Bloom Energy Earnings: Sales Reached a Record $1.24 Billion
Bloom Energy, whose fuel cell generators Oracle has contracted for its AI buildout, sold a record $1.24 billion in the third quarter of 2026 and raised its yearly forecast for the third time. Yet its operations used more cash than they brought in, and the largest single reason was work Bloom has booked as sales but not yet billed.
The short answer. Bloom’s sales rose 138% to a record and it raised its 2026 forecast, but its operations used $27.1 million of cash in the quarter as sales it could not yet bill doubled, though they still brought in cash over nine months. That matters beyond its shareholders because Bloom sells on-site power to data centers that cannot wait for the grid, though it does not say how much of its sales they make up. Our numbers add the other side: money customers paid or were billed ahead of delivery rose to 5.2 times its December level, and all of the latest rise was in the part generally tied to work more than a year away.
Bloom Energy, third quarter 2026
What we calculated
- About $523.7 million of cash used in the quarter by receivables (money owed by billed customers), inventories and other long-term assets together: the three cash flow statement lines added.
- The first quarter of negative operating cash flow since April to June 2025: our count across Bloom’s quarterly releases.
- Equipment spending three times the second quarter’s, and unbilled sales (contract assets) about twice their June level: $153.5 million over $51.6 million, and $858.6 million over $428.3 million.
- Free cash flow of minus $180.6 million in the third quarter, against plus $174.8 million in the second, and plus $41.6 million over nine months: cash from operations minus spending on property and equipment.
- Money paid or billed ahead of delivery 5.2 times its December level: deferred revenue and customer deposits at September 30 ($754.4 million) over December 31, 2025 ($143.8 million).
- A $357.5 million rise in the long-term part of that balance in the third quarter, while the current part, due within a year, fell $48.2 million: the two balance sheet lines at June 30 and September 30.
- An implied fourth quarter of $1.35 billion to $1.55 billion in sales, 73% to 99% above a year earlier: the new full year range minus nine-month sales of $3.05 billion.
- A second quarter gross margin (the share of sales kept after direct costs) of about 29.9% without a one-time recovery of import duties paid earlier: gross profit minus $37.4 million, over revenue.
- A forecast midpoint up about 41% since February: $4.5 billion over $3.2 billion.
- Each share a 20% smaller slice of the company than a year earlier: 236.4 million shares over 295.5 million.
- About 2.23 gigawatts, a gigawatt being a measure of power plant size, across three named AI projects: Oracle’s contracted 1.2 gigawatts, AEP’s 702-megawatt plant and Nebius’s 328-megawatt first project.
On this page
- Why did Bloom Energy’s cash flow turn negative?
- How Bloom Energy powers AI data centers
- Is Bloom Energy’s backlog growing?
- How much revenue did Bloom Energy report in Q3 2026?
- What is Bloom Energy’s 2026 sales forecast?
- Does Bloom Energy pay dividends or buy back shares?
- How we counted
- Frequently asked questions
Why did Bloom Energy’s cash flow turn negative?
Bloom’s day-to-day business used $27.1 million of cash in its biggest quarter ever, and the largest single reason was sales it booked but could not yet bill. Separately, it spent three times as much on equipment as in the spring.
Cash flow from operations was minus $27.1 million in the third quarter, after a positive second quarter; the measure is the cash the business itself brings in or uses. Over nine months it was still positive, and Bloom held $2.49 billion of cash at the end of September. The quarter was the first negative one since April to June 2025, by our count of Bloom’s quarterly releases, including the third quarter release. The release calls its figures preliminary until the 10-Q, the fuller quarterly report filed with regulators.
The largest single drain was what accountants call contract assets. Bloom’s 2025 annual report describes them as sales recognized on contracts “where billing milestones have not been reached”. The balance rose by $430.3 million in the quarter, to $858.6 million, about twice its level at the end of June.
Other uses added up too. In the cash flow statement, the record of where cash came from and went, money owed by billed customers, inventories and other long-term assets used about $523.7 million between them, by our arithmetic, and the table below gives each line. Advances from customers, which the backlog section below looks at, offset part of it.
