London, April 30, 2026, 19:21 BST
Ceres Power Holdings plc on Thursday said Delta Electronics, its manufacturing partner, has teamed up with Centrica in a new infrastructure deal targeting UK and European data centres and energy-heavy industries. The focus: off-grid solid oxide fuel cells. Delta manufactures fuel-cell stacks and systems under license from Ceres. Centrica, for its part, has an existing strategic partnership with Ceres aimed at accelerating rollout of the technology.
The deal comes at a moment when power supply, not only land or chips, is turning into a choke point for AI data-centre buildouts. Centrica and Delta flagged that surging demand from data centres and big industrial users is overwhelming the grid. They described it as a “multi-gigawatt on-site power opportunity.” Centrica Plc
Solid oxide fuel cells, or SOFCs, skip combustion entirely—they make electricity using an electrochemical reaction. According to Delta, its SOFCs built on Ceres technology can operate on natural gas and push electrical efficiency up to 60%. That’s a sizable jump over the 35% to 42% range for open-cycle gas turbines, a typical choice for on-site and backup generation.
The partners are aiming to establish a UK demonstration site in the next 12 months. Looking further out, they’re targeting delivery of megawatt-scale “gas-to-power” systems—setups that convert natural gas to electricity right where the customer needs it—in a three- to five-year window. Centrica Plc
Chris O’Shea, CEO of Centrica, put it plainly: businesses want power delivered faster than current grids manage, calling the new solution “fast, reliable off-grid power at scale.” Delta Electronics’ Charles Tsai, who oversees Hydrogen Energy Business Development, pointed to Centrica’s local reach and experience in flexible power as key reasons it’s the right fit for data centre clients and big industrial players. Delta EMEA
Ceres faces a familiar challenge: converting partner activity into licence fees and royalties quickly enough. The Horsham-based firm booked its first royalties in 2025 after Doosan kicked off production. As things stand, contracted group revenue for 2026 comes in at roughly £45 million, not counting any fresh deals.
Ceres ended the session at 619 pence in London, slipping 0.32% for the day. Still, MarketScreener numbers put the stock up 31.5% across five trading days, and a hefty 190.9% gain since the year’s open. The market had closed before this story was published.
The landscape is shifting fast. This week, U.S.-listed Bloom Energy posted first-quarter revenue of $751.1 million—a 130.4% jump over last year—and lifted its guidance for 2026. Earlier this month, Bloom announced Oracle plans to buy up to 2.8 gigawatts of its solid-oxide fuel-cell systems, starting with 1.2 gigawatts already under contract.
The Thursday update comes after Ceres and Centrica joined forces back in March, targeting SOFC power systems for commercial and industrial clients in the UK and Europe. Ceres CEO Phil Caldwell, speaking to Reuters then, described the tech as “more efficient than a combined cycle gas turbine” and emphasized its “modular” design—making rollout quicker. Reuters
The latest announcement left out plenty of specifics—no word on financial terms, order numbers, volumes, or when Ceres might see royalty payments. That’s notable given Ceres is still in the red: revenue dropped to £32.6 million in 2025, down from £51.9 million, and losses deepened to £47.5 million from £28.3 million. Still, the company closed the year with £83.3 million in cash and short-term investments.
That makes the near-term takeaway tight but still significant. Ceres picks up an extra path into data-centre power. Now, it’s a waiting game: investors need to see the demo site, customer deals and manufacturing scale from partners before they’ll know if this approach brings recurring sales.
