive in the market. Our liquidity needs could vary significantly and may be affected by general economic conditions, industry trends, performance, and many other factors not within our control.
The agreements governing our and our PPA Entities’ outstanding indebtedness contain, and other future debt agreements may contain, covenants imposing operating and financial restrictions on our business that limit our flexibility including, among other things:
•borrow money;
•pay dividends or make other distributions;
•incur liens;
•make asset dispositions;
•make loans or investments;
•issue or sell share capital of our subsidiaries;
•issue guaranties;
•enter into transactions with affiliates;
•merge, consolidate or sell, lease or transfer all or substantially all of our assets;
•require us to dedicate a substantial portion of cash flow from operations to the payment of principal and interest on indebtedness, thereby reducing the funds available for other purposes such as working capital and capital expenditures;
•make it more difficult for us to satisfy and comply with our obligations with respect to our indebtedness;
•subject us to increased sensitivity to interest rate increases;
•make us more vulnerable to economic downturns, adverse industry conditions, or catastrophic external events;
•limit our ability to withstand competitive pressures;
•limit our ability to invest in new business subsidiaries that are not PPA Entity-related;
•reduce our flexibility in planning for or responding to changing business, industry and economic conditions; and/or
•place us at a competitive disadvantage to competitors that have relatively less debt than we have.
Our PPA Entities’ debt agreements require the maintenance of financial ratios or the satisfaction of financial tests such as debt service coverage ratios and consolidated leverage ratios. Our PPA Entities’ ability to meet these financial ratios and tests may be affected by events beyond our control and, as a result, we cannot assure you that we will be able to meet these ratios and tests.
Upon the occurrence of certain events to us, including a change in control, a significant asset sale or merger or similar transaction, our liquidation or dissolution or the cessation of our stock exchange listing, each of which may constitute a fundamental change under the outstanding notes, holders of certain of the notes have the right to cause us to repurchase for cash any or all of such outstanding notes. We cannot provide assurance that we would have sufficient liquidity to repurchase such notes. Furthermore, our financing and debt agreements contain events of default. If an event of default were to occur, the trustee or the lenders could, among other things, terminate their commitments and declare outstanding amounts due and payable and our cash may become restricted. We cannot provide assurance that we would have sufficient liquidity to repay or refinance our indebtedness if such amounts were accelerated upon an event of default. Borrowings under other debt instruments that contain cross-acceleration or cross-default provisions may, as a result, be accelerated and become due and payable as a consequence. We may be unable to pay these debts in such circumstances. We cannot provide assurance that the operating and financial restrictions and covenants in these agreements will not adversely affect our ability to finance our future operations or capital needs, or our ability to engage in other business activities that may be in our interest or our ability to react to adverse market developments.
We may not be able to generate sufficient cash to meet our debt service obligations or our growth plans.
Our ability to generate sufficient cash to make scheduled payments on our debt obligations will depend on our future financial performance and on our future cash flow performance, which will be affected by a range of economic, competitive, and business factors, many of which are outside of our control.
If we do not generate sufficient cash to satisfy our debt obligations, including interest payments, or if we are unable to satisfy the requirement for the payment of principal at maturity or other payments that may be required from time to time under
the terms of our debt instruments, we may have to undertake alternative financing plans such as refinancing or restructuring our debt, selling assets, reducing or delaying capital investments, or seeking to raise additional capital. We cannot provide assurance that any refinancing or restructuring would be possible, that any assets could be sold, or, if sold, of the timing of the sales and the amount of proceeds realized from those sales, that additional financing could be obtained on acceptable terms, if at all, or that additional financing would be available or permitted under the terms of our various debt instruments then in effect. Furthermore, the ability to refinance indebtedness would depend upon the condition of the finance and credit markets at the time which have in the past been, and may in the future be, volatile. Our inability to generate sufficient cash to satisfy our debt obligations or to refinance our obligations on commercially reasonable terms or on a timely basis would have an adverse effect on our business, our results of operations and our financial condition.
Under some circumstances, we may be required to or elect to make additional payments to our PPA Entities or the Equity Investors.