Spending on property and equipment is counted apart from operations. It came to $153.5 million, three times the second quarter’s, and took free cash flow, what is left after that equipment spending, to minus $180.6 million by our arithmetic. Over the first nine months, free cash flow stayed positive. Chief financial officer Simon Edwards said in the release that Bloom continues “to invest with discipline to build the capabilities and capacity needed to scale the business”. Management presents the spending as building room to grow, and the release does not say where the money went.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Q2 2025 | -$213.1M |
| Q3 2025 | $19.7M |
| Q4 2025 | $418.1M |
| Q1 2026 | $73.6M |
| Q2 2026 | $226.4M |
| Q3 2026 | -$27.1M |
| Cash flow line, Q3 2026 | Effect on cash |
|---|---|
| Net income | +$249.0M |
| Contract assets | −$430.3M |
| Accounts receivable | −$175.2M |
| Inventories | −$170.4M |
| Other long-term assets | −$178.0M |
| Deferred revenue and customer deposits | +$309.3M |
| Accounts payable | +$184.7M |
| Operating cash flow, total | −$27.1M |
| Purchase of property, plant and equipment | −$153.5M |
Source: Bloom Energy third quarter 2026 release, condensed statement of cash flows (preliminary); the total includes lines not shown. Contract assets were $792.8M current and $65.8M long term at September 30, against $365.5M and $62.8M at June 30.
How Bloom Energy powers AI data centers
Bloom builds machines that turn natural gas into electricity without burning it, so a data center can make its own power instead of waiting years for a grid connection. Bloom does not report how much of its sales comes from data centers.
A fuel cell makes electricity from a chemical reaction, the way a battery does, except that it keeps going as long as gas flows in. Bloom’s annual report says its machines can follow the fast swings in power use that AI computing causes. The same report puts the queue of power plants waiting to connect to the US grid at 2,300 gigawatts at the end of 2024, with typical waits of several years.
In April, under a master agreement, Oracle “intends to procure up to 2.8 gigawatts” of Bloom fuel cells, and 1.2 gigawatts of that was already contracted.
The AI cloud company Nebius signed in May and said its first 328-megawatt project was expected to run this year, in place of gas turbines it had planned.
In October the utility American Electric Power said it plans to spend about $4 billion on a 702-megawatt Bloom fuel cell plant near Cheyenne, Wyoming and sell its power to Google. That $4 billion is AEP’s project budget, so it is not what Bloom will be paid.
Who actually pays Bloom is narrower than that list. Chief executive KR Sridhar said the demand started with the largest cloud computing companies, the hyperscalers: “What began with hyperscalers is rapidly moving across market segments because every business needs reliable power to grow.” Yet in the April to June quarter one unnamed customer made up about 73% of revenue, according to a corrected quarterly filing sent a day after the original had swapped its three-month and six-month figures. Bloom defines a customer there as the party it contracts with, which “may be a project-finance affiliate rather than the ultimate end user”, meaning a company set up to own and finance a project.
Bloom is expanding production too. Its annual report said it was doubling yearly capacity at its Fremont, California factory to 2 gigawatts by the end of 2026. The named projects land over several years, from 2026 for Nebius to the end of 2028 for AEP’s plant, so their total is not one year’s demand, and the release gives no deliveries by year.
Brookfield, the asset manager, raised its framework for financing Bloom projects from $5 billion to $25 billion in June. That is money promised for projects as they come, and it is not an order.
| Project | Size | Timing as stated |
|---|---|---|
| Oracle, contracted part of up to 2.8 GW | 1.2 GW | Deploying, into 2027 |
| AEP plant for Google, Wyoming | 702 MW | Fully running by end of 2028, 20-year power contract |
| Nebius, first project | 328 MW | Expected to run in 2026 |
| Bloom factory capacity, Fremont | 1 GW to 2 GW a year | By end of 2026 |
Source: Bloom and Oracle release (April 13, 2026), AEP release (October 14, 2026), Nebius and Bloom release (May 20, 2026), Bloom 2025 10-K. The projects deliver over different years, so their sum is not one year’s demand.
Is Bloom Energy’s backlog growing?
Bloom has not updated its total backlog, the contracted work it still has to deliver, since February. Money customers paid or were billed before delivery reached $754 million, and the whole of the quarter’s rise came in the part for work more than a year out.
