Green Giants – Episode 97

Wes Ashworth (02:56)

Yeah, it makes ton of sense. Really, really interesting journey. It does explain why you seem to approach this less as a pure technology story, more as a market and leadership challenge. When  you arrived at FuelCell Energy in 2019, what did you see that others were missing both about the company and about where the market was heading?

Jason Few (03:14)

I saw two things. First, I saw a company that spent years proving that it could innovate. But it hadn’t yet fully organized itself to innovate around customer needs. Second, I saw the market was going to reward power quality, resilience, and distributed infrastructure more than many people appreciated at the time, really.

The market didn’t look like it yet, but in a dramatic way, the pressure was already building. Grid congestion, reliability concerns, decarbonization pressure, and now AI-driven load growth. The seeds of this moment were already there, and that’s what I saw.

Wes Ashworth (03:55)

That’s always a really interesting thing to me and kind of what you see walking in and you know, especially sort of when a company is being judged by maybe an old narrative, well, the real opportunity is really starting to shift underneath it and being able to capitalize on that opportunity. Again, you have built this reputation for acting decisively in high stakes moments. Not an easy thing to do, but how do you know when a signal is strong enough to reorganize a company around it?

Jason Few (04:18)

Well, the first thing is you can’t wait for consensus, right? You have to look for patterns. One customer doing something can be an anecdote, right? Five customers asking the same thing, perhaps maybe in different ways, is a signal. When you see demand, policy, economics, and customer urgency starting to line up, that’s when leaders need to move. The second test is a bit harder, right?

Can your company uniquely solve the problem? If the signal is strong, but you don’t have the edge, you shouldn’t reorganize around it. In our case, the signal was strong and our platform had relevant strengths, continuous on-site power, modular scalability, very low emissions, community compatibility, and the ability to integrate thermal value. Those were very strong things that lined our organization up around organizing around the opportunity.

Wes Ashworth (05:11)

Such great wisdom there and insight and it’s always such a hard call, right? As waiting can be expensive. Moving too early can be just as risky and expensive as well, too. Getting it right is really important. But being able to do that is incredible. What have you learned about leading through skepticism, especially when people think they understand the technology before they actually do?

Jason Few (05:30)

Skepticism is healthy, right? In energy, it should be, right? The mistake is assuming that skepticism is the same as understanding. Many people think they understand fuel cells because they’ve heard about them for years, but they often are reacting to old, mental models about the technology. The answer is not about argue harder about fuel sales. The opportunity for us and the challenge is to educate more clearly, right? Show where the technology fits. Show where it doesn’t. Show real operating history, show how we solve customer problems. Then let the economics, and use cases do the talking. We have operating assets from microgrids to large utility scale CHP installations. That matters because credibility and energy is earned through operation, not adjectives.

Wes Ashworth (06:23)

That’s awesome. I love that so much. So much what you said there. Skepticism is not understanding. I like that call out. That’s a real thing we deal with in this industry. Old assumptions can stick around a lot longer than they should. But I love the way you frame that up. What’s been harder at FuelCell Energy? Is it changing the strategy, changing the story, or changing what customers and investors think the company is?

Jason Few (06:45)

That’s a great question. I think changing what customers and investors think the company is has been the hardest. Strategy can change in the boardroom. The story can change in a deck. Market perception changes only when you execute consistently enough that people can no longer hold on to the old narrative.

That is why, for us, why lean has mattered so much to us. We needed repeatable operating systems. We needed a system and a way to do that. We needed better visibility. Lean is helping us do that. We need better prioritization. We’re using our fuel cell business system anchored in lean to do that and a culture that solves customer problems, not just technical ones. That’s really what we’re focused on doing as a company.

Wes Ashworth (07:30)

I like that so much. That outside perception piece is so important because even when a company evolves the market doesn’t always catch up right away and to be able to do that, that’s the true test, right? That’s incredible. I think all that, kind of going through all those gives us a good foundation on the leadership side.

Now I want to get into a little bit of the into the market moment itself because it feels like one of those periods where the strain on the system is becoming impossible to ignore. This data center power challenge feels like one of those rare moments that can really reshape the industry.

Why do you see it as such a defining turning point and what’s on your mind about it?

