Plug Power Inc. (PLUG)
NASDAQ: PLUG · Real-Time Price · USD
3.190
+0.160 (5.28%)
Apr 29, 2026, 11:48 AM EDT - Market open
← View all transcripts

J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference

Mar 13, 2025

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Good morning and welcome to the third day of JPMorgan's Industrial Conference. We're wrapping up the conference here with really a pioneer in trying to move the hydrogen ecosystem forward, Plug Power. We're really pleased to have Sanjay Shrestha, and I always say that I try my best on that, but I'm getting better every time. Really pleased to have Sanjay here, recently named President of Plug Power. We're going to ask him to maybe set the stage with an intro, talking about the company's priorities, high-level strategy, maybe recap some key takeaways from the recent results.

Maybe specifically, can you provide context on how and why the company has chosen to focus its efforts on really three core areas: materials handling, which has been a core part of the business really forever; electrolyzers, which is emerging; as well as hydrogen fuel, which is also relatively new within the long context of the company.

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Great. Thanks, Bill. It's always great to be here. Good morning, everybody. Bill, as we talked about in our last earnings call, the biggest focus for the company for 2025 really is prioritize, reduce cash burn, get to cash flow break even, and really continue to expand margin for the company. Given sort of the macro environment we're all faced with, and some exciting times, some passionate comments, and some, frankly speaking, volatility and uncertainty, we feel like this is the year we really need to focus on things that we're good at, things we know we can execute on, and things that are really going to give us that growth that's much needed for the company to continue to deliver on the financial performance.

Now, coming back to why we're focused on some of these key areas, let me start out with the electrolyzer business, which we're likely going to end up becoming the biggest piece of the revenue opportunity for us in 2025. Most of that is really driven by backlog, number one. Number two, we continue to gain very good traction in the electrolyzer business because we do now have the world's largest in the Western Hemisphere, at least 40 MW of operating PEM electrolyzer for our green hydrogen plant in Georgia, which has been running very steadily for now over 12 months. It's a great place to actually take your customer and showcase how well the plant is doing. We now have installation and systems of our electrolyzer running in five different continents. We have about 8 GW of front log in that business.

By the way, 8 out of the 10 projects in that 8 GW opportunity is outside of the U.S.. We are the only company in the world still today to have 1 GW or a GW scale PEM electrolyzer manufacturing facility. In that business, just to set the stage, it's not going to be a gross margin positive out of the gate, but we're doing a lot because we're working through an existing backlog and the legacy contract, if you would. We have a very big initiative internally that is going to really help drive the cost of our electrolyzer stack down by at least 30% from the beginning of the year till the end of the year as you really go into Q4 of 2025. Now, material handling has been a very core business for us, as Bill, you rightfully pointed out.

We're working with the customers, the likes of Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot. That business also does see a lot of refresh cycle, allowing us for a good visibility from a backlog perspective. The reason why we talked about material handling is 2024, you should all think about this as a bit of a recalibration year where we went back to our customer and talked about our pricing strategy, overall value proposition, and we were able to increase the price of hydrogen fuel. In many cases, we were able to increase the price of our service offering. It was great to see that our customer were looking at it from a strategic partnership perspective than one-time business transaction deal as well. It was also wonderful to see that even with the higher prices, the value proposition remained intact.

The reason why we're focused on material handling is, one, we want to make sure that we're continuing to support our pedestal customers. We want to continue to grow that business, not just in large scale, but even in the middle market, like the announcement you all saw this morning with Cleveland-Cliffs. That business goes hand in hand with the hydrogen, which has been a big negative margin drag for us in 2023, even though it improved quite a bit in 2024. That's another big area of focus for us in terms of really driving the margin better for our hydrogen business because you don't want to be in a situation where more hydrogen sales and more loss. We really want to turn that into more of a positive margin and at some point cash-generating business for us.

