The company manufactures fuel cells that run on natural gas, which is broken down into a hydrogen-rich gas. The natural gas mixes with oxygen in the fuel cell, inducing a chemical reaction and generating electricity within the cell. The reaction also produces heat, which can be used in commercial heating applications — such as keeping a hotel hot during the winter or heating water for a home instead of requiring a separate water heating source.

The funding was led by Artis Capital Management.

ClearEdge Power’s funding is one of the largest investments in clean technology this year outside of electric vehicle manufacturers. The other largest investments this year have come in the form of a $60 million investment in efficient light-emitting diode (LED) manufacturer Bridgelux and trash-to-fuel company Enerkem’s $60 million investment. The funding is mainly geared toward marketing and expanding the company’s sales team, ClearEdge power vice president of marketing Mike Upp told VentureBeat.

“We’re still doing research and development, but we’re no longer a laboratory,” he said. “We’ve been shipping product for a while, so the funding is more on the marketing and sales side to expand beyond California to the East Coast, as well as Korea.”

The cells capture energy in the form of both electricity and heat, so they capture about 90 percent of the available energy from the reaction. The fuel cells plug into a typical power grid, but there are plans to make them independent of a power grid, the company said in its announcement. The fuel cell is about the size of a refrigerator, costs around $56,000 and generates 5 kilowatts of power and 5.8 kilowatts of energy in the form of heat — so it’s a little impractical for typical residential owners.

“We’re still interested in residential, high-end residential cells — a 5,000 square foot house or larger,” Upp said. “Those are our early customers, that’s a market focus for us, but the main focus is light commercial or institutional customers, like schools or businesses.”

The company recently secured a $2.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy that gave the company capital to install 10 fuel cells at businesses in Oregon. The funding came from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), which will monitor the fuel cells to see if they are producing the kind of energy savings expected for the businesses that purchase them.

ClearEdge

The grant will give ClearEdge working capital to produce and install fuel cells in 10 new businesses in Oregon and California. The funding came from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), which will monitor the fuel cells to see if they are producing the kind of energy savings expected for the businesses that purchase them. The fuel cells are connected to the Internet, which will let PNNL researchers monitor them in real-time.

The fuel cells run on natural gas, which is broken down into a hydrogen-rich gas in the fuel cell. The natural gas mixes with oxygen in the fuel cell, inducing a chemical reaction and generating electricity within the cell. The reaction also produces heat, which can be used in commercial heating applications — such as keeping a hotel hot during the winter or heating water for a home instead of requiring a separate water heating source.

The cells capture energy in the form of both electricity and heat, so they are around 90 percent efficient, according to ClearEdge. The fuel cells plug into on a typical power grid, but there are plans to make them independent of a power grid, the company said in its announcement. The fuel cell is about the size of a refrigerator, costs around $56,000 and generates 5 kilowatts of power and 5.8 kilowatts of energy in the form of heat — so it’s a little impractical for typical residential owners.

But the company said it is still focusing on residential markets as well as institutions and commercial applications. Fuel cells also have the potential to power electric cars and other forms of next-generation technology and help cut carbon emissions produced by typical power sources like coal- and fossil-fuel-burning power plants. ClearEdge’s fuel cells do not emit air pollutants and reduce carbon emissions by around 35 to 40 percent, according to the company.

Tesla will unveil Model X electric SUV this year — Elon Musk laid out the company’s electric car lineup plans and said Tesla would develop a “mainstream” car costing $30,000 in four years, Earth2Tech reports. The company currently makes the all-electric sports car Roadster (pictured), and is working on the Model S sedan for release in 2012.

First Solar gets $967M from DOE for Arizona project — The Agua Caliente project in Yuma County, Ariz. will be a 290-megawatt solar facility using thin-film panels from First Solar. First Solar sold the project to NRG Solar just last year; power produced by the project will be bought be Pacific Gas & Electric and transmitted to California consumers.

Diamond Green Diesel gets DOE funds for biodiesel – The Department of Energy has awarded a $241 million loan guarantee to Diamond Green Diesel, a joint venture between Valero and Darling International. The funds will be used to construct a 137 million gallon-per-year biodiesel plant in Louisiana. Valero will handle construction and operations, while Darling will supply feedstock.

