Reach announcement - non regulatory

16 August 2021: 7am

AFC Energy plc

("AFC" or the "Company")

First Hydrogen Fuel Cell System Delivered to ABB

AFC Energy (AIM: AFC), a leading provider of hydrogen power generation technologies, is pleased to announce a further milestone in its strategic partnership with ABB, a world leader in electrification and digitalisation technologies. 

Following several months of dedicated electrical engineering work, AFC's zero emission hydrogen fuel cell system will today arrive in Estonia for operational integration with ABB's high power Electric Vehicle ("EV") charging system. 

Highlights

·     ABB and AFC launched a strategic partnership in December 2020 to design and sell a high power EV charging system for grid constrained locations through ABB's global market channels.

·      Following six months of successful electrical engineering and controls design, AFC's fuel cell system will today arrive for operational integration at ABB's packaging facility in Estonia for final validation in advance of marketing an integrated system to customers. 

·      An AFC team is accompanying the fuel cell system to Estonia, working closely with ABB to finalise engineering and integration works.

·      This milestone follows the cornerstone investment ABB made into AFC in April of this year.

Today marks a major milestone in the Company's partnership with ABB whereby, following six months of detailed engineering works, AFC's fuel cell system will arrive at ABB's product packaging facility in Estonia for operational integration and validation, in accordance with the Joint Product Development Agreement ("JPDA") that was signed between the companies in December 2020.

The integrated system will be configured as a high power EV charging product for grid constrained environments with a sizable opportunity to support rapid charging capability across multiple key target markets, including:

·      Private vehicle hubs;

·      Charge point operators;

·      Logistics hubs and distribution centres;

·      Public and private urban transportation (including bus depots);

·      Marine (including port and marina charging); and

·      Vertical Take off and Landing Craft (VTOLs).

The operational validation and integration of ABB and AFC's systems (incorporating fuel cells, a battery energy storage system and EV charger) will take place over the next few weeks and is expected to confirm the electrical and control systems required for the autonomous high power EV charger.

The expense of developing and delivering the system has been supported by ABB through its investment into AFC and confirms the strong commercial interest both have in progressing towards a market leading development in high power EV charging. 

A team of three AFC technicians is accompanying the fuel cell system to Estonia to support ABB and capture key running data from the operation of the combined system. 

ABB and AFC, through the Commercialisation and Marketing Agreement announced last year, will also continue to jointly market the integrated charging product across key addressable markets and will collaboratively develop a communications strategy for system branding and deployment in the remainder of 2021.

The system that has arrived today highlights AFC Energy's existing HydroX-Cell(L) series of fuel cell systems, but plans are already in train for the incorporation of AFC's higher power dense "S" series of fuel cells in future iterations. 

In ensuring the on-time delivery of its system to ABB and fulfilling the pre-agreed deployment later this month for Extreme E's Arctic X-Prix in Greenland,  AFC has made the difficult decision to no longer attend the British Motor Show later this month.  We wish the organisers of the British Motor Show every success but have prioritised providing systems and our technical staff for the ABB and Extreme E deployments, given their status as key partners for the Company and AFC being bound by existing commercial agreements.

Adam Bond, Chief Executive Officer at AFC Energy, said:

"Last week's release of the UN's report "Climate Change 2021:The Physical Science Basis" provides further damning, profound and irrefutable evidence of the effect human activity is continuing to have on the climate. In the year of Glasgow's COP26, it is increasingly important for our collective sustainable future that companies act now to mitigate against the activities causing climate change and risk the future of our environment. 

"Today signifies a further important milestone in our relationship with ABB in bringing to market a leading high power, zero emission, EV charging solution for adoption in many of the world's grid constrained environments.  As Governments around the world continue to make large strides in the electrification of transport, it is paramount that consumers have the confidence that high power charging will exist in locations where the grid is currently restricted.  Partnering with a market leader such as ABB to address these and other challenges in the decarbonisation of transport is an essential part of our go to market strategy for the mobility sector." 

-ENDS-

For further information:

About AFC Energy plc

AFC Energy plc is a leading provider of hydrogen fuel cell power systems to generate clean energy in support of the global energy transition.

Based in the UK, the Company's scalable systems provide off-grid, zero emission power that are already being deployed for rapid electric vehicle charging and the replacement of diesel generators for temporary power applications.   

AFC Energy is also working with global partners in the deployment of products for the Maritime, Ports, Data Centres and Rail industries, emphasising the central role of its technology in the decarbonisation of global industry.