Technology supplied by Hoku Scientific (Nasdaq: HOKU) will power the building for the next year.

Under its $4.5 million contract with the Navy, Hoku must make a total of 10 power plants based on its membrane electrode assembles (MEA) technology. In addition to the two working power plants, the Navy accepted two more earlier this month and will install them later this summer. The remaining six haven't been accepted yet.

"Our commencement of the 12-month demonstration program for the U.S. Navy marks a milestone in the evolution of Hoku fuel cells," said Hoku CEO Dustin Shindo in a news release. "This is our first opportunity to publicly demonstrate the quality of our Hoku MEA products in a real-world customer-driven application."

The power plants are actually designed by Oregon-based IdaTech, but they incorporate Hoku's MEA fuel cell product. Together, the units generate about 1.5 kilowatts -- roughly half the amount of power an average U.S. household runs on.

Karl Taft, Hoku's co-founder and the inventor of Hoku's technology, described the MEA as a "microprocessor" and IdaTech's power plant as the "motherboard." Considered by some to be the future for powering cars, fuel cells use oxygen and hydrogen and produce electricity and the byproducts of heat and water.