USDA awards $405 million for biofuels — The funds, which come in the form of loan guarantees, will go to back the construction of biofuels plants by Coskata, Enerkem and Ineos Bio. Coskata won the biggest loan guarantee for biofuels ever, $250 million for what it says will become the largest commercial cellulosic ethanol plant in the world.

Bloom Energy launches new electricity service —  Hot fuel cell company Bloom offering an electricity service using its signature fuel cell servers, cutting out the upfront cost of hardware for customers and only charging them for power consumed. Bloom’s CFO also told VentureBeat the company is “not focused” on an IPO at the moment.

Alcoa, Duke announce China deals — Alcoa and China Power Investment Corp. will collaborate on aluminum and energy projects, worth $7.5 billion in investments, the Wall Street Journal reports. Utility company Duke announced it would partner with Chinese utility China Huaneng Group and China’s ENN to discuss and potentially collaborate on clean energy initiatives.

Bloom Energy is toning down talk of its much-speculated IPO plans this year and looking to expand its reach with a new, more affordable offering that sells electricity generated from its fuel cell-packed Bloom Box, without requiring customers to pay for any of the pricey Bloom hardware.

“We’re not focused on an IPO, we’re focused on building a company that can deliver clean, reliable affordable energy, and we’re quite happy with our ability to finance our company through the private markets,” said Bill Kurtz, CFO. (Pictured left is Bloom Energy CEO KR Sridhar.)

Last year, peHUB reported Bloom was attempting to raise $50 million pre-2011 IPO, on top of $400 million already raised from venture firms like Kleiner Perkins. It’s unclear whether Bloom successfully raised the money or not — SEC filings are scant, and the company hasn’t made any announcements regarding additional funding. Bloom burst onto the scene last year with high-profile clients like Walmart, Google and eBay, who all installed the Bloom Box, a fuel cell unit that converts natural gas into electricity, powerful enough to supply up to 100 American homes.

I wondered if the new electricity program, called Bloom Electrons, would mark a change in strategy for the company. Because its units are expensive (reportedly around $800,000) — a price some would argue is prohibitive —  Bloom had also previously talked about producing a smaller, $3,000 Bloom Box that could power an individual home. And yep, it looks like Bloom will be focusing on the potential of the Electrons program, so it’s unlikely there will be a mini-Bloom Box on the market any time soon:

“The potential (for a smaller box) is there. Right now, given the significant demand and  interest we have from the commercial customers, we’re focused at this time for the next few years on satisfying the demand for commercial (installations),” Kurtz said.

Selling the electricity directly to consumers at competitive rates takes away all talk of capital-investment obstacles, and it’s a program in high demand from Bloom’s customers, Kurtz says. The cost of electricity via the Bloom Electrons program should shave five to 20 percent off energy costs and allow customers to lock in electricity costs for 10-year periods.

The unit reportedly costs somewhere between $700,000 and $800,000, and Greentech Media made the case that the box’s actual price per watt comes out to a hefty $12.50. Kurtz said the company doesn’t release those numbers because they fluctuate as the technology improves — saying only that the company’s shareholders and customers are happy.

“We’re seeing the benefits of scaling, of manufacturing, of supply improvements in our design, which is making the box more efficient, more cost-effective,” Kurtz said. “We’re very clear that as a company, we need to be competitive with the alternative.”

Kurtz says that the Electrons program, while only available in California (all of Bloom’s installations to date have been limited to California), could easily be replicated across the country and even the world.

The appeal of programs like Bloom Electrons is that they aim to mimic traditional power delivery from the grid. You doesn’t have to help finance construction of a coal-fired plant in order to turn on a light in your home, so the model allows companies to present customers a more appealing deal: No capital cost of hardware, be green and, with the help of subsidies and efficient technology, get alternative energy at prices competitive with traditional energy prices.

It looks like Bloom’s attempt to expand its reach and offer more affordable options —  it has been criticized in the past for the roughly $800,000 price tag of its Bloom Boxes. Bloom also announced today a number of customers — some of them returning ones — who have signed up for its new Bloom Electrons service: Walmart, Coca-Cola, Staples, Kaiser Permanente, and a two-megawatt installation at the California Institute of Technology, where it is livestreaming its announcement today at 10 a.m. PT. It is also teaming with Southern California Gas to supply natural gas, which the boxes use to convert to electricity efficiently and nearly emissions-free.