Georgia helps, Tennessee helps, and our plant in Louisiana is coming online here this month. There is really only one last circuit that needs to be dried up. After that, you can actually start injecting the gaseous hydrogen into the liquefier. We are on track to actually have that plant come online here in the month of March. With those three plants, we will have about 39 tons of hydrogen production capacity. Our demand is a little over 50 tons that will really drive the blended cost of hydrogen down. It goes hand in hand with our material handling business. Bill, obviously, we also talked about while these things are very painful to do, we announced this restructuring plan that is also going to help reduce the cost by $150 million-$200 million on an annual basis with meaningful impact in Q4.

That is certainly also going to help drive the margin profile for the company and continue to reduce the cash burn because, look, we're really trying to focus on core key markets rather than trying to do everything all at once. One other piece of business, Bill, we're going to continue to do is also our tanker and the trailer business, which is the acquisition we had made a few years ago where we make trailers for liquid oxygen, argon, and things like that. That is a $100 million+ kind of a business, profitable business. We do also expect that business to kind of show another sign of growth in 2025.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Great. We'll double-click on a number of these things, maybe still staying high level. What, in your view, has made it such that growth really decelerated and is coming along more slowly than expected? It is not just you. It is really across the hydrogen industry. What gives you confidence that we have maybe close to a bottom, reached the bottom, and that growth could resume?

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Yeah. Bill, it's always, I think, like any energy industry and any cyclical growth industry, right, you're going to sort of go through these phases where there are times when there is a lot of pessimism and there are times when there's a lot of exuberance. They're both probably at the extreme, kind of like the pendulum swinging to the extreme all the times. Look, I mean, I think when we think about the expectation three years ago versus how things have played out, and as you pointed out, Bill, right, I mean, the street expectation for the entire hydrogen ecosystem has been cut quite a bit. Look, I think one of the key factors here probably is start and stop with what was potentially a landmark policy initiative here in the U.S. with the Inflation Reduction Act.

Instead of being able to implement that, it got derailed. It got slowed down quite a bit, right? I think that really derailed a lot of movement from large-scale projects. Like any industry, right, scale matters. Once you start to build scale, once you really start to get going, cost comes down, economic value proposition keeps getting better. Frankly, these three pillars, lack of guidance, lack of clarity, really, really hurt in terms of the growth in the industry. That actually had a big impact for the electrolyzer business. Then you got a bit of a domino effect, right? When you think about it like that, the hydrogen industry and the fuel cell application largely is a function of availability of hydrogen and largely is a function of economics of that hydrogen.

When the industry slows down, all of a sudden, it's not just an impact of the electrolyzer. There's not a lot of opportunity to do liquefaction project, which has always been binary in a way because you don't need to build a lot of liquid hydrogen plant because maybe the demand from the long-haul trucking or even the stationary product is not unfolding, right? It's not just one piece that gets impacted. It ends up impacting everything, if you would, right? One other thing that did hurt this industry a little bit outside of the policy is a lot of the hydrogen plant force majeure that happened in 2023, which really ended up having a pretty big negative cash flow impact to Plug Power because we did buy a lot of hydrogen from obviously the third party and the industrial gas suppliers. That situation has really abated now.

I have been, frankly, somewhat surprised. There has not been a single force majeure in 2024. Thank God for bringing our Georgia plant online, maybe, and Louisiana is going to come online as well. That is certainly going to help. I think it is really the broader macro policy, start-stop, and what was potentially such a landmark announcement to really create the U.S. energy independence and dominance just took a backseat. That was very hurtful.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

What's next for policy in your crystal ball? What's it look like? When's it going to be resolved? Maybe what's your thoughts on how European or other global policy may help or hinder your business?

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Bill, the good and the bad of the energy business, right? Look, I mean, I think policy can have a major tailwind, and it can actually have a huge headwind. It is global in nature. From our perspective, I think, look, until and unless there is a lot more clarity in the U.S., level of activity, especially for our electrolyzer business, is going to be in Europe as well as in Australia because that is where we have some pretty tremendous opportunity that we are looking at. I am sure you all have seen a lot of Republicans sort of sending a letter supporting the importance of IRA. Cautiously optimistic. I mean, frankly, Bill, do not have a crystal ball. It is hard to say exactly when things unfold. One thing that gives us some level of a cautious optimism is, look, new administration is very business pro, right?

