Plug Power Shows Spark of Life

Graham City Manager Eric Garretty updated Young County Commissioners this week on the long-delayed Plug Power hydrogen plant, saying recent developments suggest the project is finally moving forward.

Speaking during the commissioners’ July 28 meeting, Mr.Garretty said the city is in the final stages of testing the water line and pump station built to supply the proposed facility located off FM 209.

“We run water through it, but it’s a fairly complex system,” Mr. Garretty told the Commissioners. “The monitoring, communication, determining the quality of water, and how much is being pumped—we’ve run into some issues there. We’d hoped to be done by the end of July, but it looks like probably the end of August or early September before it’s complete.”

The water line, which runs from Graham’s wastewater treatment plant to the Project Limestone site, will be used to periodically pump water to keep the system operational until construction begins.

County Judge Win Graham asked if Plug Power had given any indication of when work on the plant might start.

“I’m waiting to get a presentation from their liaison,” Mr. Garretty said. “As I understand it, they recently had their CEO and the Department of Energy briefed on what was in that ‘one big beautiful bill’—the loan guarantees— and that was very positive. Every indication is that it seems to be going forward, and that will allow them to reestablish the project.”

The hydrogen plant project, announced in 2022, stalled amid regulatory and funding uncertainty during both the Biden and incoming Trump administrations.

Tax revenue from the hydrogen plant, which sits in the taxing districtsfor Olney Hamilton Hospital, and the Newcastle Independent School District, would have signficant financial impacts on both.

Olney voters approved the issuing of $33 million in general revenue bonds to build the hospital on the understanding that the bonds would be repaid with tax revenue from Plug Power and two nearby wind farms. The hospital district issued $27 million in bonds to get the project under way but had to cut the hospital’s footprint, stop delivering babies, and raise taxes to make the budget work, partly because of the uncertainty surrounding the hydrogen plant.

Newcastle ISD also was counting on the plant to fund expansions to its campus and athletic facilities.