‘CE’rtification – got it!

By: Ranjieve Williams, Director, European Platform

In the United States, Plug Power has built 41 hydrogen stations to support the fuel cell products already adopted in the field, being used by customers including Honda, Home Depot, Kroger and Walmart. Building viable, safe, reliable fueling infrastructure using Plug Power equipment is a daily occurrence – and our customers have shown how simple it is to use these stations by completing more than 5 million hydrogen fuelings.

As Plug Power has expanded into Europe, one of the requirements for doing business is to prove that our products meet the applicable European safety and performance standards, similar to ones in North America. We started with CE compliance of our GenDrive fuel cell units (we now have more than ten GenDrive models with the CE mark). And, most recently, we’ve completed that CE certification process for Plug Power’s GenFuel dispenser. Our CE-certified GenFuel dispensing solution meets all EU qualification requirements for hydrogen fueling products. Most importantly, this assures that our product can be used in the European market for both indoor and outdoor hydrogen dispensing applications.

What does this really mean for Plug Power?

The servable material handling market in Europe alone is valued in excess of $8B USD. And this number only grows as we expand our reach into fueling solutions and increase the number of industrial mobility applications we’re able to address. Before this certification was received, Plug Power GenDrive fuel cell products were already being adopted by customers like FM Logistics and Carrefour (the second largest retailer in the world), using fueling dispensers provided by our European partners, like Air Liquide and Linde.

Now that we have CE certification, Plug Power can provide customers in all EU countries with the full “power, fuel, serve” solution, including the GenFuel hydrogen dispenser. GenFuel couples standard productivity-enhancing benefits, like fast fuels and a small footprint, with proprietary state-of-the-art SiteView intelligence, a perk only enabled when Plug Power GenDrive fuel cells are connected to a GenFuel dispenser. (Read more about the full capabilities of SiteView here.) SiteView’s reporting tools share critical information about the Plug Power units that are operational on-site, helping customers make educated decisions regarding their material handling fleets and the employees operating them as they strive for increased operational productivity and safety.

What does this mean for the entire hydrogen and fuel cell industry?

At Plug Power, hydrogen power is our business. We have built a reputation for developing and deploying the most reliable, robust and cost-effective hydrogen stations available to customers today. As the hydrogen fuel cell market continues to mature, Plug Power plays a vital role in driving mass market adoption both in the United States and abroad.  Critical to this growth is creating scale in how hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are fueled. Certifications of this kind not only enable Plug Power to spread its specific hydrogen solutions globally, but allow a path to be paved for the widespread hydrogen economy. That’s just a little something we call #InfiniteDrive.