Our one remaining PPA Entity (PPA V) is structured in a manner such that, other than the amount of any equity investment we have made, we do not have any further primary liability for the debts or other obligations of the PPA Entities. PPA V, which operates Energy Servers for end customers, has significant restrictions on its ability to incur increased operating costs, or could face events of default under debt or other investment agreements if end customers are not able to meet their payment obligations under PPA V or if Energy Servers are not deployed in accordance with the project’s schedule. If PPA V experiences unexpected, increased costs such as insurance costs, interest expense or taxes or as a result of the acceleration of repayment of outstanding indebtedness, or if end customers are unable or unwilling to continue to purchase power under this PPA, there could be insufficient cash generated from the project to meet the debt service obligations or to meet any targeted rates of return of Equity Investors. If PPA V fails to make required debt service payments, this could constitute an event of default and entitle the lender to foreclose on the collateral securing the debt or could trigger other payment obligations of the PPA. To avoid this, we could choose to contribute additional capital to PPA V to enable such PPA Entity to make payments to avoid an event of default, which could adversely affect our business or our financial condition.
Risks Related to Our Operations
Expanding operations internationally could expose us to additional risks.
Although we currently primarily operate in the United States, we continue to expand our business internationally. We currently have operations in the Asia Pacific region and in Ireland. Any expansion internationally could subject our business to risks associated with international operations, including:
•increased complexity and costs of managing international operations;
•conformity with applicable business customs, including translation into foreign languages and associated expenses;
•lack of availability of government incentives and subsidies;
•challenges in arranging, and availability of, financing for our customers;
•potential changes to our established business model, including installation and/or service challenges that we may have not encountered before;
•cost of alternative power sources, which could be meaningfully lower outside the United States;
•availability and cost of natural gas;
•variability in gas specifications from jurisdiction to jurisdiction;
•effects of adverse changes in currency exchange rates and rising interest rates;
•difficulties in staffing and managing foreign operations in an environment of diverse culture, laws and regulations, and customers, and the increased travel, infrastructure, and legal and compliance costs associated with international operations;
•our ability to develop and maintain relationships with suppliers and other local businesses;
•compliance with product safety requirements and standards;
•our ability to obtain business licenses that may be needed in international locations to support expanded operations;
•compliance with local laws and regulations and unanticipated changes in local laws and regulations, including tax laws and regulations;
•challenges in managing taxation in cross-border transactions;
•greater difficulties in securing or enforcing our intellectual property rights in certain jurisdictions;
•difficulties in enforcing contracts in certain jurisdictions;
•risk of nationalization or other expropriation of private enterprises;
•trade barriers such as export requirements, tariffs, taxes, local content requirements, anti-dumping regulations and requirements, and other restrictions and expenses, which could increase the effective price of our products and make us less competitive in some countries or increase the costs to perform under our existing contracts;
•difficulties in collecting payments in foreign currencies and associated foreign currency exposure;
•restrictions on repatriation of earnings;
•natural disasters (including as a result of climate change), acts of war or terrorism, regional conflict (including the ongoing war in Ukraine and tensions between China and Taiwan), and public health emergencies, including the COVID-19 pandemic; and
•adverse social, political and economic conditions, including inflation, a recessionary environment, and disruptions in capital markets.
We utilize a sourcing strategy that emphasizes global procurement of materials that has direct or indirect dependencies upon a number of vendors with operations in the Asia Pacific region. Physical, regulatory, technological, market, reputational, and legal risks related to climate change in these regions and globally are increasing in impact and diversity and the magnitude of any short-term or long-term adverse impact on our business or results of operations remains unknown. The physical impacts of climate change, including as a result of certain types of natural disasters occurring more frequently or with more intensity or changing weather patterns, could disrupt our supply chain, result in damage to or closures of our facilities, and could otherwise have an adverse impact on our business, operating results and financial condition. In addition, the war in Ukraine resulted in increased sanctions that affected the price of raw materials used in our products, which could have an adverse impact on our operating results.
Our cross-border transactions and international operations are subject to complex foreign and U.S. laws and regulations, including anti-bribery and corruption laws, antitrust or competition laws, data privacy laws, such as the GDPR, and environmental regulations, among others. In particular, recent years have seen a substantial increase in anti-bribery law enforcement activity by U.S. regulators, and we currently operate and seek to operate in many parts of the world that are recognized as having greater potential for corruption. Violations of any of these laws and regulations could result in fines and penalties, criminal sanctions against us or our employees, prohibitions on the conduct of our business and on our ability to offer our products and services in certain geographies, and significant harm to our business reputation. Our policies and procedures to promote compliance with these laws and regulations and to mitigate these risks may not protect us from all acts committed by our employees or third-party vendors, including contractors, agents and services partners. Additionally, the costs of complying with these laws (including the costs of investigations, auditing and monitoring) could adversely affect our current or future business.
