Company Proud to be Powerless

Cypress CEO: "We're Independent"

It's a declaration of energy independence.

Cypress Semiconductor, led by the statement-making CEO TJ Rodgers, is going off the grid. Completely.

In a week that brought electric cars firmly into the spotlight, Rodgers and his employees are grabbing the spotlight from Tesla, and putting it on a different energy-saving vehicle: The Bloom Box.

Remember Bloom Energy? The fuel cell box maker launched with a splash back in February, announcing its plan to use the fuel cells to power companies and eventually, your entire neighborhood. The boxes are still very expensive, but some companies (eBay, Google) are already adopting them. Cypress says it will use them, along with the solar panels already on its roof (courtesy of its extremely successful sidebar venture, SunPower) to say goodbye to the public energy grid.

Other Valley companies, like Google and Microsoft, say they've seen big savings by putting solar panels on the roof.  As for the Bloom Boxes, it's still early to say how much companies are seeing come back from their investments.  Nonetheless, it's always nice to see CEOs put their money where their speeches are, and TJ Rodgers has historically done just that.

Scott is waiting for panel (and Bloom Box) pricing to come down to earth.  He can be reached on Twitter @scottbudman

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