While Plug Power has paused construction of its $290 million green hydrogen plant at WNY STAMP it has continued to make full PILOT payments to local taxing jurisdictions, according to Mark Masse, CEO of the Genesee County Economic Development Center.
According to the tax agreement between GCEDC and Plug Power, the payments are $147,599 annually to Genesee County, $308,368 to school districts, and $42,805 to the town of Alabama.
The project has been on pause since January 2024, Masse said, and that pause led GCEDC to take over the construction of a $55 million 450-megawatt substation electrical transmission to STAMP projects, which Plug Power originally agreed to fund.
Empire State Development agreed to allow GCEDC to tap into a $56 million grant to help pay for the substation. The grant was intended for other infrastructure at STAMP. Masse said that once completed, the substation will generate fees for electric delivery that will enable GCEDC to recover the funds and return the expenditure to the grant account.
"As companies come online, they will buy into the substation on a per megawatt charge," Masse said. "So, we'll take the total cost of the station divided by 600 megawatts and come up with a per megawatt charge. So, for ballpark, if it's $200,000 a megawatt, somebody wants 200 megawatts, it's a $40 million pay-in to buy into the substation, which will enable us then to basically get that money back for New York State, so we can use that to pay for the substation, and then repurpose the FAST New York funds back for what we originally wanted to use them for on infrastructure."
Masse said he has no insight on what Plug's long-range plans are for the project.
Each year, projects that receive GCEDC assistance must submit Annual Performace Reports that detail the number of jobs created and the amount of capital investment.
"We summarize all of those. We share them with the board," Masse said. "The board reviews them every year, and then the board makes a determination, did they meet their job requirements? Do they have the insurance requirements? And where are they in that one plus three."
The "one plus three" means a project has one year to complete construction and three years to complete its job creation promise.
"Then the board would make a determination -- do we want to ask them to come in and explain anything? Do you want to move forward with a termination? Any of those things are always on the table," Masse said. "In Plug's case, they are current with all of their PILOT payments, and the payments they're making to the municipalities are significant, which is the other thing to balance in the whole piece of it as well."
Plug Power seems like a company very much in limbo. Its stock price has been hovering around a buck fifty for a few weeks and hasn't traded above $2, except briefly, for months. The company continues to get bad press over its inability to turn a profit, with one recent article noting Plug Power has lost $3.12 billion of other people's money since 2010.
An important potential path for Plug Power is producing more of the hydrogen it distributes. If ever completed, the WNY STAMP plant is expected to produce 45 metric tons of green liquid hydrogen daily. It would be fair the most product plant under the company's control so its surprising that there is no clear indication that Plug intends to complete the plant.
Plug Power's representatives have never responded to The Batavian's requests for comment on the future of the plant.
Just before Donald Trump took office in January, the Plug Power secured a $1.7 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. After taking office, Trump froze DOE grants and loans for green energy.
In an interview with a site called Sherwood News, Plug Power CEO Andy Marsh said he's not worried about the stall in funding.
"I see that the DOE loan will be supported," Marsh said. "It’s a contract with the government. I’m not too worried; it’s not out of line with the goals of the Trump administration. So, you know, from a policy environment point of view, it feels hectic at the moment, but I’m really not that concerned that these things will all work themselves out."