The success of our international sales and operations will depend, in large part, on our ability to anticipate and manage these risks effectively. Our failure to manage any of these risks could harm our international operations, reduce our international sales, and could give rise to liabilities, costs or other business difficulties that could adversely affect our operations and financial results.
Data security breaches and cyberattacks could compromise our intellectual property or other confidential information and cause significant damage to our business, the performance of our fleet of Energy Servers, our brand and our reputation.
We maintain information that is confidential, proprietary or otherwise sensitive in nature on our information technology systems, and on the systems of our third-party providers. This information includes intellectual property, financial information and other confidential information related to us and our employees, prospects, customers, suppliers and other business partners. Additionally, our information technology provides us the ability to remotely control some variables of our Energy Servers; they are connected to and controlled and monitored by our centralized remote monitoring service. We rely on our internal software
applications for many of the functions we use to operate our business generally. Cyberattacks are increasing in frequency and evolving in nature. We and our third-party providers are at risk of attack through use of increasingly sophisticated methods, including malware, phishing and the deployment of artificial intelligence to find and exploit vulnerabilities.
Our information technology systems, and those maintained by our third-party providers, have been in the past, and may be in the future, subjected to attempts to gain unauthorized access, disable, destroy, maliciously control or cause other system disruptions. In some cases, it is difficult to anticipate or to detect immediately such incidents and the damage they caused. While these types of incidents have not had a material effect on our business to date, future incidents involving access to our network or improper use of our systems, or those of our third-parties, could compromise confidential, proprietary or otherwise sensitive information, as well as the operation of our Energy Servers.
While we maintain reasonable and appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards and take preventive and proactive measures to combat known and unknown cybersecurity risks, there is no assurance that such actions will be sufficient to prevent future security breaches and cyberattacks. The security of our infrastructure, including the network that connects our Energy Servers to our remote monitoring service, may be vulnerable to breaches, unauthorized access, misuse, computer viruses, or other malicious code and cyberattacks that could have a material adverse impact on our business and our Energy Servers in the field, and the protective measures we have taken may be insufficient to prevent such events. A breach or failure of our networks or computer or data management systems due to intentional actions such as cyberattacks, including but not limited to ransomware attacks, phishing or denial-of-service attacks, negligence, or other reasons, whether as a result of actions by third-parties or our employees, could seriously disrupt our operations or could affect our ability to control or to assess the performance in the field of our Energy Servers and could result in disruption to our business and potentially legal liability.
In addition, security breaches and cyberattacks could negatively impact our brand and reputation and our competitive position and could result in litigation with third parties, regulatory action and increased remediation costs, any of which could adversely impact our business, our financial condition, and our operating results. Although we maintain insurance coverage that may cover certain liabilities in connection with some security breaches and cyberattacks, we cannot be certain it will be adequate for liabilities actually incurred or that any insurer will not deny coverage of future claims.
If we are unable to attract and retain key employees and hire qualified management, technical, engineering, finance and sales personnel, our ability to compete and successfully grow our business could be harmed.
We believe that our success and our ability to reach our strategic objectives are highly dependent on the contributions of our key management, technical, engineering, finance and sales personnel. The loss of the services of any of our key employees could disrupt our operations, delay the development and introduction of our products and services and negatively impact our business, prospects and operating results. In particular, we are highly dependent on the services of Dr. Sridhar, our Founder, President, Chief Executive Officer and Director, and other certain key employees. None of our key employees are bound by employment agreements for any specific term and we cannot assure you that we will be able to successfully attract and retain senior leadership necessary to grow our business. In addition, many of the accounting rules related to our financing transactions are complex and require experienced and highly skilled personnel to review and interpret the proper accounting treatment with respect these transactions, and if we are unable to recruit and retain personnel with the required level of expertise to evaluate and accurately classify our revenue-producing transactions, our ability to accurately report our financial results may be harmed. There is increasing competition for talented individuals in our industry, and competition for qualified personnel is especially intense in the San Francisco Bay Area where our principal offices are located. Our failure to attract and retain our executive officers and other key management, technical, engineering and sales personnel, could adversely impact our business, our financial condition and our operating results.
Competition for manufacturing employees is intense, and we may not be able to attract and retain the qualified and skilled employees needed to support our business.
We believe part of our success depends on the efforts and talent of our manufacturing employees and our ability to attract, develop, motivate and retain such employees. Competition for manufacturing employees is extremely intense. We may not be able to hire and retain these personnel at compensation levels consistent with our existing compensation and salary structure. Some of the companies with which we compete for experienced employees have greater resources than we have and may be able to offer more attractive terms of employment.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock
The stock price of our Class A common stock has been and may continue to be volatile.
