IKEA fires up fifth biogas fuel cell

By Anna Simet | March 17, 2017

Swedish home furnishing retailer IKEA has finished installing its fifth biogas-powered fuel cell system among its fleet of California stores, the company announced March 16.

The fuel cell, installed at IKEA’s East Palo Alto location in the San Francisco Bay area, is the size of a commercial back-up generator, with a capacity of 300 kW. It brings the company’s total biogas-based energy to 1.5 MW. The last fuel cell installation the company completed was in San Diego in January. Previous installations were at the company’s Covina, Costa Mesa and Emeryville locations.

Bloom Energy was contracted for the design, development and installation of the fuel cell system.

Besides biogas fuel cells, IKEA has installed electric vehicle charging stations at 16 stores and solar arrays at 90 percent of its locations, integrated two geothermal projects at two store locations and owns two wind farms, renewable energy deployments the company has launched to help meet its goal of becoming energy independent by 2020.