SLINGERLANDS — Plug Power is one of five recipients of millions in New York State funding to help develop technology to reduce the cost of transporting and storing hydrogen.

On Aug. 21, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that Plug Power along with its venture-funded-backed partner, Verne Power, would receive $2 million to advance Verne’s  research, development, and manufacturing of hydrogen technology for the transportation sector. 

With the ever-looming reality of climate change and government mandates aimed at reducing carbon emissions, hydrogen is one of a number of alternative-energy sources helping to pave the way for a clean-energy economy. 

Unlike fossil fuels, which release Earth-warming carbon dioxide when burned, hydrogen’s only byproduct is water. But any widespread adoption of hydrogen-specific technology has been hindered by production challenges, storage issues, and lack of efficient means of transporting it.

Transportation break-through

But Verne has already solved the problem of how to get the lightest and most abundant chemical element in the universe from point A to point B, by developing a process to increase the density of hydrogen by storing the gas in a cold-and-compressed state, making it more efficient to transport in larger volumes.

Recently, over the course of hundreds of miles, the California-based startup made zero-emission hauling in the heavy transportation industry a reality, as it successfully tested the world’s first cryo-compressed hydrogen Class 8 — think, “big rig” — truck. Verne’s compressed hydrogen technology allows the company to store 87 percent more cryo-compressed fuel than conventional gas-storage technology and 33 percent more storage than liquid hydrogen.

Verne’s cryo-compressed hydrogen significantly brings down costs compared to semi-trailers operating at one of the two main pressure levels at which hydrogen is stored and dispensed, and places it on par with diesel. 

With hydrogen, fuel is either densely contained at high pressure or it’s not. 

At 700 bar, a unit of measurement for how much force is pushing on an area, a class 8 semi-tractor has fuel costs between 64 cents and 85 cents per mile, while big rigs running on 350 bar have per-mile fuel costs between 54 cents and 75 cents per mile.

For a diesel truck, fuel costs are about 43 cents per mile.

The challenge

While Verne may be able to compete with diesel engines on fuel costs, traditional trucking transportation has upfront costs far less than that of hydrogen. A new diesel Class 8 truck sells for between $150,00 and $160,000, compared to $265,000 for a hydrogen Class 8.

Verne will work with Plug Power on applying its cryo-compressed technology to the tankers hauling the fuel. Today, the fuel is transported in a thermally-insulated pressurized cryogenic liquid tanker truck, or a tube trailer because, in its gas form, hydrogen is compressed and stored in long cylinders, a fancy word for tube, stacked on a trailer.

 “So far, the hydrogen supply chain has been hindered by a trade-off between compressed gaseous hydrogen — which is cheap to produce, but low in density — and liquid hydrogen — which is high in density, but expensive to densify (via liquefaction),” according to the company. “This trade-off has led to expensive distribution costs that have limited the adoption of hydrogen solutions.”

The distribution problem is something Plug Power is not unfamiliar with.

Plug Power operates more than 250 specialized hydrogen refueling facilities across the world, located at or near transportation network hubs, like airports, railyards, and maritime terminals. In 2021, the company acquired Applied Cryo Technologies, a Houston-based designer and manufacturer of “cryogenic trailers and mobile storage equipment for the Oil & Gas, Industrial Gas, and emerging LNG markets.”

Government funding

As Plug Power looks to tackle another specialized problem, it’s doing so in generally familiar confines: as a recipient of government largesse, from the federal government, the state government, and also at the county level.

 The company has also secured a $1.66 billion conditional loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy finalized in early 2025.

Other federal funding includes $74.7 million in government grants.

New York state also saw fit to approve millions of dollars in performance-based tax credits for the company at the time of its Slingerlands opening. The $45 million subsidy is contingent on Plug Power meeting job creation goals, which at the time was 1,600 new jobs in addition to the 700 that would be saved.

Firms looking to take advantage of credits have to either maintain a minimum number of new jobs or make substantial capital investments, neither of which are likely to happen following Plug Power’s layoff of 371 workers earlier this year.

Since the company built its Slingerlands facility, it has been the beneficiary of millions from Albany County Industrial Development Agency, receiving a $3 million grant for electrical infrastructure upgrades, claiming in its application that, while it wants to build in Bethlehem, “it also presents many challenges. The most notable of which are timing and cost,” challenges which “do not exist at the sites we are considering in other Counties.”

The company claimed it would have to expend an “additional $11,600,000 in costs that it would not otherwise have to incur,” on electrical and hydrogen-related infrastructure upgrades were it to build elsewhere.

The county IDA also “approved funding of $2,000,000 to be paid to Plug Power Inc. as reimbursement for the costs of acquiring certain machinery and equipment,” according to the authorizing resolution.  

Kevin O’Connor, the economic development chief of Albany County, said during a March meeting that the company fell short of a 564 new-job goal by 88 hires. O’Connor noted that Plug Power would still get to keep all of its taxpayer money, because “the so-called clawback provision,” says the company would only have to return money if the hiring shortfall “exceeded  20 percent.”

Albany County’s experience is not unique. 

Since 2020, Plug Power has been awarded over $312 million in largely local subsidies like $13 million from the Empire State Development Corporation for saying it would create 377 jobs in Monroe County.

In 2021, in return for the promise of building a $250 million facility, Plug Power received the “mother of all subsidy deals” from the  Genesee County Industrial Development Agency, which approved $140 million in discounted market-rate electricity for 10 years; $118 million in property-tax abatements over 20 years; $7.9 million over 10 years in discounted hydropower; $118 million over 20 years in property tax abatements; and $4 million in other handouts. 

It was estimated that for each job created, taxpayers would spend $4 million.