The market price of our Class A common stock has been and may continue to be volatile. In addition to factors discussed in this Risk Factors section, the market price of our Class A common stock may fluctuate significantly in response to numerous variables, many of which are beyond our control, including:
•overall performance of the equity markets;
•actual or anticipated fluctuations in our revenue and other operating results;
•changes in the financial projections we may provide to the public or our failure to meet these projections;
•changing market and economic conditions, including a recessionary environment, rising interest rates and inflationary pressures, such as those pressures the market is currently experiencing, which could make our products more expensive or could increase our costs for materials, supplies, and labor;
•failure of securities analysts to initiate or maintain coverage of us, changes in financial estimates by any securities analysts who follow us or our failure to meet these estimates or the expectations of investors;
•the issuance of negative reports from short sellers;
•recruitment or departure of key personnel;
•new laws, regulations, subsidies or credits, or new interpretations of them, applicable to our business;
•negative publicity related to problems in our manufacturing or the real or perceived quality of our products;
•rumors and market speculation involving us or other companies in our industry;
•the failure or distress of competitors in our industry;
•announcements by us or our competitors of significant technical innovations, acquisitions, strategic partnerships or capital commitments;
•lawsuits threatened or filed against us; and
•other events or factors including those resulting from war, natural disasters (including as result of climate change), incidents of terrorism or responses to these events.
In addition, the stock markets have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies. Stock prices of many companies have fluctuated in a manner unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In the past, stockholders have instituted securities class action litigation following periods of market volatility. We are currently involved in securities litigation, which may subject us to substantial costs, divert resources and the attention of management from our business, and adversely affect our business.
We may issue additional shares of our Class A common stock in connection with any future conversion of the Green Notes or in connection with our transaction with SK ecoplant, which may dilute our existing stockholders and potentially adversely affect the market price of our Class A common stock.
In the event that some or all of the Green Notes are converted and we elect to deliver shares of common stock, the ownership interests of existing stockholders will be diluted, and any sales in the public market of any shares of our Class A common stock issuable upon such conversion could adversely affect the prevailing market price of our Class A common stock. If we were not able to pay cash upon conversion of the Green Notes, the issuance of shares of Class A common stock upon conversion of the Green Notes could depress the market price of our Class A common stock.
In addition, we entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement (the “SPA”) with SK ecoplant in October 2021 that allows SK ecoplant to purchase additional shares of Class A common stock. For additional details on this transaction, see Note 18 - SK ecoplant Strategic Investment. The exercise of this option to purchase additional shares may dilute our existing stockholders and potentially adversely affect the market price of our Class A common stock.
The dual class structure of our common stock and the voting agreements among certain stockholders have the effect of concentrating voting control of our Company with KR Sridhar, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and also with those stockholders who held our capital stock prior to the completion of our initial public offering, which limits or precludes your ability to influence corporate matters and may adversely affect the trading price of our Class A common stock.
Our Class B common stock has ten votes per share, and our Class A common stock has one vote per share. As of December 31, 2022, and after giving effect to the voting agreements between KR Sridhar, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and certain holders of Class B common stock, our directors, executive officers, significant stockholders of our common stock, and their respective affiliates collectively held approximately 45% of the voting power of our capital stock. Because of the ten-to-one voting ratio between our Class B and Class A common stock, the holders of our Class B common stock collectively will continue to have the ability to significantly influence the vote on all matters submitted to our stockholders for approval until the earliest to occur of (i) immediately prior to the close of business on July 27, 2023, (ii) immediately prior to the close of business on the date on which the outstanding shares of Class B common stock represent less than five percent (5%) of the aggregate number of shares of Class A common stock and Class B common stock then outstanding, (iii) the date and time or the occurrence of an event specified in a written conversion election delivered by KR Sridhar to our Secretary or Chairman of the Board to so convert all shares of Class B common stock, or (iv) immediately following the date of the death of KR Sridhar. This concentrated control limits or precludes Class A stockholders’ ability to influence corporate matters while the dual class structure remains in effect, including the election of directors, amendments of our organizational documents, and any merger, consolidation, sale of all or substantially all of our assets, or other major corporate transaction requiring stockholder approval. In addition, this may prevent or discourage unsolicited acquisition proposals or offers for our capital stock that Class A stockholders may feel are in their best interest as one of our stockholders.