Jason Few (08:02)

I think this is actually bigger than just data centers, right? I really believe it’s a redefinition of infrastructure. For years, the assumption has been that compute scaled first and power followed, right? This is no longer true. Power has become the gating factor for AI deployments. AI is not compute constrained, its power constrained.

When power becomes the bottleneck, the value shifts to companies that can deliver reliable megawatts quickly, modularly, and in a community compatible way. This is not a niche issue. This is a market architecture issue is the way that we think about it.

Wes Ashworth (08:44)

That’s good. I like the way you spell that out and it does feel like one of those moments where a demand shift really does just force the whole system to reveal what’s working and what’s not. Presenting new issues as you described there, too. Overall, there’s a lot of noise out there around like the data center power challenge and AI and these sort of things. What what’s your just kind of overall take on it when friends and family kind of ask you around the table? Like what do you what do you share?

Jason Few (09:06)

I think most people first start out by underestimating time, right? The grid can absolutely remain central to the long-term energy system. But it’s not moving at the speed the market wants or needs. Grid interconnection delays can be three to seven years. While AI infrastructure needs power on a very different timeline. It needs it now.

I think people also underestimate the quality of power demand. These are not ordinary loads. High density AI facilities need reliability. They need ramp management and increasingly architectures that match modern compute environments. This is why the conversation is shifting from where do I get electrons to how do I build the right power stack? That’s where we think our power block stacked architecture and its modularity makes a big difference.

Wes Ashworth (09:59)

One of these phrases that’s kind of showing up more and more is bring your own power. With all that in mind that you just shared there, what does that mean in practical terms and why is it gaining so much traction now?

Jason Few (10:10)

Look, I think first it means a lot of communities are getting maybe a bad reputation for standing in the way to some of this development. I don’t think that people mind progress. I just think they don’t want to pay for other people’s progress. It means that developers or operators can’t continue to assume that the grid will deliver enough power. They can’t assume it’s going to come on the right timeline and at the right reliability level.

To really support the economics they need to drive at a particular site. Instead of waiting, they increasingly secure power on site as part of the site strategy. We think bringing your own power in practice means on-site generation, flexible interconnection strategies, layered architecture with generation plus storage plus UPS and power becoming part of the real estate decision from day one.

I think the planning has changed, the architecture has changed, and the way in which compute happens today in this AI world, especially when you’re talking about learning, the grid wasn’t necessarily built for that. You need a different layered architecture to address that. That’s where technology like ours becomes very valuable.

Wes Ashworth (11:18)

It’s a really fascinating shift and we will get into your technology as well in a little bit. When people talk about solving data center power demand, they usually jump to transmission, gas, renewables, or storage. What problem are fuel cells solving right now that other options may be still struggle to solve fast enough?

Jason Few (11:21)

It’s fuel cells, it’s fast to deployment, so time to power. It’s clean. It’s modular. It’s resilient. We like to think about it as community compatible power at the point of demand. We really think delivering power at the point of demand drives enormous efficiencies in the system. You remove, for example, the need for things like high voltage transmission. But I think if you think about the overall energy mix, it’s really more of “and” story, we believe. Gas turbines, renewable storage, and transmission, they all have a role. But when customers need speed of power, base load operation, smaller load footprint, low sound and reduced permitting friction, fuel cells are very compelling to addressing the opportunity.

Wes Ashworth (12:21)

Checking quite a few boxes there. I’ve often said that, it should be an “and” not an “or” as we look at this. But this is to me where the conversation gets much more useful because real question is not what sounds best in theory. It’s what actually solves the problem. To your point, the customer’s problem on the required timeline as well, too. You’ve shared a bit about this already, but is this moment exposing sort of a deeper flaw and how we plan modern power systems? The assumption that the grid would always be able to absorb these new categories of demand on the timeline that really the market wants? You’ve already touched on that, but if you just want to expand on that as well.

Jason Few (12:53)

Sure. I think, you know, maybe a good example would be if you think about other industries, if I go back to my telecom days and you think about developing countries, nowhere in the world is anybody today digging holes, putting in telephone poles and running wire to deliver phone calls.

