Plug Power’s stock is down significantly from its 52-week high of around 29, and now trades at around $8.00 a share. Plug Power’s foreseeable revenue is firmly placed on the company’s stationary solutions, but with increasing uptake of fuel cell technology, mobility solutions will play a key role through 2024, where revenue is expected to significantly increase. E-mobility solutions face a number of issues, mainly a slow uptake of hydrogen and a market where the price remains high. The company should start to see strong returns as it heads towards 2024, with improved uptake of hydrogen solutions and the overall hydrogen market and the installation of new stationary solutions infrastructure.
By: Yourstockresearch.com 21st September 2023
Is PlugPower Stock A Good Stock To Buy?
PlugPower’s Stock is a long-term buy, the company is in a market where growth will continue to be tepid in the short term, as the adoption of hydrogen remains nascent in the current environment, but once the hydrogen market picks up things should improve drastically. In 2023 total revenue is expected to come in at around $920 million, which would mean a 30% increase from the previous year.
Once the market picks up steam in 2024, as hydrogen infrastructure gets build, expect revenue to increase closer to 35-40% in 2024, with total revenue coming in at $1.3 billion. That will push the forward P/S to closer to 3x, making the stock relatively cheaper. The stocks fortunes are dependent on how quickly it can roll out its stationary solutions infrastructure and is also dependent on the mobility-hydrogen market.
What Are the risks ?
There are few risks to the actual company, which is well capitalized, Plug Power’s biggest risk like in the fact that the company is in a market, where product uptake is still taking time. The fuel cell market will pick up steam over the next few years though, and this will continue to help revenue along. Even if a market recession hits, the trajectory for the market should not be significantly affected considering that green energy solutions are going to remain a priority.
If you liked our research note, help us out by clicking an AD banner. Thank you.
Plug Power Stock Forecast for 2024 and its Valuation (H3)
Plug Power’s stock should see significant improvements in 2024, and over the next couple of years mainly owing to the fact that the hydrogen market is expected to pick up significantly. Currently the stock trades at a valuation of around 5x sales, which is not expensive if you considering that eventually revenue growth will become quicker, especially as hydrogen technology is adopted. I expect the company to become EBITDA positive
Hydrogen Fuel Cell Market
The global fuel cell market is expected to continue to grow at a significant rate over the coming years with market analysts predicting that the rate of growth is expected to be significant with the market growing from around $3 billion in 2023, to 9 billion by 2027.
What Will Drive The Fuel Cell Market?
The hydrogen fuel cell market has a number of applications, including buses, cars, warehouse logistics, where there is a need to power trucks, forklifts, etc. Increasingly, global distribution companies are turning to hydrogen fuel cells, with the likes of UPS, Toyota, and Nikola all looking towards hydrogen fuel cells.
The cost of producing hydrogen still remains a factor in the overall fortunes of the stock, and while the cost is coming down, without subsidies it is not competitive. Cost of fuel cells are falling as well and as is the cost of producing hydrogen which will get to around $2-3 per KG by 2027, down from an average of $5-6 in the current environment, which ensures Plug’s products remain competitive.
Competitive advantages of Plugpower
Marketshare
According to analysts, Plug Power in its business segment has close to 90% market share that is mainly the hydrogen-powered fuel cell market. This means the company is well positioned to take advantage of the growth that is expected over the next few years.
Technology
Plug Power has a significant lead in technology; its main competitors are large-scale industrial players such as Siemens, all of whom lag in infrastructure and technology. This has led to significant distribution and selling advantages for blue chip companies who buy Plug’s products. Furthermore, the turnkey solutions of the company are also playing a significant role in their adoption by players. Cost advantages and modular setups remain the biggest factors for the company.
Plug Power’s Business: Electric Vehicle’s Business And E-Mobility Market
The company’s strategy revolved around three key turnkey projects:
The first is GenFuel, which allows drivers to refuel and provides key infrastructure facilities for mobility solutions by offering 15,000-18,000 gallon hydrogen trucks, as refueling stations. It is also planning to offer a number of other solutions such as Progen an OEM solution, and Gensure, which helps large scale infrastructure needs such as data centers.
Hydrogen fuel cells have been relatively nascent until now, but a number of new industries, including the auto industry, and the transportation industry are considering fuel sources to drive their fleets. Hydrogen is still relatively expensive, but plug power continues to deploy its infrastructure, hoping that the initial investment can turn into market dominance later, when the cost of hydrogen comes down.
A number of major players, such as Toyota, and Hyundai, are investing in hydrogen mobility providing plenty of opportunity for Plug Power to provide ancillary and infrastructure services to help drive the economy forward.
Natural gas is currently the main source for the electrolyzers, and plug power currently has around 10MW setups, which it uses to turn out around 4 ton per day of hydrogen. Currently, most electrolyzer solutions are around 50MW, and analysts project that after the number crosses 100MW, only then will cost competitiveness kick in.
The company is creating a stacked Gigawatt plant, where it is stacking multiple electrolyzers together hoping that it can reduce the total cost of producing green hydrogen significantly over the next couple of years.
Management has predicted that the total energy solutions market will grow to around $4 billion or close to it by 2030, vs. $285 million currently. Currently, the cost of hydrogen is not competitive, and management has indicated that a $3 PTC could make the fuel source competitive. But the tax credit is subject to laws such as carbon intensity of production, which means that only wind energy is currently eligible along with potentially non-polysilicon solar sources such as plug power.
Plug Power is also looking to provide a mix of turnkey OEM solutions and mobility fuel cell solutions. The company partnered with Renualt recently to provide a range of initial solution proposal known as HYVIA, which led to the creation of number of vehicles including, the master van, city bus and chassis. The partnership paves the way for further fuel cell solutions for a range of different vehicles including personal vehicles, which would be a move beyond commercial solutions. It remains to be seen how far this entire ecosystem can go.
The company has also been offering drop-in fuel cell solutions and currently counts a number of clients, such as FedEx and Walmart as its customers, who use it primarily to drive their forklifts.
Stationary Solutions
Data Centers
Data centers are expected to grow by 13% in 2023, and the need for data centers is only going to keep rising at a relatively rapid pace until the end of the year. The multi-billion dollar market needs a source of energy that can overcome vicissitudes in the electrical grid. Data centers, which require constant up keep, will therefore be a key client moving forward.
Major real-estate retailers
The company is also increasingly investing in major retail outlets suchs as Walmart and Ikea. The backup power market provides significant opportunity for the company, with significant global scale available. Many companies currently use diesel generators, or have electricity backups. The ability to provide low emission backups based on hydrogen could provide a significant advantage to plug power over competitors in the field.
Electrolyzer Solutions
Plug’s electrolyzer products utilize PEM stack technology with nearly 50 years of operational experience in applications demanding extremely high reliability, including mission-critical life-support in nuclear submarines and NASA spacecraft. The technology combined with the cost advantage puts the product above competitors such as Siemens, etc.
Mobility Solutions
Plug Power’s e-mobility solutions continue to play a key role in providing solutions to range of different vehicles, but primarily fleet vehicles, ground support vehicles, Industrial robotics, Aerospace, and UAV. The fuel cell technology provides a similar range, and power profile to traditional vehicles.