Future transfers by holders of Class B common stock will generally result in those shares converting to Class A common stock, subject to limited exceptions such as certain transfers effected for estate planning purposes. The conversion of Class B common stock to Class A common stock will have the effect, over time, of increasing the relative voting power of those remaining holders of Class B common stock who retain their shares in the long-term.
The S&P Dow Jones and FTSE Russell have implemented changes to their eligibility criteria for inclusion of shares of public companies on certain indices, including the S&P 500, namely, to exclude companies with multiple classes of shares of common stock from being added to such indices. In addition, several shareholder advisory firms have announced their opposition to the use of multiple class structures. As a result, the dual class structure of our common stock may prevent the inclusion of our Class A common stock in such indices and has caused shareholder advisory firms to publish negative commentary about our corporate governance practices or otherwise seek to cause us to change our capital structure. Any such exclusion from indices could result in a less active trading market for our Class A common stock. Any actions or publications by shareholder advisory firms critical of our corporate governance practices or capital structure could also adversely affect the value of our Class A common stock.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock and do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. We anticipate that we will retain all of our future earnings for use in the development of our business and for general corporate purposes. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our board of directors. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of their Class A common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investments.
Provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of us more difficult, may limit attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management, may limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or employees, and may limit the market price of our Class A common stock.
Provisions in our restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control or changes in our management. Our restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws include provisions that:
•require that our board of directors is classified into three classes of directors with staggered three year terms;
•permit the board of directors to establish the number of directors and fill any vacancies and newly created directorships;
•require super-majority voting to amend some provisions in our restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws;
•authorize the issuance of “blank check” preferred stock that our board of directors could use to implement a shareholder rights plan;
•authorize only the chairman of our board of directors, our chief executive officer, or a majority of our board of directors to call a special meeting of stockholders;
•prohibit stockholder action by written consent, which thereby requires all stockholder actions be taken at a meeting of our stockholders;
•establish a dual class common stock structure in which holders of our Class B common stock may have the ability to control the outcome of matters requiring stockholder approval even if they own significantly less than a majority of the outstanding shares of our common stock, including the election of directors and significant corporate transactions such as a merger or other sale of our Company or substantially all of our assets;
•expressly authorize the board of directors to make, alter, or repeal our bylaws; and
•establish advance notice requirements for nominations for election to our board of directors or for proposing matters that can be acted upon by stockholders at annual stockholder meetings.
In addition, our restated certificate of incorporation and our amended and restated bylaws provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware will be the exclusive forum for: any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf; any action asserting a breach of fiduciary duty; any action asserting a claim against us arising pursuant to the Delaware General Corporation Law, our restated certificate of incorporation or our amended and restated bylaws; or any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine. Our restated certificate of incorporation and our amended and restated bylaws provide that unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the federal district courts of the United States shall be the exclusive forum for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act. These choice of forum provisions may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or any of our directors, officers, or other employees, which thereby may discourage lawsuits with respect to such claims. Alternatively, if a court were to find the choice of forum provision contained in our restated certificate of incorporation and our amended and restated bylaws to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could harm our business, our operating results, and our financial condition.
Moreover, Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law may discourage, delay, or prevent a change in control of our Company. Section 203 imposes certain restrictions on mergers, business combinations, and other transactions between us and holders of 15% or more of our common stock.
Increased scrutiny regarding ESG practices and disclosures could result in additional costs and adversely impact our business, brand and reputation.
Companies across all industries are facing increasing scrutiny relating to their Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) practices and disclosures and institutional and individual investors are increasingly using ESG screening criteria in making investment decisions. Our disclosures on these matters or a failure to satisfy evolving stakeholder expectations for ESG practices and reporting may potentially harm our brand and reputation and impact employee retention and access to capital. In addition, our failure, or perceived failure, to pursue or fulfill our goals, targets, and objectives or to satisfy various reporting standards within the timelines we announce, or at all, could expose us to government enforcement actions and private litigation.
Our ability to achieve any goal or objective, including with respect to environmental and diversity initiatives and compliance with ESG reporting standards, is subject to numerous risks, many of which are outside of our control. Examples of such risks include the availability and cost of technologies and products, evolving regulatory requirements affecting ESG standards or disclosures, our ability to recruit, develop, and retain diverse talent in our labor markets, and our ability to develop and maintain reporting processes and controls that comply with evolving standards for identifying, measuring and reporting ESG metrics. As ESG stakeholder expectations, reporting standards, and disclosure requirements continue to develop, we may incur increasing costs related to ESG monitoring and reporting.