The launch of the program answers whether Bloom would put out a more-affordable option for its fuel cell anytime soon, a question that has lingered since the Kleiner Perkins-backed company made a splash last year on a 60 Minutes segment. Customers like Adobe, Google and eBay spend between $700,000 and $800,000 for one Bloom Box, a fuel cell roughly the size of a parking space that Bloom claims can power up to 100 American homes. Each Bloom Box is filled with stacks of razor-thin discs each of which that, when infused with a source of fuel like natural gas, can put out enough electricity to power a light bulb, using technology CEO KR Sridhar initially developed at NASA. But Bloom has also said it would develop a cheaper, $3,000 version of the box that could power an individual home.

The Bloom Electrons program requires a 10-year contract, with customers paying only for the cost of electricity consumed, taking away the upfront capital costs and, Bloom says, saving them 20 percent on electricity bills.  The company will initially deploy 200 systems, or 20 megawatts’ worth of fuel cells.

Bloom teamed with Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse on the financial aspects of the program, and partnered with Southern California Gas to supply the natural gas for its fuel cells.

Bloom Electrons feels reminiscent of solar leasing, a popular new model in which homeowners pay a monthly leasing fee and for solar power generated by panels leased to them by companies like Sungevity, SunRun and SolarCity, which offer cheap solar power without having to pay tens of thousands of dollars to install a solar system and lock in rates on 10- and 20-year contracts.

Bloom has raised $400 million from investors so far and has dangled the prospect of a 2011 before, and talked about smaller-scale fuel cells that would be cheaper but could potentially allow houses or entire neighborhoods to run completely off the grid.

Best of cleantech in 2010:

Bloom Energy — The fuel cell maker made a big splash entrance with a 60 Minutes segment in February. It said its Bloom Boxes, which cost around $800,000, can each power up to 100 American homes. The company has installed the devices — essentially big fuel cells which can both store and produce energy — at high-profile companies like Google, FedEx, Wal-Mart and eBay. In September, it made its biggest installation yet of 12 boxes at Adobe’s San Jose campus.

Tesla IPO – Silicon Valley’s electric-car wonder, the maker of the Roadster (pictured, right) and the upcoming 2012 Model S sedan had a blockbuster IPO in June. Shares started at $17 and jumped 40.5 percent in the first day of trading in the midst of a lackluster cleantech IPO season. Though Tesla has its share of skeptics and its stock dropped this week on anticipation of new shares flooding the market, its debut was undoubtedly a success story in cleantech. The company’s future now rests on whether it can successfully execute the manufacturing and delivery of the 2012 Model S, which it is assembling in its new Fremont factory — built, in another triumph, on the site of a former Toyota-GM joint venture which it bought for a song.

BrightSource Energy — The company’s 392-megawatt Ivanpah solar thermal project in California’s Mojave Desert won a $1.37 billion loan guarantee from the DOE. When finished, it is expected to generate enough energy to power 140,000 homes. The project nabbed a $300 million investment from power plant heavyweight NRG Energy and BrightSource is rumored to be pursuing an IPO in 2011. BrightSource’s technology (pictured, right) uses a field of mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a central tower, which uses the heat to boil water to generate steam that turns electric turbines.

Abound Solar – The company closed on $510 million in funding this month to expand production of its thin-film solar modules. Thin-film operations like Abound’s are a beacon of hope for U.S. cleantech manufacturing and an answer to China’s cheap manufacturing of polysilicon solar modules, DOE loan chief Jonathan Silver predicts. Solar analyst Nathaniel Bullard of Bloomberg New Energy Finance tells me that after the ramp-up, the next test for the company will be to secure a large supply contract with “a large, traditionally conservative procurer — a Wal-Mart or American Electric Power or Tenaska Resources — to prove the commercial mettle and not just technical capabilities of the product.”

LEDs show some spark — The market for these energy-efficient lights is poised to surge next year, according to analysts, and there are a bevy of lighting systems and LED makers lining up to jump on the market opportunity there, which, like electric trucks, can pitch their wares to businesses on the basis of generating big savings. Bridgelux opened a manufacturing plant in California; Taiwan LED parts manufacturer SemiLED had a successful IPO this month, raising the question: Can American LED makers keep up?