If that is the case, and if you look at it from the business pro perspective, do we actually get clarity on these three pillars that have been a big issue and the challenge from the Inflation Reduction Act, right, for Section 45V implementation? And hydrogen from a medium and a long-term perspective has to be a part of the energy mix. Hydrogen is already being used in the refining industry. It is already being used in the ammonia industry. It's already being used in the methanol industry. It's not like hydrogen is a topic of a debate per se. It's always had that bipartisan support. I think we just need to see some better clarity here in terms of the movement on the policy. We got to make this more of a level playing field.

I mean, we're hopeful that sometime by the second half of this year, maybe there is some clarity. It's always hard to say, which is why we have said if we had to really put a timeline in terms of when we get remobilized in Texas, we said it's probably not likely until Q4 of 2025. That is sort of the timeline we're thinking about, Bill.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

I do not want to dwell on maybe pick up the last point. I do not want to dwell on too much, but maybe just give us the latest on the loan expectation, any other further work that has to get done in the background, or just where do we stand on that?

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Again, on that too, right? Look, we have not seen any, so we have not seen any big red signs or anything like that, right? Look, I mean, we continue to have the conversation. Our goal also is to continue to work with the new administration and really help them understand the importance of hydrogen. We are having continued dialogue, Bill. Look, I mean, there is not a whole lot that really needs to be done. The project is ready to go. It is in a place where it creates tremendous jobs. Obviously, it is in Texas. It is in Graham County. Graham County, I think, has 98% voted Republican, right? From that perspective, it is certainly in the right county. Look, again, it is not about red or blue, right? It is about what is the right thing to do from an energy policy perspective.

Look, I think we'll probably know more here in the next few several months is probably what I would say. I think there is a new head of the loan guarantee program. Obviously, he's going to have to figure out what is the right move, right things to do. I'm sure he's going to have to evaluate some of the puts and takes of all the loans that have been awarded and things like that. Look, given the structure that the loan guarantee we received, given where this hydrogen plant in Texas is, given that this is not only going to be the world's largest liquid green hydrogen plant, it is actually going to be one of the largest green hydrogen plants, period, in the world. Economics-wise, it's very attractive. Job creation-wise, it's unbelievably attractive. We're even using water from the wastewater treatment plant.

It just has all those attributes that are so attractive. Look, we feel cautiously optimistic, but Bill, right now, it is very hard to say or pinpoint exactly what is that timeline.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Yeah. I want to come back and talk about some of the mid and longer-term strategy, but I think we do need to spend a little bit of time just on the near- term. First quarter guidance, revenue was the new guidance is below expectations. What's changed since you put forth your targets from the symposium back in October, I guess, four or five months ago at this stage?

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Sure. That is a very fair question, Bill. We debated that quite a bit internally as well. One thing we felt like we needed to do was take the macro environment into consideration, right? I mean, there was a headline every day. Right or wrong, right? Macro environment is where it is.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

It's headlines every hour.

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. That's one, right? Second goes back to the prioritization, which on a high level, there is a tremendous opportunity for us in a high-power stationary product. That product is also more about getting the hydrogen infrastructure right. Given our focus on really getting to the cash flow break-even numbers at a much lower revenue run rate, we're sort of not prioritizing everything we could do, right? Fuel cell application can have so many different applications. We really wanted to take a step back and think about what are the core things we have to do and how do we get to our gross margin positive and EBITDA targets even at a lower revenue run rate. That's number one. Number two, I think, look, I mean, the last three years have been tough from hitting the revenue numbers.

The macro environment has not been that accommodating. As I said, some of our energy business-related liquefaction and even some of the new product that we launched, mobile refueler, has been tough because of slowdown in the long-haul trucking market. That has not been very helpful. Obviously, we're not anticipating any of those to come back. If market environment ends up getting better than what it has been for the last three years, broadly speaking, for the hydrogen industry, maybe the numbers are higher than what we said.