The balance sheet, the company’s list of what it owns and owes, holds those advances as deferred revenue and customer deposits, which together stood at $754.4 million at the end of September, against $143.8 million at the end of 2025. Both lines count amounts billed before delivery as well as cash received, and the release does not separate the two.
The split matters. The long-term part, which generally covers work more than a year away, rose by $357.5 million in the quarter, while the current part, due within a year, fell, by our arithmetic. In our reading, customers are committing money for deliveries more than a year out.
The last total backlog Bloom published came with its 2025 results in February. It put contracted work still to be delivered at about $20 billion, of which about $6 billion was for the fuel cell systems. The rest included long service contracts that customers can end once a year, as the release’s footnote says. None of the three results releases since then updated the total.
Show the data
| Category | Current (within a year) | Long term (beyond a year) |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 31, 2025 | $101M | $43M |
| Mar 31, 2026 | $194M | $39M |
| Jun 30, 2026 | $327M | $118M |
| Sep 30, 2026 | $279M | $475M |
How much revenue did Bloom Energy report in Q3 2026?
Bloom booked $1.24 billion of sales in the July to September quarter, more than twice a year earlier. It also made a profit, where a year ago it lost money.
Revenue reached $1,235.8 million in the third quarter, up 138.1% from a year earlier; revenue here means the sales a company records before any expenses. Nearly all of the growth came from the fuel cell systems themselves.
Bloom kept 33.8% of its revenue after the direct cost of making and installing its systems, a share called gross margin, against 29.2% a year earlier; the 10-Q will show whether a one-time item helped, as a tariff recovery did in the spring. Bloom also made a net profit for shareholders, against a loss a year before, and the table below gives the figures.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Q3 2025 | $0.52B |
| Q4 2025 | $0.78B |
| Q1 2026 | $0.75B |
| Q2 2026 | $1.07B |
| Q3 2026 | $1.24B |
| Measure | Q3 2025 | Q2 2026 | Q3 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $519.0M | $1,065.4M | $1,235.8M |
| Product revenue | $384.3M | $935.4M | $1,073.6M |
| Gross margin, standard accounting (GAAP) | 29.2% | 33.4% | 33.8% |
| Gross margin, Bloom’s adjusted measure | 30.4% | 34.3% | 34.5% |
| Operating income (profit from the business before interest and taxes), standard accounting | $7.8M | $182.2M | $225.4M |
| Operating income, adjusted | $46.2M | $239.6M | $285.7M |
| Net income to common stockholders | ($23.1M) | $196.3M | $250.3M |
| Diluted earnings per share, standard accounting | ($0.10) | $0.62 | $0.78 |
| Diluted earnings per share, adjusted (leaves out costs such as stock-based pay) | $0.15 | $0.78 | $0.94 |
Source: Bloom Energy third quarter 2026 release, summary tables and income statement (preliminary).
How we counted
The second quarter’s 33.4% gross margin included a $37.4 million recovery of import tariffs paid earlier, of which about $5.0 million had been refunded in cash by June 30, according to Bloom’s second quarter 10-Q. Without it, that quarter’s margin would have been about 29.9% by our arithmetic. Whether the third quarter holds a similar one-time item will show in its 10-Q.
What is Bloom Energy’s 2026 sales forecast?
Bloom now expects $4.4 billion to $4.6 billion of sales in 2026, its third increase this year.
Each of the three updates since February lifted the company’s range, and its middle has risen about 41% since then by our arithmetic, as the chart shows. Bloom says the new midpoint is 122% above its 2025 sales.
Bloom booked $3.05 billion in the first nine months. Its range therefore leaves $1.35 billion to $1.55 billion for the fourth quarter, by our arithmetic, so even the low end would top the third quarter’s record.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Feb 2026 | $3.20B |
| Apr 2026 | $3.60B |
| Jul 2026 | $4.05B |
| Oct 2026 | $4.50B |
| Full year 2026 forecast, given on | Revenue | Adjusted operating income | Adjusted earnings per share |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 5 | $3.1B to $3.3B | $425M to $475M | $1.33 to $1.48 |
| April 28 | $3.4B to $3.8B | $600M to $750M | $1.85 to $2.25 |
| July 28 | $3.9B to $4.2B | $800M to $900M | $2.55 to $2.85 |
| October 22 | $4.4B to $4.6B | $960M to $1,030M | $3.10 to $3.40 |
Source: Bloom Energy results releases of the dates shown; adjusted figures are Bloom’s own measures that leave out some costs, such as stock-based pay.
