Material handling industry energy product provider Plug Power Inc. has acquired a Canadian vendor of lightweight fuel cell systems and will expand into the robotics and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) markets, the company said today.
Latham, N.Y.-based Plug Power said it will provide advanced hydrogen fuel cell (HFC) solutions to the new market sectors thanks to its purchase of Montreal, Canada-based EnergyOR. EnergyOR provides lightweight and compact fuel cell systems for robotics, small scale material handling, and aerospace applications.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. EnergyOR will now be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Plug Power and will maintain its status and presence as a Canadian company.
According to Plug Power, the purchase of EnergyOR's assets allows it to integrate small, ultra-lightweight fuel cell technology into its existing portfolio of ProGen hydrogen fuel cell engines, facilitating the adoption of more powerful, viable, and clean technology solutions for both military and commercial applications that necessitate lightweight fuel cell systems.
That strategy will allow Plug Power to address new applications beyond its core market of industrial material handling equipment, tapping into e-commerce trends that are driving demand for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) used for order fulfillment tasks, the company said. "As we continue to grow, we are the go-to company in applying fuel cell technology across a broad range of applications," Plug Power's CEO Andy Marsh said in a release. "It's a natural progression for us to take our innovative technology and what we have learned in the material handling and e-mobility spaces and apply that to other industries that will thrive with HFCs."
