Member Info for toneman

Yes bilbs, the AGM has reverted back to the old fashioned in-person event. Seems like a backward step given that we're all Zoomed and Teams'd up these days. Then again, this one is only the AGM so it's generally just voting procedures. I think I remember even at last years InvestorMeet AGM they didn't take any questions.

ITM just don't like to make life easy for us do they? It would be comical if it wasn't hitting our investments.

I don't even know why they are bothering to give forward guidance. It's all at such an early stage, it must be almost impossible to predict anything specific over a 6-12 month timeframe. 30% drop is the standard market opener for a 'profit warning'. But even calling this a profit warning would be odd for a company that won't be making a profit for a good few years yet.

Still, it's a shame that the share price reaction to this sort of news for such an early stage company has to be the same as for a big multinational that's just seen its market surprisingly shrink. Such is life.

Unfortunately there always seems to be double-standards applied when it comes to hydrogen versus batteries/electricity, and in this case it also manifests in the refuelling network. Anything to do wth hydrogen and zero-carbon results in stipulations from several government bodies, including UK, that green hydrogen MUST be combined with a dedicated renewable electricity source. We don't see the same rules applied to public charging points which can simply take electricity from the grid irrespective of how clean or dirty it was generated. Until the playing field is levelled I'm afraid we won't see a massive rollout of hydrogen refuelling here. If I were a conspiracy theorist I would conjecture that all the trials for comparison that we see our government initiating is to fulfil their desire to have a scientifically proven outright win for battery/electricity so they can abandon hydrogen altogether for a simpler life.

Wednesday is Plug's Symposium day. They released this 3D factory tour ahead of the event.

https://3d.zuant.com/experience/plug-power/KJ66EE8SEe2i3O%2BCc7Lqpg/

Oh good (sarcastic), another trial launched. At least the 3 year timeframe is probably enough time for the rest of the world to have shown us the answer anyway.

As with everything else, we'll have to wait for the rest of the world to decide which way to go. I've given up on the UK ever taking the lead in anything. If ITM want to make any serious sales of electrolysers, it's going to have to be overseas.

SatellitePro, the only counter-arguments I have left are in relation to 1) battery lorries and 2) excess energy storage.

1) Liebriech et al. suggest that battery lorries will work because you only need 4 hours battery life (120-160miles) and drivers will recharge during legally-required breaks and delivery points. Those will both be high-speed chargers. Each time that case is made there is never an explanation of what's involved. and I suggest that what's involved is non-trivial. Each lorry requires 400-600kWh batteries for the proposed minimum battery life. A 20 minute delivery slot requires a 500kW charger (50 miles) installed at company expense. I'm not convinced that such power and expense will be provided by many companies receiving deliveries. Multiple banks of 500kWh chargers at truck-stops the length and breadth of Britain also seems like a tall order, but I'd like to see a legitimate proposal by the proponents.

2) Excess energy from a wind turbine is a power limited, not energy limited. Whereas a solar panel is energy limited (8-10 hours of sunlight) and can therefore be matched to a battery for storage, the same is not true for a wind turbine. The wind may blow continuously for 10 days delivering continuous power. A battery would fill with energy in a finite time rendering it useless thereafter. Alternatively a constant stream of power into an electrolyser simply keeps generating hydrogen as long as the blades keep turning. Offloading the hydrogen generated into storage tanks or pumped away through a pipe is a trivial hurdle. Batteries are limited stores of energy, electrolysers are limitless converters of power.

Remember, power and energy are not the same thing.

Porsche918, I suspect you know the answer to your own question - orders and deliveries. They need to generate sales specifically targetting the current grey hydrogen market and non-energy markets (ammonia for fertiliser, refining, steel and cement). The markets for energy uses have too many sceptics so unlikely to guarantee strong growth in the share price with sales concentrated in those areas. If green hydrogen ends up only serving to replace grey hydrogen then competition with other electrolyser manufacturers could be quite tight, so early market share could be critical. The current Yara project is tyical and needs to be scaled up as fast as possible. The Yara plant only requires 0.5-1.0GW of electrolysis to be fully satisfied with green ammonia production, and that's only one year's production for ITM. But globally there's anticipated to be 17GW required by 2030 for green ammonia production. A decent slice of that would demonstrate the viability of ITM's factory and could justify around £5bn market cap.

