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

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Andy Marsh: I’ll highlight one platform that we think there’s real opportunities, because we have our capabilities far exceed the competition. We know and we’ve seen that as we’ve tested the market that there are real opportunities in the electrolyzer business. And that’s a platform that we’ve seen that based on the fact that the demand is there and the supply when you really look that people’s infrastructure doesn’t exist, we think there is a good opportunity to raise prices. And we know that because we have been and we’ve been winning orders. So that’s one area that’s clear to me that there’s real opportunities. So I think that we’ve seen across all of our segments, again, because I think because of our unique position and our experience that there are more opportunities than we’ve been able to take advantage in the past.

And look, it’s really closely tied to all the investments we’ve made in infrastructure with facilities, with our hydrogen plants, with our resources around the world that we sit at the table with a great deal of credibility that we can deliver, which I think uniquely positions us and which creates additional value for Plug.

Amit Dayal: And then maybe for Paul, I know you are anticipating significant improvements on the margin side in the second half. The cadence of this, are we looking at sort of breakeven levels in 3Q and then moving to positive gross margin in the fourth quarter, or how should we think about this, Paul?

Paul Middleton: Yes, I don’t know if it will be quite breakeven in Q3, but it should be low teens kind of range. And I think you’re going to — you absolutely will see positive in Q4 and pretty meaningful accretion on the rates in Q4 as these cost downs continue to kick in. And equally more important, the sales volume that we’re talking about and how substantial it is, that will be very accretive since it’s the composition of equipment.

Amit Dayal: And longer term, as your infrastructure comes online, Paul, I mean, is there a possibility where gross — cost of goods sold will actually begin declining for you guys? So just trying to see from a margin perspective how we should think about it as the infrastructure around all of these products comes online?

Paul Middleton: I mean I’ll give you an analogy. When we built and designed the Rochester facility, we thought we could do kind of 2 gigawatts of various products between GenDrive product and stacks and electrolyzer product. The learnings we’ve gone through we now think we could do anywhere from 4 to 5 times that volume through that facility. I mean, you can only imagine that the overhead leverage that you can get out of that — by leveraging that up, and we think that’s going to happen very fast. So to your point, the infrastructure we’ve built and scaling the range of things that we’re doing, it’s going to be substantially accretive as we continue to ramp up the business just in overhead, that doesn’t even account for supply chain cost reductions.

I mean, Andy mentioned today, we spent three hours today just as we do all the time, working on operational enhancements, focus on things. And so you’ve got supply chain cost downs, you’ve got overhead leverage and then as Andy mentioned before, there’s various products that we’re looking at price management around and ASP management. So all those things combined is what’s going to drive that margin profile in the coming quarters.

Operator: Our next question comes from Greg Lewis with BTIG.

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