You can feel it – the wave of optimism sweeping through the hydrogen and fuel cell industry. All the more disappointing that the German government is taking its own sweet time setting up market regulations. It is a murky green light. Sure, there have been plenty of speeches. Yet, there is a decided lack of enthusiastic momentum. Even then, as the national hydrogen strategy was announced in early June.
Projected first-quarter returns were between USD 140 million and USD 160 million. In the end, Bloom Energy took in USD 156.7 million. However, if I interpret the numbers right, another USD 40 million was shifted to the second quarter. From projects that have not been billed yet, I do believe. The company’s bottom line posts a USD 9.8 million loss, according to GAAP, far less than the predicted USD 15 million to USD 25 million.
FuelCell Energy recently announced that, since launching business, it had produced over 10 million megawatts of clean electricity, saving over 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide. Its basis for success is the SureSource platform. The company is now gradually fulfilling orders worth more than USD 1.3 billion. New bookings season the pot, as they are expected to lead to high margins.
Long anticipated, Nikola Motors [Nasdaq: NKLA] finally goes public. In order to get a foot in the door early, the truck maker used a reverse merger. Investors acquired a public shell company, a special type of investment vehicle.
An unexpectedly profitable three months propelled Tesla’s stock to over USD 850 before it plunged to USD 670 when the electric carmaker’s chief executive, Elon Musk, sent out a tweet complaining about the high price. Not much later, though, the stock rallied again, racing toward USD 1,000 after sister company SpaceX, which is also headed by Musk, announced it successfully sent one of its rockets into orbit.
Ballard [Nasdaq: BLDP] and Weichai, Ballard partner and major shareholder, announced they are building an LCS factory in China. Past tense, it has probably already been built. Production should begin this year.
In my view, Plug Power [Nasdaq: PLUG] is definitely on the right track: Building and expanding liquid hydrogen production facilities while planning to acquire United Hydrogen. The latter’s 6.5-ton annual capacity should be raised to 10 tons, thus meeting 25 percent of Plug’s in-house demand, meaning eventually the profit margin can come from consumables. Plug is also negotiating with an electrolyzer manufacturer that could or should be absorbed. That all looks very good to me. In a few years’ time, Plug intends to cover more than 50 percent of its own production with green hydrogen.
On April 23, NOW’s supervisory board announced its new director in Berlin. Starting on May 15, Kurt-Christoph von Knobelsdorff, formerly a department head at Brandenburg’s economy and energy ministry, will lead the German national hydrogen and fuel cell organization.
Apex Energy Teterow CEO Mathias Hehmann has one vision: to turn his Rostock-based business into a one-stop hydrogen contractor. He intends Apex Energy to design, plan and install devices producing and storing hydrogen as well as run and maintain them over their lifetime.
Although the European Commission funded many hydrogen and fuel cell projects in the last several years, the industry sector was rarely mentioned in Brussels. That changed in 2019, when high-ranking German politicians started taking a second look at the technology.