Ballard Power Advances On Technology Solutions Project

Fuel cell maker, Ballard Power Systems Inc (NASDAQ:BLDP) has its order book ticking with the latest from Nisshinbo Holdings Inc. – an energy company – for the next phase of the Technology Solutions project. The project, which has completed two years, is aimed at developing a technology for reducing manufacturing cost of certain proton exchange membrane (“PEM”) fuel cells.

Nisshinbo Holdings has for more than 10 years supplied bipolar flow field plates to Ballard Power. These plates are used in the manufacturing process of PEM fuel cell membrane electrode assemblies (“MEAs”) that are used in various market applications.

Ballard Power and Nisshinbo will jointly conduct the next phase of the project where the focus will be on a catalyst technology that will further enable cost reduction of Ballard Power's air-cooled fuel cell stacks. These stacks are deployed in various market applications like telecom backup power and material handling.

Past Orders

In the last two months, Ballard Power has nabbed a couple of orders for backup power systems and fuel cell modules. The most recent order was placed by Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited for 100 ElectraGen-ME fuel cell backup power systems. These systems will be employed in the company’s wireless telecom network in India. Dispatch of the initial 100 backup systems is anticipated to be completed in 2015.

The other order came from a Chinese customer for supplying Ballad Power’s next-generation FCvelocityTM-HD7 power modules for eight buses. Ballard Power expects to complete shipping by this year. These buses will be deployed in various cities in China.

Recent Earnings Update

As fuel cell technology is yet to gain popularity on a large scale commercial platform, most fuel cell makers end up incurring losses. To make it a viable option, these companies are investing substantially in research and development activities.

In the first quarter of 2015, Ballad Power incurred a loss of 6 cents per share as against the Zacks Consensus Estimate of earnings of 14 cents. Quarterly loss also widened from the year-ago loss of 3 cents per share.

Zacks Rank

Ballard Power Systems currently has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). Better-ranked stocks in similar lines of business are Kyocera Corporation (NYSE:KYO) and Universal Display (NASDAQ:OLED), both sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and Fabrinet (NYSE:FN), carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

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