Given, I think, what's transpired here in the last three months, given our excessive focus on getting to that gross margin positive and EBITDA break-even, frankly, we thought that it was better to let you all know in the beginning of the year rather than having that conversation in Q3, rather have a better conversation in Q3 of 2025 where, hey, some of the things that we thought were not going to happen, maybe did happen, right? Maybe there is a potential for things to get better rather than worse. We thought it was prudent to really come out in light of this macro environment to come with the number that we thought we felt really, really good about versus maybe things going better than anticipated.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Yeah. You alluded to it earlier. The company's made a tough decision to streamline and right-size pretty significant savings, $150 million-$200 million in annual split between costs of goods sold as well as OpEx. Can you provide some examples of where the largest cost savings are coming from? Maybe at least it's equally important as how is that not going to impact your growth objectives over the longer- term?

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Great. Yeah. Again, so that's a delicate balance, Bill, right? When you do restart, again, look, these are always the toughest, toughest decision to make because it impacts so many employees, so many people. It's not something you ever want to have to do. Sadly, sometimes you have to make these tough choices so the enterprise is in a much better position going forward. Now, this is how we're going to take a look at it, Bill. The first thing is, what are the facility consolidation that we can have, rooftop consolidation? Second is look at things that are non-personnel related, right? Maybe third-party fees, all those, so all the different kind of expenditure that you might have, right? You take a look at that bucket next.

The third bucket would be, okay, if we're actually prioritizing on some of this product line and the business opportunity, you look at your pool of employees and say, okay, there are lots of people doing mobility work or stationary product work. It doesn't mean that all of them are no longer part of the company. You really think about, okay, here is a talent, right? And you want to make sure that you're maintaining. For example, while I said what I said about not having a lot of focus on stationary product in the near- term, that work is going to continue to go on in the CTO office. The person who's running that program just goes into the CTO office rather than maybe running the entire stationary engineering effort, if you would, right? This is something we've been spending a lot of time making sure.

When you make moves and changes like this, I'm sure there'll be a mistake you make, right? You correct that and you make it better going forward. It's never going to go exactly like you planned. I think we've been trying to be very, very thoughtful about the last piece we're going to touch. Again, look, there's going to be an impact to get the kind of the savings that we're talking about. You go facilitate. What are the things you can do before we come to the personnel? After that, you take a look at if we're going to do a lot of facility consolidation, that's going to have an impact from a direct labor perspective. You're going to have that's what hits COGS, right? You are going to also have to look at everything and anything, if you would, right?

Every department, every situation, and support staff, if you would. If there's a lot less people, you're going to need a lot less support, right? From legal, IT, finance, every perspective. That's what's going to hit in the OpEx, right? We think it's 50% COGS, 50% OpEx, very painful thing to do, but it's necessary to build a stronger and more of a robust enterprise to keep moving this hydrogen economy forward. That, I think, is how everybody should think about it.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

It's a little further down the list, but I think it just dovetails well.

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Go for it.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Maybe just can you walk us through the financial setup with this in mind for the year in terms of the underlying assumptions that are getting you to your target of turning gross margin positive, which you alluded to some of this already, but maybe tie into other aspects to it?

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Yeah. I think if you just sort of think about what we provided in Q1 guidance, right? If you really think about we said 15%-20% is how you should think about representation of Q1 for the full year. That kind of keeps you at like $700 million-$750 million kind of a revenue number for the year, if you would, right? You should see sequential growth from Q1 to Q2, again, another sequential growth from Q3, as well as also into Q4. There is going to be some of that seasonality piece still. More than seasonality piece, this year, the reason why you're still going to have a bigger Q3 and Q4 has a lot to do with timing of some of the 5 MW electrolyzer installation and revenue recognition, right? That's another piece.

Most of electrolyzer will be the biggest piece of the revenue, followed by material handling and service, then followed by our hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen fuel that we sell to our third parties supporting the material handling business, followed by our cryo business. Another piece of business which we think could provide some incremental opportunity and upside is we do do some energy transition work. It's not new. For example, we sell a lot of tanks for non-hydrogen-related customers, right? Actually, the industrial gas companies are our customers to buy these tanks. We can also do some non-hydrogen-related skid packaging business with the skill set and the know-how that we have in our liquefaction business. Some of that also will show up in the second half of the year, which is why I think that's the cadence, right?

