New York, January 9, 2026, 07:45 EST — Premarket
- Bloom Energy shares are up about 13% in premarket trading after it disclosed a $2.65 billion fuel-cell purchase agreement linked to a Wyoming project.
- The deal includes a 20-year offtake arrangement covering the planned facility’s entire output, with conditions due by the second quarter of 2026.
- Traders are looking for more detail on the end-customer, and they’re also waiting on U.S. jobs data due before the opening bell.
Bloom Energy Corp shares climbed about 13% in premarket trading on Friday after American Electric Power disclosed a $2.65 billion agreement to buy the fuel-cell maker’s equipment for a planned generation facility in Wyoming. The stock had surged as much as 14% on Thursday, touching its highest since November. (Reuters)
The filing finally pins down the price tag on a project investors have been trying to gauge since AEP and Bloom sketched out a broader framework in 2024. And it hits as power supply — not chips — is the bottleneck investors keep coming back to in data-center infrastructure trades.
Bloom’s pitch is straightforward: solid oxide fuel cells generate electricity through a chemical reaction instead of burning fuel, and they can sit at or near customer sites. That’s handy when grid hookups take a long time, and when big power users want supply they can rely on.
AEP said in a current report that its unregulated unit signed an unconditional purchase agreement on Jan. 4 to acquire a “substantial portion” of its option for Bloom’s solid oxide fuel cells for about $2.65 billion. In the same filing, it also detailed a 20-year offtake arrangement — a contract to buy the plant’s power output — with a high investment-grade third-party customer covering 100% of the electricity from a fuel-cell facility expected to be located near Cheyenne, Wyoming. AEP said the offtake arrangement is subject to conditions it expects to satisfy by the second quarter of 2026, and that it would be compensated for capital and costs if the conditions are not met.
Bloom and AEP first laid out the broader supply agreement in late 2024, starting with a 100-megawatt order and a framework that could scale to 1 gigawatt. “We are thrilled to be working with AEP as they lead the charge to bring innovative solutions to the transforming electricity market,” Bloom founder and CEO K.R. Sridhar said then. (Bloom Energy)
Bloom’s move easily outpaced other fuel-cell names, which were only modestly higher in premarket trading, while AEP was up nearly 2%.
Even so, the trade isn’t without sharp edges. The end-customer for the Wyoming output hasn’t been named, and the offtake arrangement is conditional — a reminder that big infrastructure contracts can slip, get resized, or arrive with financing and buildout surprises.
In the near term, traders are watching U.S. employment data due at 8:30 a.m. ET, a release that can jolt rate expectations and risk appetite, while also waiting for follow-on disclosure that nails down timing and counterparties for the Wyoming project. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
