(Credit: Pixabay)Amazon is set to get a significant amount of green hydrogen from Plug Power and in return, Amazon will assist the clean energy company with a revenue goal that will help it further achieve its strategy to build widespread hydrogen infrastructure.
The deal calls for Amazon to receive 10,950 tons of liquid green hydrogen per year beginning in 2025. Amazon will also acquire up to 16 million shares of Plug’s common stock, which Plug expects will help it toward a $3 billion revenue goal by 2025.
Amazon says the green hydrogen supply from the deal would be enough to power 30,000 forklifts or 800 heavy-duty trucks that are used in long transport. The company says it is exploring different uses for green hydrogen, including fuel cell electric trucks and fuel cell power generation stations that could provide electricity to its buildings.
Amazon says the investment in Plug is part of its goal to see further development and use of green hydrogen across industries and is part of its Climate Pledge Fund, the $2 billion venture program that supports the development of sustainable technologies and services. Amazon recently invested in electrolyzer developers Electric Hydrogen and Sunfire through the program.
Plug and Amazon have been working together since 2016, and Plug has helped Amazon deploy more than 15,000 fuel cells to replace batteries in forklifts at 70 distribution centers. Amazon says it hopes to expand that use to 20,000 fuel cells across 100 distribution centers by 2025.
Amazon will vest the Plug stock agreement in full if it spends $2.1 billion over the seven-year term of the warrant across Plug products, including electrolyzers, fuel cells, and green hydrogen.
Plug also recently agreed to supply up to 20 tons of green hydrogen per day to Walmart to power the retailer’s lift trucks at its US distribution centers. Additionally, Plug is building a 100-megawatt green hydrogen plant in Belgium, which will produce up to 12,500 tons of the clean fuel per year.
All of those projects are part of a plan by Plug to produce 70 tons per day of green hydrogen by the end of this year, 500 tons per day in North America by 2025, and 1,000 tons per day globally by 2028. The company says it has deployed more fuel cell systems and fueling stations than anyone – 50,000 and 165, respectively – and is the largest buyer of liquid hydrogen.
Overall, the hydrogen fuel cell market is expected to be valued at nearly $80.5 billion by 2030, according to Reports and Data. Shell and Iberdrola are also building large-scale hydrogen production facilities as demand continues to grow.