Now, so that's the revenue cadence, if you would. How do you then get the margin cadence, right? And the cash flow benefit that we're talking about. Cash flow is likely going to be front-end loaded simply because of finishing Louisiana, catch-up payments on things that we have done in 2024. That number will continue to go down in the second half of the year. Now, from a margin standpoint, there are a few items, right? As Louisiana comes online, that will immediately help hydrogen margin. That's piece number one for hydrogen margin expansion. A second item for hydrogen margin expansion also comes from improving our system-level efficiency. There's a lot of effort going on in that. Q4 was good. We really improved efficiency quite a bit.

There is a lot of discussion going on with also our industrial gas supplier to figure out how to improve that hydrogen efficiency as well. On our service business, you should absolutely see margin continue to expand throughout the year for two reasons. One, we have increased pricing, and we are very supportive of the customer support on that. Second, there is a team just focused on driving service costs down. You will see a step change in that service cost even from Q4 of last year to Q1 of this year, okay? Finally, on the margin expansion front, electrolyzer team, there is again a dedicated team focused on reducing the cost of our electrolyzer stack by 30%. Get a weekly update from these guys. How is that progressing?

I feel pretty good about the fact that we should be able to reduce our stack cost by at least 30% from Q4 of last year to Q4 of 2025. That is what should help your margin expansion with lower burn rate. There is a scenario here you can see in that revenue mix that Q4, are we looking at potentially a cash flow and an EBITDA break-even quarter? By the way, that is not what we said during the symposium. We told you all EBITDA break-even is Q2 of 2026. We just want to make sure that we do not miss any of those targets.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Yeah. I want to dive deeper into the various markets, but I might just pause and just see if there's any questions before we move on. All right. I think we're done right now. Let's dive deeper and let's first talk with the fuel cell business and I guess maybe more specific on material handling in a moment. We've heard, I just want to, before going to material handling, which is a clear focus, and I get it, what would you say happened with some of the stationary opportunities that were discussed over the last few years? I guess maybe when could that actually move the needle, assuming you get past a lot of these near-term challenges and things you're focused on this year?

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Yeah. I mean, Bill, I think stationary product is more about there are two critical things on the stationary product side. One is how you're thinking about life of your stack, right? Your cost of your overall system, value proposition from that perspective. We need to make sure that the life of the stack continues to go up. That is going to continue to happen, right? That is nothing new. We have been focused on that. We are going to continue to do that. Regardless of what we just said about that might not contributing high-power stationary to revenue here in the near- term. Now, stationary product is a lot more about hydrogen than about just the fuel cell application, right? Depending on how you run the product, if you run a forklift 24/7, it is consuming 1 kg of hydrogen a day, right?

Your stationary product, 1 MW running 24/7, consumes 1,400 kgs of hydrogen a day. Obviously, we've done some projects with the likes of Microsoft. We're doing some of the stationary project with some of the other existing customers. They all find the product to be quite attractive from a data center market perspective and electric vehicle charging perspective. This product has tremendous, tremendous potential. The question really is, how do you balance the opportunity in that business with cost and availability of hydrogen? Because what we don't want happening is you sell a lot of stationary product, and then you got to buy hydrogen at dollar X and sell it at X minus some percent. You can't afford that hydrogen loss in that business. Texas plant coming online, having that additional hydrogen would be very valuable.

Bill, I think if I may now take a little longer-term view, right, which I think is important here. In the Gulf Coast, you already have an existing pipeline infrastructure for hydrogen to support hydrogen needs by the different refining companies. I think the way we should all think about as to how this plays out, which is why the value proposition of hydrogen remains so meaningful from the energy industry perspective, is think about leveraging low-cost renewable environment, hydrogen being moved via pipeline, long-duration storage, grid stabilization, and that pipeline then supporting a 100 MW plug-built PEM stationary product supporting one of the hyperscalers. That's where the industry has to go, right? Hydrogen, yes, you can store that amount of hydrogen on-site. How do you manage the logistics? How do you manage the delivery?