It’s 5G networks on the edge. I think the deeper flaw that’s been exposed here is that, the grid plan, and we built a nationwide grid architecture that was all around predictable load growth and centralized delivery. We’re now entering a period where load growth is lumpy, it’s urgent. geographically concentrated. I mean, just think about Northern Virginia as an example. It’s commercially unforgiving. It has to work. It doesn’t mean the grid is obsolete by any means, but it means the grid alone is no longer sufficient for every use case and certainly not on every timeline.

Wes Ashworth (13:51)

It’s sharp way to frame it and incredible how quick that shifted and where it’s not predictable anymore is going to require some unique solutions and different solutions in addition to the grid and kind of getting into that. Let’s kind of stay there, make the technology side practical because fuel cells are still one of those categories people may have heard about without always fully understanding. I want to cover that. For people who know the term, but not the reality, how do you explain a fuel cell in plain English and what’s the simplest way to understand how it differs from combustion based generation?

Jason Few (14:22)

The easiest way I can explain it, and if everyone just kind of goes back to their chemistry class for a moment, and you think about some of those great opportunities you had in elementary or middle school or high school to mix a couple things together and get a reaction. You didn’t need to use fire, or you didn’t need to combust it in order to get a reaction. You could think about fuel cells in the same way.

We convert fuel into electricity through what’s known as an electrochemical process rather than burning it. If you think about that, combustion-based generator makes power by igniting fuel. A fuel cell makes power by converting fuel without combustion. We react it. This is why our emissions profile, noise profile, and efficiency is different.

We make effective use of that fuel without doing the things to the fuel that create criteria pollutants and other things that aren’t necessarily community friendly. But using a fuel that allows us to deliver a continuous base load power is really important. We just use fuel in a better way.

Wes Ashworth (15:28)

You use fuel in a better way. I love how you put that in very easy to follow. I think it’s helpful because I think even a basic reset there changes how people think about the category. What’s the single most just outdated assumption people still make about fuel cells? Why does it persist? Then what do you say about it?

Jason Few (15:43)

I think it starts with going kind of back to chemistry and science that fuel cells are still a science project. We launched our first commercial product in 2003. We’ve had commercial platforms running for 23 years. We’ve got very large utility scale projects, 60 megawatts that have been running for 13 years continuously. This science project assumption persists because the industry has talked for years in technical language, And often outside commercial context.

I talked about earlier one of the things that we had to really change is even how we define success and really thought about a commercial lens to our approach. The market today really cares a lot less about the label and more about whether the system can deliver power, if it fits the site. meets the permitting requirements and supports returns.

That’s a better conversation for us because we’ve proven this large-scale deployments, utility scale. Like I said, operating for 23 years, we’ve been in commercial business. That’s not a science project. That’s real power being delivered, offering real value. In addition to the other value streams, we deliver from our platform like thermal.

Wes Ashworth (16:57)

No, not a science project hasn’t been for a long time. It’s funny, every sector, especially within kind of the renewable space has those narratives that just keep hanging around long after those facts have changed. I always like to put those out there when we can. I’ll ask you this, so if you had one minute with utility executive or a data center operator, what’s the case for taking fuel cells seriously right now? What would you share with them?

Jason Few (17:20)

I would say they should take fuel cells seriously because the market has changed. If you need reliable on-site power, if the grid timeline doesn’t work, if community acceptance matters, and if you want modular deployments with strong efficiency and thermal integration, this is a serious infrastructure option for those customers. We’re not asking to replace every asset in the system.

What we’re saying, is that there are use cases where distributed fuel cell power solves real problems right now. If you think about our platform, we think about five core values that we deliver. One, accelerated time to power. Two, AI native architecture. We’re already where the one-megawatt DC rack, think about it in the hockey terms, the puck is going.

We’re already where the puck is going, right? Three, infrastructure grid scalability. Four, you think about revenue and return acceleration. I think something that’s really, really important, capital preservation and regulatory resilience. You can buy our platform today, deliver power in AC. Tomorrow, that infrastructure is direct DC. You don’t change on our platform. You go to direct DC. Today, emissions may be less of a question in some parts of the country. Tomorrow, it’s going to be an important question again. That regulatory resiliency that we provide, we think that’s really important. Those five value propositions, we think uniquely distinguishes the FuelCell Energy platform.