Electric cars roll out en masse — The all-electric Nissan Leaf and partially electric Chevrolet Volt (pictured, left) are on the roads as of December 2010, marking the official start of the wave of electric cars for the mass market. And more on the way: Electric sedan made by startup Coda and the Ford Focus Electric are slated for limited release next year. Public charging station projects are racing to meet them, but some skeptics of electric cars say sales will be stunted in the near term due to lack of widespread charging infrastructure. (The flip side, advocates say, is that the vast majority of charging will be done in car owners’ homes.)

Smith Electric/electric trucks catch on — The likes of Frito Lay, UPS, Coca-Cola and FedEx have adopted electric and hybrid trucks, putting the all-electric vehicles on the roads ahead of mass market EVs. One company grabbing those sales and buzz is Smith Electric, whose CEO Brian Hansel told me the company’s trucks are back-ordered until the second quarter of next year. The trucks demonstrate the potential money-saving benefits of electrified vehicles for commercial entities, using cold, hard cash to allure versus the you’ll-save-the-polar-bears pitch of mass market consumer cars.

Opower — Energy efficiency company Opower just raised $50 million in a round led by Kleiner Perkins and Accel. The company has managed to sign on utilities to energy efficiency and engage customers with the innovative use of behavioral science.

Hara — Energy efficiency software company Hara has done well lately — the company has nabbed high profile customers out the gate (Hasbro, Coca-Cola, News Corp.) and recently introduced its biggest software product to date, a module that helps search out energy-saving opportunities along companies’ supply chains.

Honorable mention — For next year, keep an eye on the promising building controls and demand response sectors as well.

Worst of cleantech in 2010:

Applied Materials – The semiconductor company shut down its thin-film solar business in July and laid off 500 workers, an event that signalled tough times for thin-film solar makers. Fast Company recently chronicled the crash, saying the company bungled $1.5 billion in product orders, continually missed production deadlines, then saw two of its biggest customers go bankrupt.

Tessera Solar — One almost hates to kick a company when it’s down, but there’s no doubt NTR’s Tessera has suffered a rough bout of setbacks as of late. Today, power developer K Road announced it has bought Tessera’s Calico solar project in California, once planned to be the proving ground and showcase for  Tessera’s Suncatcher solar technology (pictured, right). Just a few days ago, Southern California Edison cancelled its power purchase agreement for Calico. Overall, a disappointing end for a solar project that has been several years in the making. The company has also reportedly laid of half its staff, lost executives at its sister company Stirling Energy and suffered a court-ordered delay on construction for its Imperial Valley solar project.

Solyndra – The company yanked its IPO in June, then closed its first factory. Not exactly a dream scenario for a startup that has reportedly raised around $1 billion, got a visit from President Obama and won the DOE’s flagship loan guarantee of $535 million. On the other hand, at least one venture capitalist thinks Solyndra could make a turnaround and re-pitch its IPO hopes in 2011, and DOE loan chief Jonathan Silver argues that the first factory was always intended to close because it wasn’t as efficient as the second factory will be. For the sake of U.S. solar startups, keep your fingers crossed.

A123 -- The battery maker and MIT spinoff IPO’d in September 2009, rising 50 percent to $20.29 from an offering price of $13.50 on its first day of trading. But the price has since come down, now trading at $9.80. It has struggled since the IPO. In August, the company posted lackluster earnings and lost out on two high-profile bids for Chrysler and to build battery packs for the Chevrolet Volt — deals that would have positioned the company as a formidable presence in the industry.

PetroAlgae — This biofuels company is pitching a massive $200 million IPO despite having no history of revenues, ever. Analysts expect it to withdraw or flop, and which could potentially harm the burgeoning sector of algae fuels.

Proposition 23 — Voters said no to the measure, so technically this was a good thing for green energy — but we’re naming it as a “worst” for being on the ballot at all. This was a failed measure was backed by oil companies like Valero and Tesero and aimed to suspend California’s AB 32 law, which requires the state to roll back greenhouse emissions to its 1990 levels by 2020. Had it passed, there almost certainly would have been ugly aftereffects for the country’s clean energy innovation stronghold, California.