As this opportunity set gets bigger, you really need to think about the delivery of the hydrogen infrastructure. That is where, right? This is probably on the 1-10 MW side. This is probably more of a 3-5 year type of an opportunity, more like five, frankly. This is a big prize, but it is probably another 5-10 years away because we got to really think about the delivery and the logistics of hydrogen availability.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Yeah. No, it all makes sense. They're all interconnected, as you pointed out.

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Exactly.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Maybe coming back more to near-term and materials handling, which it's always been a core part of the business. Demand still remains kind of muted relative to some recent historical levels. I think some of this may be obvious, like warehouse builds may be slowing and post the COVID boom or things like that. I guess not my words, but yours. What led you to revise the materials handling growth expectations lower to 10%-20% versus prior expectations of 20%-30%? Maybe how should we think about potential green shoots, maybe additional customers or other applications that can drive your recovery?

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Yeah. I mean, there are some existing customers even that we're having very positive conversation with, number one. Bill, don't forget, we did go to the customers and increase the hydrogen prices the way we did.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Maybe you can tie in the TCO advantage if it's still there or not.

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Oh, 100% there, right? I think given where the hydrogen price is, where our service price is, and from a lump sum turnkey perspective, it seems to be clear that there is still the TCO benefit. That's not a question. Now, one another piece, though, look, I think we do expect what we've tried to do from a guidance standpoint here, Bill, is maybe some level of conservatism baked in. We looked at our existing backlog. We looked at all the potential that we have in the pipeline. We didn't say we're going to actually kind of go and win. We put a lot of lower probability of win, if you would, right? Now can that be higher? Potentially. There is also a little bit of an uncertainty surrounding investment tax credit, right?

We do believe that this tech-neutral Section 48E actually puts Plug in a much more unique and strong position than other players because it needs electrolytic green hydrogen. We're really the only company that have that. That's an added benefit. I think there also needs to be some additional clarity. We're having some of those conversations with customers. There are some big deals that we're negotiating, working on. Frankly, Bill, given how 2023 and 2024 have played out, we're just trying to take a view. Let's talk about things that we feel like are really pretty, pretty, pretty robust, pretty clear, very low risk, rather than go down and say, "These are the additional things we could do," rather be in a position to really be able to take that up rather than have to take it down.

That is really why we took that posture. It has nothing to do with value proposition changing. It has nothing to do with this is a very good growth opportunity for Plug. That thesis has not changed. If anything, we are even able to expand the market opportunity of material handling from large distribution center to the middle market opportunity as well, right? Because of how we have been able to continue to drive the cost down. That is really what I would say, Bill. There is some conservatism baked in. There is some policy clarity that we are looking for from the investment tax credit perspective. Hopefully, it is better than what we thought. Given how the last two years have unfolded, we thought it was prudent to approach it from that basis.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

This is a question, but can you wait for the microphone, please, right here in the middle?

Thanks.

Can you just talk about your expectations for cash burn for this year and how you're going to fund that? How much out of existing cash balances or appetite for more equity sales? I know you have the ATM program. Thanks.

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Yeah. We talked about it on our last earnings call. For the full year of 2025, our cash burn is expected to be between $300 million-$400 million. In that, we're talking about $75 million in CapEx. Anything we do with our plant in Texas, we will bring in third-party preferred equity investors for any additional capital needed outside of the DOE. I mean, we're literally neck deep right now trying to figure out what is that optimal solution from a capital perspective for this year. We did end last year with about $200 million of cash. Until we reported our quarter, we hadn't touched the ATM, if you would, right? Look, I think this is where this comes down to a discussion surrounding cost of capital, right? We do have a lot of many of option, if you would.

One of the debate, candidly, is do you go and address this right away in one shot, right? There is obviously we have a billion dollars in ATM. It is not about accessing capital. It is really about the what is that right capital solution. Look, I think now that Georgia has been running for 12 months, we can certainly actually have capital on Georgia, right? That is obviously non-dilutive in nature and somewhat of a back leverage kind of a situation. Can you get $125 million of capital from Georgia? Yeah, probably, right? There are things like that. I do not want to give you a precise answer here today because we are really evaluating what is the best thing to do.