Wes Ashworth (18:55)

I like the frame. I like the five kind of value props as well to get you right down to the heart of it. What was the process for that? How did you get to those sort of five laser focused value propositions? I’m always curious sort of the creative process, like how you got there.

Jason Few (19:10)

We thought about, kind of maybe going back to the Clayton Christensen model of what is the job that needs to be done. What problem are you solving for a customer? The customer needs quick power. Check, we do that. The customer is making long-term purchase decisions. How do we give them a platform or offer up a benefit that says, you can make a decision today, that today is a 20-year decision. Guess what? The decision you make today, in year 18, that is still going to be a great decision because you’ll be in a DC world. We’re there. You’ll have a different regulatory regime. We’re there. The capital purchase you’ve made is preserved over that 20 years. You need a platform that will continue to scale, not in these massive chunks, but that will scale at the same pace in which you’re scaling your infrastructure.

Maybe one year that’s 15 megawatts or 20 megawatts. Maybe the next year it’s 75 megawatts. Our 1.25 block allows that scalability. Then certainly revenue and return acceleration really important. We said, look, how do we do that? What is the value of our product? Those five things just kind of stood out on the page, if you will, as our true value proposition.

Wes Ashworth (20:31)

That’s incredible. I love that. Love the process and how you got there as well, too. When people usually make the case for fuel sales, you’ve mentioned these. I just kind of want to dig into it a little bit. They usually point to the emissions profile, quiet operation, and ability to provide steady power. Which advantage is the market finally beginning to value more fully?

Jason Few (20:49)

I think it’s the fastest path to compute. Which means then it’s the fastest path to power. It’s not even just a supply chain question. Like, do you have the unit to ship it? Can you get the unit permitted? Are you going to have community resistance? Are you going to hit Title V issues? Right? We avoid all those things.

When you really think about fastest path to compute, means you have to have the fastest path to power and that’s what we solve and we solve it exactly where the demand is and we do it in a modular way and we think that’s become strategically very valuable to customers.

Wes Ashworth (21:27)

Very interesting and really, you what matters most can change quickly once that market starts feeling real pressure. I was interested to hear your take on that. Clean energy conversations often force technologies into separate camps, which we try to get rid of. But how do you think about fuel cells alongside solar, wind, storage and gas generation as a real system design not an ideological one?

Jason Few (21:30)

Look, as we talked a little bit earlier about “and.” I think about system design, not ideology. Solar and wind are essential. Storage is essential. Gas infrastructure remains important. Fuel cells are part of the toolkit. We think a very important part of the toolkit. We think the right question is not which technology wins.

The question is what combination best solves the customer’s reliability, speed, emission, and economics problem? Good infrastructure leaders, they’re focused on designing systems. They’re not out there trying to build tribes. They want systems that meet their needs, deliver solutions, and that’s how we think about it. It’s really about system design.

Wes Ashworth (22:35)

So good, so spot on. I agree wholeheartedly with all that. I think that’s the conversation that more people are ready for now. One’s less about labels, more about fit. Again, that sort of systems mindset and approach. We are going to need it all, I promise you. You’ve already touched a little bit on community impact. I think one of the most important parts of this whole discussion is because projects, they don’t get built in the abstract.

One of the most an underexplored parts of this whole debate is the community question. Is it not only whether, you know, we can power new infrastructure, it’s whether communities will accept what gets built around them, but how should people just think about fuel cells in that context?

Jason Few (23:13)

There’s no question, communities care what gets built around them. Whether you’re talking about housing or you’re talking about power infrastructure, communities care. They care about local air quality. They care about sound. They care about footprint. They care about visual impact. Rather, the project fits into the community life.

We think about fuel cells as reducing that friction because they’re compact, they’re near silent, very low criteria emissions. We think about how do we become part of the community, operate in a way that has us as good stewards of the community, because it does matter to communities. We believe that you can actually have both. We believe that you can have what the communities want and need. We believe that you can have data center growth within a community.

We believe that data centers can bring their own power with on-site power generation, right? That the communities aren’t being burdened with that incremental cost. We think fuel cells do that in a way that aligns with objectives of the community.

Wes Ashworth (24:20)

Absolutely. It’s such a critical piece that, local acceptance of becoming a much bigger part of the energy conversation. I think everything you just shared there are best practices I’ve heard, over and over again as well. In practical terms, where do fuel cells may reduce friction for those communities compared with other options that are out there?

