BETHLEHEM — Plug Power is moving forward with its plans to build a 350,000-square-foot fuel-cell factory in the town of Bethlehem that will initially employ 670 people, about half of whom will transfer from the company’s Latham headquarters once the project is competed.
But new documents filed with the town show that Plug Power has aspirations for employment levels that more than double that over the next five years.
Engineers and consultants hired Columbia Development of Albany, the company that owns the Vista Technology Campus in Slingerlands where the Plug Power facility will be built, reveal that employment levels are expected to reach 1,625 people within five years. Such an increase likely would make Plug Power the largest private-sector employer in Bethlehem.
At this time last year, the company had 1,285 employees.
Plug Power is one of the nation’s leading fuel cell makers and has been undergoing rapid growth. The company says it may achieve nearly $1 billion in revenue in 2022, which would be an 80 percent increase over this year.
But by 2025, the company believes it will reach $3 billion in annual revenue.
The Slingerlands facility will make Plug Power’s GenDrive fuel cells that are used in forklift trucks in warehouses. The company is also developing its fuel cell technology for other vehicles and the data center market.
Plug Power’s fuel cells run on hydrogen, which emit only water vapor and warm air when they are running, making them a popular power source as governments and corporations around the world seek to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to try and curtail climate change.
Plug Power is also developing its own sources of so-called green hydrogen that is made from water using electrolysis. Most hydrogen today is made from methane, itself a greenhouse gas, using electricity generated from fossil-fuel power plants. Plug Power is building its own electrolysis hydrogen factories powered by renewable energy to create the world’s largest supply of green hydrogen to power its fuel cells.
The Slingerlands facility would only be used for making GenDrive fuel cells to be shipped to customers. The company’s Latham facility on Albany Shaker Road near Albany International Airport shipped 4,559 GenDrive fuel cells to customers during the third quarter of 2021, work that could start at the Vista site by early next year when Plug Power wants its initial construction at the site to be completed.
Documents filed with the town show that Plug Power would have shifts around the clock if needed. About 40 administrative staff would work out of offices, while the rest of the workers would be involved in manufacturing, testing and shipping fuel cells.
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