GenDrive Sales Growth Allows Plug Power to Execute Purchase Order for Ballard Fuel Cell Stacks

Plug Power Inc. PLUG today highlights its GenDrive® sales growth with material handling customers in North America. The build-out of Plug Power's manufacturing pipeline has made strategic supply chain initiatives a priority. Preparing the company to meet customer product delivery targets, Plug Power issued a purchase order commitment to Ballard Power Systems BLDP for its fuel cell stacks used in the GenDrive product suite. GenDrive is a superior power source to lead-acid batteries for electric lift trucks in material handling applications. Lift truck fleets powered by hydrogen fuel cell systems, rather than incumbent sources like lead-acid batteries, provide the benefits of extended runtime, no power degradation and quick hydrogen refueling, which can result in increased productivity for high throughput fleet operations. With these tremendous benefits over lead-acid batteries, Plug Power sees a path to profitability by leveraging its GenDrive product line. The company expects to ship between 1,600 and 2,300 GenDrive units during 2011, increasing to 3,400 to 4,400 units for calendar year 2012. Plug Power has witnessed sales growth in the material handling market since exclusive dedication was placed on the business in 2010. Plug Power's impressive customer list includes major material handling players like Sysco, Walmart Canada, FedEx Freight, Central Grocers, Coca-Cola and Kroger. As Plug Power continues to accumulate orders for its GenDrive product from some of North America's largest material handling customers, the need for a robust and reliable supply chain is critical. Plug Power and Ballard currently have an existing, mutually exclusive, supply agreement through 2014. Plug Power uses the Ballard FCvelocity®-9SSL fuel cell stack in its suite of GenDrive systems used to power class-1 sit down counterbalanced trucks, class-2 reach trucks and class-3 pallet jacks.