Jason Few (24:37)

If you think about combustion based alternatives, you’ve got noise you worry about, you worry about local emission issues, and you just have bigger siting challenges. If you think about our DB level of our platform, it’s roughly the sound of your air conditioner at home, because we don’t have moving parts. What community doesn’t want good air quality?

Because we don’t combust the fuel, because of that electrochemical reaction that we talked about earlier, we’re not admitting criteria pollutants. We’re not gonna add the poor air quality. I mean if you think about our platform work carb certified in California, we’ve deployed platforms in some of the poorest air quality areas in California where you couldn’t have sited a gas generation in that area because of the emission profile.

I think one of the things that’s often kind of missed in terms of how you think about community impact is footprint, right? How much land are you using? So 33 megawatts an acre density is really good power density. We think all those things reduce permitting friction, and we think that’s important. We’re proud of where we stand as a company and a technology to fit within a community, I would say.

Wes Ashworth (25:53)

It’s fantastic. All those practical details do really matter. It’s often where products either move forward or stall out. Let me kind of backtrack and ask this just for those maybe that aren’t aware. Can you describe just kind of what your company does? Somebody that’s completely unaware. They’ve never heard the name, they have no idea. We’re talking a lot about fuel cells and all this sort of stuff. Like in a nutshell, what should people understand about the company?

Jason Few (26:15)

We manufacture stationary fuel cell power generation platforms for the delivery of energy and other value streams for large utility scale commercial and industrial customers. I didn’t plan to use a prop here, but maybe I’ll pull this up as a prop. This 1.25 megawatt FuelCell Energy block delivers clean base load power to customers that is reliable, it is efficient, and it can be placed exactly where that demand is. We’re a manufacturer. We run and maintain and operate these platforms. It’s all done remotely, so it’s high tech. We fit right in with the need to have digital intelligence in the way in which you operate. We’re not only enabling digital intelligence by providing power to AI data centers, we use digital intelligence in the way in which we run and operate our business.

Wes Ashworth (27:08)

I appreciate you going through that. As you were going through, that curious question popped in my head, so I wanted to get it out there for our listeners. We’ll get back on track a little bit. Clean energy conversations can become abstract very quickly. What do you wish more policymakers understood about just the lived local impact of different power choices?

Jason Few (27:26)

The first thing I wish they understood that not all megawatts are the same. The live local impact of power solutions matter, timelines matter. The siting burden matters. The emission profile that affects a community today matters. Policymakers need to think less in categories and more in outcomes. What gets built faster?

What communities will accept. What preserves long-term regulatory durability? Back to one of those five value propositions, I talked about regulatory resilience. I wish they also understood that our fuel cells are American made. It’s an American innovation. Our FuelCell Energy block should be an essential part of how we think about energy dominance and rapid scaling of AI infrastructure. That’s what I wish they understood.

Wes Ashworth (28:17)

Hopefully they’re listening and they understand a little bit better now. It’s well said. I think people experience infrastructure very differently than they experience policy language. I love connecting those dots. When critics say fuel cells are too expensive, too limited, or too dependent on the wrong fuel inputs, how do you answer that without pretending that the trade-offs are simple?

Jason Few (28:36)

I’d say two things. First, every serious infrastructure decision is about full stack economics, not a single line item. Kind of point one I would try to make. Secondly, along with that first point, I guess I would say, if fuel cells help a customer avoid years of delay, if we accelerate revenue, if we reduce permitting friction, and we improve usable IT load through our thermal integration, and phase capital deployment because of our modularity, the economic picture changes pretty dramatically. The reality is, even on a line item basis, so if we just talked about LCOE or levelized cost of energy as a line item, we’re very competitive on that basis as well.

Second, we’re not sitting here pretending that the fuel source question doesn’t matter. It does. But we should also not pretend that waiting for years for power or forcing a power solution that doesn’t meet the customer’s needs or defaulting to dirtier or noisier, fast solutions, to say that those things have no cost, because they do.

