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Bloom Energy

BE
Our rating
buyhigh conviction
12-month target
$296.29 +51.0%
Expected vs. S&P 500
+32.5 ptsSee the math
Next earnings
Feb 4In 91 days

More than a third of Bloom's record third-quarter sales was booked but not yet billed, so the cash behind its profits depends on customers paying on schedule.

Summary

Bloom Energy makes fuel cells that let AI data centers make their own power on site instead of waiting years for the grid. Sales more than doubled last quarter and management raised its full-year forecast for the third time. Yet the stock fell 11% the next day because the quarter used cash, as unbilled sales piled up and factory spending jumped. The stock depends on earnings rising about 60% next year, and on two big buyers, who account for most sales, paying on time.

$214.02
+$71.65 (+50.33%)Past year
What Bloom Energy does

Bloom makes fuel cells that turn natural gas into electricity without burning it, right beside the building that needs the power. Its pitch is speed: power in months, not the years a grid hookup takes.2,1,3,19,9,10

What it sells

  • Fuel cell systems87% of revenue, Q3 2026

    Refrigerator-sized power units sold mostly to AI data centers and utilities. This is where nearly all the growth and profit comes from.

  • Installation7% of revenue, Q3 2026

    Building and connecting the systems on site, booked as each project hits its milestones.

  • Service contracts5% of revenue, Q3 2026

    Long maintenance contracts on the installed fleet, including replacing worn fuel cell stacks. Steadier, but lower margin than new systems.

Who buys it

Mostly AI data center builders and the utilities serving them, including AEP, Oracle and Nebius; AEP is building a Bloom plant for Google. Two customers bought about 69% of last quarter's sales, and the second is a Brookfield-led financing venture Bloom partly owns.

Where you've seen it

At dozens of Home Depot stores, where Bloom fuel cells have supplied most of each store's power.

The backstory

AI data centers need huge amounts of power, but utilities often need years to connect them and new gas turbines are sold out for years. Bloom spent two decades mostly losing money selling fuel cells to retailers and tech campuses. In late 2025 Brookfield committed up to $5B to fund Bloom projects, and in January 2026 AEP agreed to buy about $2.65B of its systems. Bloom is expanding its California factories to meet that demand.

How the business makes money

Why Bloom's profits run ahead of its cash1,2,3,7,9,15

  1. Step 1

    Data centers that cannot get grid power for years buy Bloom's on-site fuel cells, often through funding partners like Brookfield and AEP.

  2. Step 2

    Bloom books most of a system's profit when it is delivered, at roughly 38 cents of gross profit per dollar of product sales.

  3. Step 3

    Customers pay on project milestones, so the faster sales grow, the more cash sits in amounts not yet billed.

  4. Step 4

    Once growth steadies, those bills turn into cash, and service contracts add years of steady revenue.

  5. What shareholders get

    The stock is priced for earnings to keep climbing fast, so it needs both more orders and that cash to arrive.

Advantages

Power in months, not years

Major advantage

This is the main reason customers pay. Bloom says it delivered power to Oracle's Utah site in under two months, while BloombergNEF put the wait for a new combined-cycle gas plant at five years. A data center earns nothing until it has power, so Bloom argues each month saved outweighs its higher cost per unit of power.3,15

Factories built to scale

Strong advantage

A real lead over other fuel cell makers. Bloom is doubling yearly capacity to about 2 GW by the end of 2026, and its Fremont plant has room for about 5 GW. FuelCell Energy is expanding toward 500 MW by 2028, so Bloom is the default choice for large fuel cell orders.17,3,16

Funding partners that pay for the plants

Supporting

Helps customers say yes. Brookfield's up to $5B commitment and AEP's purchases mean a data center can buy power without paying for the equipment itself. The catch is that a few partners now account for most of Bloom's sales.2,7,9

What's changing

From proving demand to proving cash

Demand is no longer the question. Bloom raised its 2026 revenue forecast to $4.4B to $4.6B, about double last year, and is preparing for capacity beyond the 5 GW its Fremont plant can hold. The test now is cash: quarterly capex rose to $153M, and sales booked but not yet billed keep climbing. The CFO said the negative quarter is not the beginning of a trend.1,3,5

Competitors

Who else an investor would consider, and how they compare.

CompanyMarket valueWhat it doesCompared with Bloom Energy
Bloom Energythis stock
$63.28B
Bloom makes fuel cells that turn natural gas into electricity without burning it, right beside the building that needs the power. Its pitch is speed: power in months, not the years a grid hookup takes.
GE VernovaGEV—Large gas turbines for utility power plants, with orders booked years ahead.GE Vernova sells cheaper power at huge scale; Bloom delivers far sooner.15
CaterpillarCAT—Large gas engines and turbines for power plants, increasingly sold to data centers.Caterpillar burns gas in proven machines; Bloom converts it without combustion.21
Mainspring Energy (private)private—Linear generators that run on gas or hydrogen, sold for on-site power.AEP now buys from both, so Bloom no longer has that utility to itself.10
FuelCell EnergyFCEL—A different fuel cell type, now pitched to data centers after years of utility projects.FuelCell Energy is still losing money; Bloom already earns sizable profits.16