It's important not to read these things as "All or Nothing" though. He said "Just replacing this dirty hydrogen — used mainly in chemicals production and oil refining — with green H2 made from renewable energy would require 143% of all the wind and solar installed globally to date", and that is a vast demand. Maybe some will be Blue, but I hope people have enough sense to demand a lot of it be Green so it really should be multiple GW of factories of electrolysers. Shipping tons of Green Ammonia from Australia as a chemical feedstock to the rest of the world should be a good market.

I think 86p is a daft price so I'm doubling down. I've brought my holding back up to my original levels. Now bring on the future.

"At the end of the day, that market is still massive."

That is true bilbs. I recognised that too from the podcast (and from our combined calculations over the recent years).

Some of you will remember a previous discussion we had involving Professor David Cebon. Personally I'm not a fan as I find his arguments a bit 'double standards'. He does at least support Green Hydrogen and never Blue. But he also only really advocates direct replacement of existing grey hydrogen demand with green, NOT using hydrogen for anything energy-related. The podcast posted is worth a listen and you can make up your own mind as regards 'Friend or Foe'.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/how-clean-is-hydrogen-actually-with-prof-david-cebon/id1449137711?i=1000581354031

For full reference you can find out more about his "Hydrogen Science Coalition" on their website.
https://h2sciencecoalition.com/
Is it just an anti-hydrogen echo chamber?

Which is easier (cheaper) to produce, green ammonia or green methanol? Methanol seems to have some advantages over ammonia as a combustion fuel or a fuel-cell fuel.

I'm happy to take the other side of your trade Investhome. ITM may appear stalled, as their sales and marketing strategy seems ill-judged, but until the entire market shows signs of abandoning green hydrogen I think writing off ITM is premature. If your short position is a relatively short term trade then there's a good chance you will be given an opportunity to cash in a profit as the company results are unlikely to pick up with a 12 month outlook. I am though still confident as a long term prospect I can bank another 10x from the prices I'm being offered thanks to nonthusiasts such as your good self. Two sides make a market. Best of luck with your short.

I'll be surprised if the AGM isn't covered online via InvestorMeet platform. The last couple have been, and basically just rubber-stamping as you suggested.

bilbs, there's a problem with your theory that economics is pretty much understood. If that were the case then surely economists would typically be in constant agreement. Evidence shows that economists don't seem to agree on a) the problem, b) the cause of the problem, c) the solution, or d) the future outcome. I like the old joke that economists have predicted 9 out of the last 5 recessions.

Why haven't we heard anything from Snam? (Or have I missed it)

It's coming up to 2 years since Snam made an investment into ITM and announced the 'preferred supplier' for first 100MW of electrolysers.

It also took a while before we recognised the first real order from Linde, but I can't remember whether that was after 1 year or 2. If it was also a 2 year wait, maybe we've got a decent order from Snam just around the corner.

Great hindsight from Goldman Sachs. Maybe they could give us last week's lottery result as well.

I applaud the bravery. I also happen to think it's a reasonable target (not necessarily a 12 month one though). I still maintain that a 1GW full factory is worth £5bn market cap. Even if you think that's optimistic, what ITM effectively restated yesterday is that a 1GW factory isn't big enough. So an extra 50% capacity would surely be worth £5bn market cap. Whichever way you cut it that's about 7-fold increase on where we are today and should be operating at (new) capacity within 3-5 years. You can never satisfy the nay-sayers who think the whole thing's worthless, but if they can fill it then why not £6 a share.

This is just generating shares to give out as employee share options. Maybe preparation for the new CEO? Otherwise just standard operations.