County approves amended tax abatement with Plug Holding News Staff Tue, 05/14/2024 - 9:59 am
- (TC GORDON | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Andrew Temple (right) of Plug Project Holding Co., LLC shares with the Young County Commissioners Court details regarding his company’s hydrogen plant project to be established in the county. The commissioners approved a first amended tax abatement agreement Monday, May 13.
TC Gordon news@grahamleader.com
Young County recently held a public hearing regarding an amended tax abatement agreement with Plug Project Holding Co., LLC, a company establishing a hydrogen production facility in the county.
As part of the regular commissioners court meeting Monday, May 13, Andrew Temple of Plug Holding Co., LLC (PPHC), presented the first amended tax abatement agreement that his company had been working on with County Judge Win Graham.
After the reading of the amendment, some discussion and input from other individuals, the commissioners voted to accept the amended agreement with a unanimous vote.
One of the primary amendments to the agreement involved the timing of improvements for the company’s facility project. The agreement states that construction of the improvements will be substantially completed on or before March 31, 2026. Should the company not meet this deadline, the amended agreement would terminate and no abatement would be granted.
Another major amendment involves PPHC making payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) each year during the 10 years of the tax abatement agreement. PPHC made a payment of $293,400 in January which will be considered the first of ten annual PILOTs for the project.
PILOT will continue to be paid in January of each year for the ten consecutive years of the abatement period and that period will terminate with the tenth and final PILOT in January 2033.
“We’re going to receive PILOT payments before this project is completed, possibly three PILOT payments before the project is completed,” Graham said. “And then once the project is completed, (PPHC will) continue to make the rest of them.”
The company is in the process of establishing a green hydrogen production facility within Young County. PPHC already has established multiple hydrogen plants in other states around the country, but this will be one of the larger facilities the company operates. These annual payments will ensure the county sees a positive impact from the new facility.
“This was also important to our leadership, from our CEO down, that we made a commitment to the county that we were going to start in 2024 with these vital payments,” Temple said. “So we wanted to make sure that the county did not see any negative impact from our project being delayed a little bit. So that’s kind of the intention and then the judge was great to help us come up with a structure that allowed that to flow through a little bit easier.”
The city of Graham is acting as a contractor for constructing the waterline and pump station that will go to the hydrogen power plant. Once these projects are completed and in place, it will help PPHC continue with the development and testing of their hydrogen station in the county.
PPHC currently has two operational plants — one in Georgia and one in Tennessee — with one more set to come online this year in Louisiana. Temple shared that the two plants currently satisfy about 50% of their customer base with the new plant helping in that regard. Those three plants will generate about 40 tons per day, but Graham’s plant will likely generate approximately 45 tons per day — more than double the daily output of the other three facilities combined.
“We’re aiming for the end of 2025 is what our CEO is driving for this plant to be live and operational and that’s primarily being driven by customer demand more than anything,” Temple said. “So we know that we need to nail down these timelines as aggressively as we can.”
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