Nikola signs deal with Plug Power, trucks, and liquefaction system included

By signing a contract with Plug Power, Nikola is taking another step toward developing a hydrogen center in Arizona.

According to the agreement, Phoenix-based Nikola will sell Plug Power up to 75 of its Tre hydrogen fuel-cell electric cars over the following three years. In exchange, Plug Power will sell Nikola a liquefaction system, with the initial capacity to process 30 metric tons of hydrogen fuel daily.

Additionally, the businesses signed a contract for the delivery and offtake of 125 metric tons of hydrogen per day, which will supply Nikola with at least 100 metric tons of hydrogen per day from various places across the nation. Over time, that sum can be raised.

Nikola’s trucks will be used by Plug Power, which has a headquarters close to Albany, New York, to transport its liquid hydrogen tankers for distribution to clients across North America.

In order to deploy Nikola’s Tre FCEV trucks and the hydrogen infrastructure that the company aims to develop to enable a trucking network in California and the Southwest, Nikola will establish a hydrogen hub in Buckeye. The business quietly paid $16.5 million for the site in September, and soon afterward it announced plans to erect a hydrogen manufacturing facility there.

Additionally, Nikola has submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Energy Loan Program Office for a prospective federal loan of $1.3 billion for the hub under the Innovative Clean Energy Projects program.

There, the first phase of Plug Power’s liquefaction technology will be able to produce 30 metric tons per day. According to the corporations, it will eventually rise to 150 metric tons every day.

The FCEV trucks from Nikola will be produced in the business’s factory in Coolidge, in Pinal County, south of Phoenix. The business already manufactures its battery-electric cars there.