Redefining Scale of Power at Industrial Level: Siemens and FuelCell Energy Tackling Distributed Energy Together
Commercial and industrial automation and engineering giant Siemens will collaborate with FuelCell Energy to accelerate the latter’s power generation work in growing industrial-level on-site power.
Both companies say the partnership will promote growth of fuel cells, which use an electrochemical process to convert fuels into electricity without emissions. The fuel cells can be utilized and expanded in distributed energy systems.
Siemens will design and supply electrical balance of plant (EBOP) systems to utilize fuel cell installations. This would be deployed in 100 MW and bigger commercial projects, with Siemens Smart Infrastructure and its EBOP expertise utilized to create distributed energy systems including fuel cells, battery storage, microgrid controls and medium-voltage electrical equipment.
“The rapid growth of electrification and distributed energy is redefining how power must be delivered at scale,” Kevin Brown, Siemens Smart Infrastructure USA’s head of sustainability solutions, electrification and automation, said in a statement. “By combining FuelCell Energy’s fuel cell technology with Siemens’ electrical infrastructure, service, and integration expertise, we can deliver scalable, on-site power solutions for energy-intensive applications – helping customers deploy power faster, scale with confidence, and advance their transition to lower-emission, more resilient energy systems.”
What’s driving collaboration in industrial-scale distributed energy?
The rise in demand from anticipated artificial intelligence, cloud-based computing, automation and industrial electrification is outpacing the state of growth in utility-scale power generation. Many companies and even regulators such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are encouraging a “bring your own generation” movement to bypass interconnection delays and ensure hyperscale customers pay for their own energy investment instead of ratepayers.
“This collaboration with Siemens enables us to deliver what the market has been asking for—bringing generation and electrical infrastructure together into a single, scalable solution,” FuelCell Energy Chief Product and Technology Officer Shankar Achanta said. “For customers, that means reliable, on-site power that is faster to deploy and built to scale, beginning with the data centers driving today’s demand.”
Upscaling U.S. the manufacturing footprint in an industrial compute age
Two months ago, Siemens announced it was investing an additional $200 million in new facilities manufacturing electrical infrastructure in the U.S. These new plants in Georgia and Texas include production of switchgears and low-voltage systems for the data center market.
The $200 million capital expenditure promise came shortly after Siemens had detailed $1 billion in domestic manufacturing initiatives throughout 2026. The equipment lines will support markets such as data centers and AI, of course, but also healthcare, rail, semiconductors and utility infrastructure.
Siemens and the Siemens Energy unit which spun off years ago both contribute technologies to electrify, automate and decarbonize the oil and gas sector. The two Siemens have been completely separated for years. Siemens Energy is being rebranded as Omterra soon through the unification with subsidiary Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy.
Connecticut-based FuelCell Energy itself has revealed a $200 million expansion of its Torrington manufacturing plant. According to reports, the upsized plant could reach 500 MW in annual capacity production.
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About the Author
Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing EditorRod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor
Managing Editor
For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].
Rod Walton has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World.
EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.