Plug Power’s turnkey approach to hydrogen fuel cells gains traction

Plug Power (Booth 672) was showcasing GenKey, its turnkey hydrogen solution for materials handling sites. After a launch early last year, GenKey has been installed at 10 customer sites, according Jose-Luis Crespo, Plug Power’s VP of global sales.

The offering combines the company’s GenDrive fuel cell units, its GenFuel hydrogen fuel and infrastructure, and its GenCare maintenance service into one solution, simplifying the deployment, said Crespo. GenKey is on track to gain another 15 installations this year, said Crespo.

Hydrogen cells eliminate the battery swaps necessary with conventional electric lift trucks, while fitting into conventional electric lift trucks from various vendors, says Crespo. This is a significant productivity gain, especially for relatively larger fleets running multiple shifts. “We provide a productivity gain for our customers,” Crespo said. “We give them back that time spent on battery swaps.”

GenKey has been adopted by companies including Walmart, Volkswagen and BMW. To make GenKey more cost feasible for smaller sites, Plug Power has been improving the modularity of the GenFuel element, preinstalling and pretesting more of the fuel infrastructure components onto a skid, said Crespo.

ProMat 2015 is scheduled to be held March 23-26, 2014 at Chicago’s McCormick Place. The tradeshow will showcase the latest manufacturing, distribution and supply chain solutions in the material handling and logistics industry. Modern’s complete ProMat 2015 coverage.