We use clean, abundant natural gas the right way. No combustion. This matters. We can also use biofuels and a hydrogen blend. Fuel flexibility adds to our platform regulatory resilience that we’ve talked about. Going back to those value propositions. Natural gas today, provide us a biofuel source tomorrow. We’ll use it.

Provide us a 50 % hydrogen blend, we’ll use it. All of those things continue to drive down how we think about emissions. We think that makes a big difference. But even on a line item basis, we are competitive to other generation power sources.

Wes Ashworth (30:21)

I appreciate the approach and the clarification as well too. I think always serious solutions should be able to stand up to serious scrutiny. I like that you welcome those questions and skepticism and want to talk through them as well. I’ll ask you this just from another perspective. Where do fuel cells maybe not make sense? Where does the industry need to be more honest about the limits of the technology?

Jason Few (30:31)

Oh, great question. I would say, I’ll give you two examples. If you said you wanted a pure backup generation solution, like the way you might think about diesel generators, high temperature fuel cells, not a good answer for that. A second area might be if you said I want a one or two month bridge solution, or we want a power solution for the Taylor Swift concert and then take it away. That’s not what we do.

But if you think about distributed generation, right? It is the architecture that’s needed today. That is what we do. We provide long-term architecture to solve real problems, stabilize the grid, deliver real power that’s needed exactly where it’s needed. That’s where we’re in our sweet spot.

Wes Ashworth (31:28)

Tell me a bit more about that. Like what is the absolute sweet spot in terms of just practical, areas where fuel cells do make just the most sense and it is competitive and it’s the best solution there is.

Jason Few (31:39)

Distributed resource on the grid, providing power. Second solution is take a power on the grid and district heating solution, or a thermal loop in a manufacturing or industrial area. Sweet spot. If you think about microgrid, providing power to the grid.

Being able to go to island mode and provide power to critical resources, schools, hospitals, police departments, fire departments, whatever those critical resources may be when the grid is not there. The data center world, highly reliable, resilient, clean, baseload power in a layered architecture that can deliver everything from addressing kind of learning data center loads where you’re going from 100% load capacity to 30% load capacity and back to 100 milliseconds. Having that integrated architecture and knowing how to do that all the way to, call it edge data center, web service type, pretty steady load. But again, the criticality of that power and it needs to work, that resiliency, those are great sweet spots for technology like ours.

Wes Ashworth (00:25)

I appreciate going through both. I think that kind of clarity usually just builds trust, especially in market where everyone’s tempted to kind of over claim. Obviously we know that can harm us. As we transition, I want to close a bit on strategy and the road ahead, because this is clearly a moment where reading the market well matters just as much as building the technology. A few years ago, most of the conversation around fuel cell energy centered on hydrogen.

Now the focus feels much more concentrated on power demand and infrastructure urgency as you’ve talked a lot about today. What changed in the market that made that old framing less useful? Just tell us a bit about that whole evolution.

Jason Few (33:23)

Hydrogen remains important, but the center of gravity has moved. We’ve delivered a very compelling hydrogen solution to a key customer for us being Toyota, where we deliver power, hydrogen, water from a single platform for the use in the Toyota Mirai motor vehicle. We think that’s important. Those are capabilities we have as a company. But the markets’ most urgent pain point has shifted to power availability and speed to deployment. When you think about that, we kind of think about the most useful framing today is not, what future fuel narrative sounds exciting. It’s what infrastructure problem can we solve now? That’s really what we’re addressing.

The world has moved from, whether you call it the energy transition or you just call it concept curiosity, the world has moved from that to infrastructure urgency. We think that hydrogen is gonna play a role. It’s moved to the right, but we still think it’s important. But we’re really focused on distributed power generation now and we have a great platform that’s been doing that for 23 years.

Wes Ashworth (34:33)

It’s great. To me, it’s one of those marks of strong leadership, knowing where the opportunity has shifted, being willing to adjust with it, and making those pivots as well too. You’ve obviously had great success doing that. When a market window opens this quickly, how do you balance that just conviction with discipline, so the company is building lasting value, not just chasing those headlines?

Jason Few (34:55)

I think it’s important that you stay anchored in milestones, customer need, and capital efficiency. Like those three things. If you think of internally in our company, projects or initiatives, whatever we want to call them, must earn the right to spend the capital. We do that by using a milestone-based thinking, almost like a stage gate venture capital process. We’re excited about the market, but we’re not chasing noise. We are focusing on scalable platforms. We’re expanding our manufacturing deliberately, and we’re tying growth to real demand. That’s how we’re addressing it at FuelCell Energy.

