Plug Power Inc. (NASDAQ:PLUG) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Paul Middleton: I guess what I would tell you is when we look at debt capital — and I think about it in kind of like the next 18 month time frame and across the various sources that you made reference to, I’m targeting $1 billion to $1.5 billion, that’s where I’m targeting. So in that time frame, and exactly the timing of when it rolls in and how that to be determined. But we’re pretty confident. I mean, we could go get that today. I mean, it’s not that we don’t have access to debt capital. We just want to — we’re being very opportunistic in thinking about the best terms, best cost, best — all the different dynamics. There’s debt available. It’s just I’ve had term sheets and lots of players. It’s just we’re trying to be very thoughtful about what we do and when we do it. But in that time frame, that’s roughly kind of what I’m thinking about in terms of magnitude.

Kashy Harrison: And then maybe just a quick follow-up question for Sanjay on Georgia. As you indicated, it’s taken a little bit longer to hit the targeted capacity. Can you walk us through exactly what the gap has been more recently between the Analyst Day back in June and what’s actually happened? And then when Georgia is online, will that — is the output for that facility earmarked for materials handling or is it earmarked for stationary power?

Sanjay Shrestha: Let me take the second part of the question first, right? It’s obviously earmarked for our internal use and for both of those applications, right? So that’s the first piece. Now in terms of the timeline here as to, again, I think from last we met versus where we are right now in the month of August here, we are fully planning to produce liquid here this quarter and certainly this month and hosting the Analyst Day on the 23rd, right? So we’ve actually — as we continue to make sure that what is the most optimum way to run the plant, there are learnings that we’re having, right? Now we have a choice to make, do you keep running or do you actually implement some of those learnings. So there are things that we found out that we could do better from a rectifier energization perspective, there are learnings that we have from the stack perspective that we’re actually going to make the operation of the plant better, right?

So as we look to implement some of those changes, learnings from our gas plant, that certainly has had some additional time impact here, right? And again, one of the things we want to make sure, right? So for us, getting Georgia up and running and getting production in Georgia, it also has to be done the right way and really leverage that learning as we start to think about building our plant in Texas, as we’re building our plant in New York as well, right? So that’s essentially what I would say. And also, another thing you need to kind of keep in mind, right, is we’ve been pushing, just so you guys know, in order to be able to get this plant built in 12 months versus what the industry average of 48 month is, we’ve actually been pushing folks, but it’s the month of July and August.

And on some level, the productivity does go down, because it’s 100 degrees outside and people have to actually take break and really be able to cool down and then go back on site. And just to give you a sense, the team was on site at 4:30 a.m. today, right, just to make sure that things were happening. So that’s another factor. There’s nothing anyone can really do about that, reduced productivity in the month of June, July and August in Georgia, and that certainly has played a bit of an impact here as well. Would you add anything to that?

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