New York City's seat of government is about to pull back from its main electricity source and start running base-load operations from a "Bloom box," a fuel cell that sits next to City Hall and generates electricity from its own natural-gas feed.

When the installation of the specially equipped fuel cell, supplied by Bloom Energy from their San Jose, Calif., facilities, is complete this month, the 201-year-old City Hall building will have a new source of just under 100 kilowatts of electricity from the box, according to city and project officials. Electrical utility ConEd is still supplying peak loads, however. The Bloom box is part of Mayor Mike Bloomberg's (R) green initiative as well as efforts to harden City Hall infrastructure in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.