[Top image via Flickr/ Eustaquio Santimano]

Augmented Reality: The Next generation because Terminator‘s augmented reality vision was as science fiction as it got when I was growing up in the 80s.

Two startups say they can keep your phone charged wherever you are and Coming soon.. a green laptop which runs on water. Because power is sexy.

Sproxil takes on Africa’s drug counterfeiters and M-health application emerge at mobile world congress. Mobile technology can save lives.

Afraid the clothes you buy online won’t fit? Get help from a robotic mannequin. Finally! Clothes shopping and robots in one package. What more could a tech girl want?

New book says we relate to computers like humans because our social lives with machines is so fascinating.

Women in tech: What to do now because even though I am sick of the whole subject, it’s an important one (and Arrington asked for it).

The SolSource solar oven wins 500K EU in the Green Challenge. The two winning entrepreneurs in the Green Challenge (both in their mid-20s) are among the most impressive I have encountered. And they let me share their champagne.

Can clean energy close India’s energy gap? Newsflash! Green products can have major social benefits and be good business, even when the customers are among the poorest people on the planet.

32 companies charging the supergrid. Power got even sexier.

Return of the celtic tiger: Can renewables refuel the Irish economy? My home country may currently be a byword for economic disaster but it’s not all bad news. Plus I got to compare Ireland to Amy Winehouse.

Abeo thinks BIG for its superlight structures. A big idea from a small company. Could revolutionalize the construction of concrete buildings.

ZenRobotics robot recyclers go for green in the CleanTech Open. More robots, this time replacing manual recycling.

Smart grid in Europe is all about renewables. Energy and food will be crucial resources of the 21st century. Europe leads the way in renewables.

SiGNa Chemistry’s CEO Michael Lefenfeld told me that the new process could make hydrogen fuel cells practical as a power source for consumer electronics like laptops and cell phones. Since the hydrogen is generated from water, this effectively means that you end up with a water-fueled laptop.

A fuel cell transforms the chemical energy of a fuel (hydrogen, methanol, natural gas, gasoline), and an oxidant like the oxygen in air, into electrical energy. Fuel cells have many similarities with batteries, but no electrodes are consumed in the fuel cell process. In a hydrogen fuel cell, hydrogen is produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is then used as the fuel.

Generating hydrogen in real-time (as opposed to refueling) can be problematic, and hydrogen normally needs to be stored under high pressure. SiGNa’s new process produces hydrogen in real-time and at pressures less than those found in a soda can. The company claims that this results in a power source that is ten times cheaper than alkaline batteries and six times cheaper than disposable lithium batteries. As an example, the company says it would cost $967 to buy enough alkaline batteries to charge a cell phone 100 times (800 Watts per hour). Lithium batteries cost about $512 for 100 charges. SiGNa’s sodium silicide fuel cell, produced in reasonable volumes, would cost $89 for 100 uses.

SiGNa’s hydrogen generation process uses sodium silicide, a powder that is formed by combining sodium metal with silicon powder. The resulting powder is stored in disposable canisters and reacts controllably with water to produce hydrogen. Unlike other generation methods, sea water or polluted water can be used. The reaction is easily controlled, resulting in fuel cells with a fast start and stop capability. This is a problem in many current fuel cells, since once the fuel cell has used 30-40 percent of the fuel it cannot be stopped and continues to produce power until all the fuel is consumed.

The target market of sodium silicide fuel cells include consumer electronics and certain transport applications such as electric bikes. Products already exist that use hydrogen fuel cells to charge cell phones. Asia is the big market for electric bikes. A lithium battery barely lasts 20 miles for an electric bike whereas a fuel cell lasts 3-4 times this distance.

I asked CEO Michael Lefenfeld about the main obstacles to using hydrogen fuel cells to power consumer electronics. He explained that the main problem is that you need to produce the fuel cells on a large enough scale to keep the production cost low. Lefenfeld told me that since offering longer battery life on a laptop, for example, is a major selling point, that several manufacturers are looking at using the cells on a large scale. He expects the first products will be fuel cells that recharge the existing lithium battery on a laptop and will be available in mid-2011. Eventually fuel cells could replace the on-board battery.

Lithium batteries have problems with overheating that don’t arise with fuel cells. Batteries also contain lots of toxic materials that must be disposed of carefully. Sodium silitate can be disposed of in municipal waste and can even be recycled and resold to cement manufacturers and other industries.