Does Bloom Energy pay dividends or buy back shares?
No. Bloom has never paid a cash dividend on its stock, and the releases and filings we read disclose no share buyback.
Bloom’s annual report says it has “never declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock and do not intend to pay cash dividends in the foreseeable future”. Its credit agreement also limits dividends.
The share count grew instead. Bloom had 295.5 million shares outstanding at September 30, against 236.4 million a year earlier, according to its balance sheets, so each share is a 20% smaller slice of the company, by our arithmetic.
Bloom carried about $2.47 billion of long-term recourse debt, which lenders can collect from Bloom itself, against $2.49 billion of cash. The quarter’s cash use came out of a cushion about as large as that debt.
What to watch
- How concentrated the third quarter’s customers were, how much contracted work Bloom holds, when the unbilled sales will be billed, what the other long-term assets contain, whether the quarter held a one-time item like the spring’s tariff recovery and where the new shares came from: the third quarter 10-Q, not yet filed when this was written.
- A new total backlog figure and the Fremont factory’s capacity: Bloom’s fourth quarter release; its fourth quarter 2025 results came on February 5, 2026.
- Construction of the 702-megawatt Wyoming plant, which AEP said would start in 2026: AEP’s quarterly results releases.
How we counted
All figures come from Bloom Energy’s quarterly releases and SEC filings and the partner releases linked above. Free cash flow is net cash from operating activities minus purchase of property, plant and equipment. In the third quarter that was $27.147 million used plus $153.487 million spent; in the second, $226.432 million minus $51.641 million; over nine months, $272.895 million minus $231.310 million.
Money paid or billed ahead of delivery adds the deferred revenue and customer deposits lines: $278.985 million current and $475.395 million long term at September 30, against $327.145 million and $117.901 million at June 30. The implied fourth quarter subtracts nine-month revenue ($751.054 million, $1,065.365 million and $1,235.837 million) from each end of the October range, and compares it with $777.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. The forecast midpoints are the middle of each revenue range Bloom gave in 2026.
Frequently asked questions
When did Bloom Energy report Q3 2026 earnings?
On October 22, 2026, after the market closed, with record revenue of $1.24 billion and a raised 2026 forecast of $4.4 billion to $4.6 billion.
Why is Bloom Energy’s operating cash flow negative?
It was minus $27.1 million in the third quarter of 2026 because revenue Bloom recorded but could not yet bill rose by $430.3 million, and receivables, inventories and other long-term assets also grew.
What is Bloom Energy’s 2026 revenue guidance?
$4.4 billion to $4.6 billion, raised on October 22, 2026 from $3.9 billion to $4.2 billion. It was the third increase of the year.
Does Bloom Energy power AI data centers?
Yes. Oracle and the AI cloud company Nebius have named Bloom fuel cells for their AI projects, and AEP plans a Bloom fuel cell plant selling power to Google. Bloom does not report what share of its sales comes from data centers.
What is Bloom Energy’s backlog?
The last total Bloom published was about $20 billion at the end of 2025, about $6 billion of it for fuel cell systems. It has not updated that total in 2026.
Sources
- Bloom Energy third quarter 2026 results release (StockTitan)
- Bloom Energy fourth quarter and full year 2025 results release (StockTitan)
- Bloom Energy second quarter 2026 results release (StockTitan)
- Bloom Energy first quarter 2026 results release (StockTitan)
- Bloom Energy and Oracle partnership release (StockTitan)
- Brookfield and Bloom Energy partnership release (StockTitan)
- AEP 702 MW Bloom fuel cell project release (StockTitan)
- Nebius and Bloom Energy release (StockTitan)
- Bloom Energy second quarter 2026 Form 10-Q/A (SEC)
- Bloom Energy second quarter 2026 Form 10-Q (SEC)
- Bloom Energy 2025 annual report, Form 10-K (SEC)
The information provided in this article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice, investment recommendation, or an endorsement of any particular investment strategy. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.