I think what we're trying to do here is we want to make sure that the business is fully funded until we get to cash flow and EBITDA break-even. That is our focus. Now, do you fully fund that with what kind of debt solution is available? What kind of back leverage solution is available? What are the things you can do from a non-dilutive perspective? At the end of the day, it really comes down to cost of capital, right? Just because somebody wants to give you a debt and if the cost of that debt is 20%, probably you're better off going and doing equity, right? Give us some time. I think we do want to recognize this is something very much top of our mind that we want to address.

Look, we believe that the steps that we're taking is really going to lead to much better results here in the second half of the year. We feel like we've really put the company in a position that I think outlook is probably much better than looking backwards, if you would, and taking all the necessary steps to really minimize that burn, even at the lower revenue run rate, right? We didn't come back to you all and said, "Hey, given the world, we're not going to be doing $850 million or $950 million this year." Instead, maybe it's $700 million-$750 million, but the burn doesn't change. Margin expectation doesn't change. That's what we're trying to do.

You got to repeat the question.

Got to repeat the question. Yeah. I'm sorry. Can you?

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Do you think that you'll articulate the capital raising plan next quarter, or do you need more time? Do you want to see how the second half or third quarter goes?

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

All I can—do I need to repeat that?

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

No, no, no.

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Okay. Just want to make sure I had the microphone for the webcast.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Got it.

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Look, give us some time, right? I think I hear you. I understand why you asked that question and fully aware of why you would ask that question. I do not want to give you a timeline of when we are going to articulate what we are going to do. All I can say is this is something that is absolutely on top of our mind. We have lots of menu of options. We have a lot of people that have reached out to us. We just want to make sure, look, I think we want to solve it, right, obviously. We do not want to solve it in a rushed manner and do something that is going to solve your next 12 months, but maybe hurt you next 36 months. You do not want to do that, right? That is really what we are trying to decide here.

I do not want to give you that. We are going to give you an update in Q1 or Q2 of this year. This is something that we want to solve sooner rather than later. If we do not solve that, right, we obviously have that option with there are other options that are already available in the market for us to tackle that as well. The goal is to solve it sooner rather than later. Sure.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Thanks for that. We are getting close to time, and we did not really have a chance to dive in any deep level for electrolyzers and hydrogen fuel. Maybe you can just kind of summarize your vision and outlook for your electrolyzer and fuels business with our remaining time.

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Electrolyzer will have a nice growth in 2025, similar, maybe even slightly better than the growth from 2023 to 2024. All of that is really backlog driven. I just came back from CERAWeek meeting with a lot of customers there as well. The level of activity and the reception that we're getting in that business makes you feel good about having done the right thing. On the hydrogen fuel side, Bill, Louisiana comes online. Texas, we will see when the DOE loan guarantee program moves back up again. That is when we're going to make a decision on exact movement on that plant. We're not going to spend any more dollars until then. I think it's a prudent capital decision from our perspective. As Louisiana comes online, that will again reduce the overall blended cost of hydrogen.

With that additional volume, we're also able to improve our logistics efficiency. That will reduce the logistics cost and potentially also improve the hydrogen efficiency from a system level, what we call GenFuel system, right? Every 1% improvement in that GenFuel efficiency actually saves our cost by $1.5 million. If you can believe that, it's a pretty substantial improvement. I think you should see hydrogen margin continue to improve throughout 2025. Electrolyzer business not only just grows, you should also expect continued margin improvement in that business because of what I just talked about from a stack cost perspective.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Yeah. We probably could have gone a full hour, but unfortunately, we've gone through our 35 minutes and then some. Sanjay, look, really appreciate you sharing the insights. We'll look forward to following the progress and really wish the company the best in terms of the execution you have in front of you.

Sanjay Shrestha
President, Plug Power

Thank you, Bill. It is always great to be here. Really appreciate it.

Bill Peterson
Analyst, JPMorgan

Thanks.

Powered by