SiGNa Chemistry is based in New York, is privately funded and has around 20 employees.

The initiative is called the Hawaii Hydrogen Initiative, and it aims to make hydrogen available for all one million residents on the island of Oahu by 2015 through a total of 20 to 25 hydrogen stations installed around the island. It mirrors some of the infrastructure being built nationwide, like the efforts in Norway previously reported on by VentureBeat. The initiative is led by Hawaiian utility The Gas Company and includes a total of ten companies collaborating on the project.

It looks like GM is banking on Hawaii being a good market for its Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell car, if and when the vehicle becomes commercially available. Hawaii has been the state of choice for many electric vehicle and clean energy projects. Hawaii is one of the more progressive clean energy states, banning coal plants and instituting a plan to reach 70 percent of energy use derived from renewables by 2030. That has made it an attractive market to clean energy companies like electric car startup Coda, solar financing company SunRun and electric vehicle infrastructure startup Better Place.

It’s also an interesting move for GM (albeit not a huge one) as it looks to go greener. It’s bringing out the range extender Chevrolet Volt (a partially electric car), has pledged to invest $40 million in green energy projects and, now, is investing in a small hydrogen infrastructure project. Lately, the major automakers making news for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are folks like Honda and Mercedes-Benz. Both of those companies will begin leasing hydrogen cars in California next year. Hawaii is also big on electric cars and infrastructure and will be among the first states to get the limited-release electric cars coming to market, like the Nissan Leaf and Coda sedan.

It’s also an example of how companies are building the infrastructure for a technology before it’s actually created or released — like the build-out of electric car chargers nationwide — in some cases by utilities themselves – or Google’s investment the Atlantic Wind Connection, an ambitious transmission backbone for offshore wind farms that have yet to be built (but would need transmission lines in order to become fully operational). Indeed, the supply of hydrogen outstrips the supply of cars in Hawaii at the moment. The Gas Company says it currently makes enough hydrogen to power 10,000 hydrogen cars.

Boeing will test biofuel made by PetroChina, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Chinese solar stocks have stumbled since Friday’s news that the U.S. government is investigating subsidies that the Chinese give its solar companies, Investors Business Daily reports. The United Steelworkers unions filed a complaint saying the subsidies have allowed Chinese solar companies to undercut American companies in price.

WeatherBug announced a suite of smart grid products that will use the company’s real-time weather forecasting to help utilities better predict and forecast demand.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group published a report saying its wireless technology is well-poised for a move to the smart grid, and could be used to provide wireless connectivity to smart meters.

Thin-film cadmium telluride solar panel makers are likely nearing an efficiency wall, Greentech Media reports. Cad-Tel manufacturers like First Solar and Solexant are likely to pursue lower costs per watt in order to compete.

Hydrogen-powered fuel cell company ClearEdge Power has raised $10 million, the Portland Business Journal reports.

Smart grid software company GridPoint announced it has appointed a temporary CEO, transitioning the founder and former CEO to non-executive chairman of the board.

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The company makes fuel cells that generate energy onsite. Each of its parking-space sized Bloom Boxes contains thousands of ceramic squares that can convert air and natural gas into electricity while producing little to no emissions.

The fuel cells will power Adobe’s three office towers (four boxes assigned to each tower) and are expected to generate one-third of the location’s electricity. Adobe will purchase methane as feedstock through a five-year contract with a Pennsylvania landfill and expects to save 121.5 million pounds of carbon over the next decade.

Each box packs a wallop – it can generate 100 kilowatts of energy, enough to power 100 average American homes. The so-called “power plant in a box” was unveiled earlier this year to great fanfare and bold assertions – the boxes, company representatives said, could one day replace electricity from the grid itself.

One selling point that fuel cells have above other renewable energies are that they aren’t dependent on weather conditions, the way solar and wind are. In fact, that’s how Adobe came to settle on the fuel-cell solution after the company installed 20 wind turbines at its campus last year and was looking for ways to deepen its green practices.

“While the wind is fairly constant, they’re not a large producer of energy at this point. Fuel cells look like they offered the best alternative,” said Randy Knox, senior director of workplace solutions for Adobe.

