VANCOUVER, CANADA AND ROCKWALL, TEXAS - Ballard Power Systems (NASDAQ: BLDP; TSX: BLDP) announced it has received notification from the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that Ballard’s applications for two grants totaling US$40 million under the Clean Hydrogen Electrolysis, Manufacturing, and Recycling Program have been selected and recommended for negotiation of financial awards. The grants will support Ballard’s construction and build-out of an integrated fuel cell production Gigafactory based in Rockwall, Texas. Ballard plans for the new facility, dubbed Ballard Rockwall Giga 1, to be located on a parcel of 22 acres of industrial land within the Rockwall Technology Park in Rockwall, Texas. In Phase I, Ballard plans to invest approximately US$160 million (net of the US$40 million in expected DOE grants) from 2024 through the end of 2027 to build and commission a new manufacturing facility with annual production capacity of 8 million membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs), 8 million bipolar plates, 20,000 fuel cell stacks, and up to 20,000 fuel cell engines per year, or the equivalent of 3 gigawatts of fuel cells (....)