Wes Ashworth (35:29)

I like that. I think that tension is everywhere right now, especially in sectors where excitement can outrun execution. But I love how you frame that up. Over the next three to five years, what does success look like for FuelCell Energy, not just as a business, but just proving a whole different role for this technology? What’s the future look like?

Jason Few (35:48)

Really good question. I think if you think about it from a fuel cell perspective, it’s success that FuelCell Energy has proved a new role for distributive power in the modern infrastructure would be one aspect. It means that customers increasingly view on-site power generation as strategic.

It means we’ve scaled our manufacturing credibly. It means we’ve converted the pipeline that we have today and operating assets and reference sites. That means we’re meeting customer needs and they’re excited to talk about it. It means that the market has stopped asking whether fuel cells are relevant and start asking where they fit best. Back to your earlier question about where do we fit? Where do we not?

That we’ve delivered against the 350 megawatt of annualized capacity we talked about on our last earnings call. That we are delivering on our 100 megawatts consistent run rate to deliver adjusted EBITDA positive results as a company. We’ve moved a long way and/or exceeded multi gigawatt manufacturing capabilities to meet customer needs.

Wes Ashworth (37:02)

It’s a very exciting vision, some phenomenal milestones there as you start to look at the future as well. I’m excited to stay in tune and watch that progress and develop as well too in the company. If we were having this conversation, let’s say a little longer, five, ten years from now, what do you think will have changed most and how the industry talks about distributed clean power?

Jason Few (37:21)

Kind of bridging maybe the last question with this one a little bit, I think one of the things I’ll talk about is, everybody wants to work at FuelCell in the distributed power generation business. think they’re gonna be saying that. I think the phrase distributed power, will move from background conversation to the core infrastructure conversation. The industry will talk less about just centralized versus distributed. They won’t look at it as an either/or choice. It’d be more about what’s the most resilient layered architecture built around the needs and the load profiles that must be served. I think that that’d be the conversation five years from now.

Wes Ashworth (38:00)

I love it. Look forward to that. I’ll ask you this too, just put it out there for other leaders that are listening and building through uncertainty and energy or elsewhere. What has this chapter taught you about just timing, resilience and making a bet before consensus shows up?

Jason Few (38:13)

Timing matters. But conviction matters more when it’s grounded in evidence. Consensus is often late. If you wait for everyone to agree, you likely miss the window. But if you move without operational discipline, you likely destroy value. The lesson is a simple one. You’ve got to focus on seeing the signal early, organize around it decisively, and then execute with rigor.

Wes Ashworth (38:42)

Well said, that’s a great playbook there and great wisdom and I hope everybody listening hangs on to that as well. Final question, I’ll just open it up just a really broad one, anything else you want to leave the audience with? Anything you didn’t get to share, either advice, points of hope or anything else you want to just leave the audience with?

Jason Few (38:58)

I would say, we’re incredibly excited about what we’re seeing from a demand growth on the power side. We’re excited about the innovation promise that is partially being delivered and that remains to be delivered with the growth of AI. We’re incredibly excited about being able to take what today is a 57-year-old company that’s been deploying our distributive platform for 23 years and have that play a central role in something that is so transformative.

We’re excited to really have a chance to live our purpose, to enable a world powered by clean energy, because we believe that we can advance society. We believe you can advance industrialization. We believe you can advance AI, and you can do it in the right way. And we think that our platform is a big enabler to that. That’s incredibly exciting for the team members here at FuelCell Energy.

Wes Ashworth (39:55)

Very exciting, powerful and a great way to end it. Jason, this was a terrific conversation. Thank you for joining us and helping unpack not only the role of fuel cells, but the much bigger questions around AI, data center power, reliability, infrastructure and the future of distributed clean energy.

To everyone listening, thank you for joining us for another episode of Green Giants. If you enjoyed this conversation, subscribe, leave a rating and review, check the show notes for some important links and share this episode with someone else that’s excited about the future of energy and where it’s headed. With that, we’ll see you next time.