The company hired a professor to look at three possibilities, who deemed Bloom Energy “the future of fuel cells.” Adobe hasn’t ruled out solar for other locations – it just doesn’t work for an urban environment.

Urban areas and clusters of office towers don’t have the large rooftop space needed to install solar panels. So while solar may work for, say, Wal-Mart stores, it doesn’t make as much sense for an office building.

“At this point and based on everything I’ve seen, I would say fuel cells are by far the best solution in an urban environment,” Knox said.

Adobe’s installation is a big one, but it isn’t the first big name to jump on board Bloom’s fuel cell train. Wal-Mart, Google, FedEx and eBay have all installed the boxes. Big installations can cost up to $800,000 per box, but the company has indicated plans to produce smaller versions for residential use at around $3,000 per unit.

The company has declined to comment on the story. Private Equity Hub caught wind of the fundraising via internal sources, who also said that Northgate Capital may be joining existing backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and New Enterprise Associates. These investors have already sunk $400 million into Bloom, which is quickly becoming one of the most expensive green tech plays to date.

Despite the media blitz in February, a lot of mystery still surrounds the Bloom Box. Right now, it is sold only on a large scale, with units costing $800,000 apiece. Installations are already pumping out power for early adopters like Wal-Mart, Google and FedEx. eBay reported that its nine Bloom Boxes saved it $100,000 in energy costs over the first nine months they were installed.

This sounds all well and good, but the technology — initially developed by now CEO KR Sridhar at NASA — is still secretive, and its implications sound too radical to be true. Bloom says that in the next 5 to 10 years it will be selling fuel-cell boxes for individual households for less than $3,000. If this happens, the company could remove whole homes from the grid, supplanting utilities and their unwieldy, long-distance transmission lines. This would restructure the way energy is delivered the world over.

There is a camp of analysts and investors — like Kleiner’s John Doerr, a serious evangelist — that believes Bloom has the same game-changing potential as Google or Facebook, the first of its kind in the cleantech sector. But others wonder how the company will even afford to get its products to market if it’s already burnt through so much money and is now looking for more.

As is, there’s no way Bloom is going to compete cost-wise with utility-delivered energy for next five years at least. In order to encourage adoption, the government would have to launch a major consumer incentive campaign. But this is unlikely to happen, considering how powerful utility interests are in the U.S. It’s been suggested that utilities might become Bloom’s biggest customers, installing the boxes in their coverage areas and selling the energy they generate. But utilities aren’t going to want to do this until they absolutely have to.

Private Equity Hub has also heard that Bloom told investors that its last round of funding would provide enough runway to get it to its public exit. There’s a sense that the company doesn’t have a good grasp on its roadmap, and is trying to run on the same hype surrounding other cleantech stars like Tesla Motors.

This makes participating in Bloom’s rumored new round a hefty bet for new investors. Do they sit it out and hang their heads if and when the technology revolutionizes the global energy market? Or do they buy a stake and wait for years as the Bloom Box struggles to break into the mainstream? Both outcomes are equally likely at this juncture.

We will update the story as soon as we hear back from analysts and prospective investors.

Akermin, a St. Louis developer of new biocatalytic enzymes, raised $5 million in a second tranche of its first funding round. Investors included Prolog Ventures, OnPoint Technologies, Chrysalix Energy and the St. Louis Arch Angels.

Akermin works with catalytic enzymes — molecules that speed particular chemical reactions — developed with biotechnology that could replace precious-metal catalysts now used in fuel cells. The company is developing prototype “biofuel cells” and thin-fuel cells the company refers to as “bio-batteries.” Enzymes should theoretically be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than metal catalysts.

Fuel cells, which could theoretically replace conventional batteries and engines in some applications, are one of those clean technologies that have been on the table for decades in one form or another. However, existing technologies generally aren’t considered cost- or energy-effective when compared to burning fossil fuels or using traditional batteries.

Akermin is part of a wave of startups working on overcoming the difficulties in making fuel cells. Another is Bloom Energy, a secretive Silicon Valley startup that has nevertheless received plenty of press.

Akermin’s technology is a polymer “stabilizer” for these enzymes that’s designed to immobilize them, stabilize them and enhance their operating lifetime. The company has raised a total of just under $8.5 million since its founding.