New CE-certified products increase Plug Power’s European product portfolio to 15 GenDrive products
LATHAM, N.Y. — Plug Power Inc. (NASDAQ: PLUG), a leading provider of hydrogen engines and fueling solutions enabling e-mobility, has expanded its CE-certified GenDrive product line with the addition of three new fuel cell solutions designed for European industrial and material handling vehicles. The new products include the GenDrive 1600-80H CE for class-1 trucks up to 5 tons, GenDrive 3342-24 CE for class-3 trucks, as well as GenDrive 6100-48 CE for AGVs (automated guided vehicles) and tow-tractors. All three products were developed, engineered, tested, and released into production over the past twelve months to support our growing customer set and applications within the European market. Most notably, the 1600-80H includes Plug Power’s ProGen metal stack technology.
“Plug Power leads customer adoption of hydrogen fuel cells in material handling applications because we are the only company in the world that offers a full turnkey solution with a full product suite to convert every truck in the customer’s fleet,” said Andy Marsh, CEO at Plug Power. “We proved this model in North America and are continuing to fill out the product portfolio for our growing European customer base, which requires certification to European norms. We designed, built and certified not one but three new products to meet these needs—and already have received customer orders from leading auto-manufacturing brands.”
Developed by Plug Power’s global engineering team, the GenDrive 1600-80H CE, 6100-48 CE, 3210-24 CE and 3342-24 CE are drop-in power solutions that offer a seamless replacement for batteries used in existing material handling fleets. The three products are manufactured in Plug Power’s vertically integrated facilities and are equipped with Plug Power’s leading membrane electrode assembly (MEA) technology. Although they are broadly similar to other GenDrive solutions, all will carry new CE certification due to key differences in product design and application.
Tow-tractors play an important role in the automotive industry, where they are typically used in manufacturing plants to transport vehicle parts between work cells located throughout the facility. Plug Power offers the only fuel cell solution for this application in Europe – key customers include BMW and Daimler. Currently, the majority of tow-tractor fleets in auto-manufacturing applications are battery-powered. However, fuel cells offer distinct advantages for applications such as vehicle assembly, which demand consistent power output, predictability in performance, and have high asset-utilization. Batteries, for example, slow down over a shift and must be recharged for extended periods of time each day—wasting hundreds of hours of productivity each year and taking up valuable floor space in the process. Depleted fuel cells, by contrast, can be refueled in a matter of minutes before immediately resuming normal operations and, even when low on fuel, never slow down like depleted batteries.
Marsh continued, “Product development has always been a core component of the Plug Power brand. Our customers are our closest collaborators, and we’re constantly looking for ways to build innovative solutions to the challenges they face. Given that Plug Power is the only major provider of hydrogen fuel cells in the European material handling market, we’re excited to be introducing new GenDrive fuel cell products to our customers in that part of the world.”
About Plug Power
Plug Power is building the hydrogen economy as the leading provider of comprehensive hydrogen fuel cell turnkey solutions. The Company’s innovative technology powers electric motors with hydrogen fuel cells amid an ongoing paradigm shift in the power, energy, and transportation industries to address climate change and energy security, while meeting sustainability goals.
Plug Power created the first commercially viable market for hydrogen fuel cell technology. As a result, the Company has deployed over 35,000 fuel cell systems for e-mobility, more than anyone else in the world, and has become the largest buyer of liquid hydrogen, having built and operated a hydrogen highway across North America. Plug Power delivers a significant value proposition to end-customers, including meaningful environmental benefits, efficiency gains, fast fueling, and lower operational costs.
Plug Power’s vertically-integrated GenKey solution ties together all critical elements to power, fuel, and provide service to customers such as Amazon, BMW, The Southern Company, Carrefour, and Walmart. The Company is now leveraging its know-how, modular product architecture and foundational customers to rapidly expand into other key markets including zero-emission on-road vehicles, robotics, and data centers.
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