The number of uncertainties facing Latham-based Plug Power Inc. has gone down since last year, when the fuel-cell maker was "overburdened by risks," its top executive said Thursday.

In 2003, the company built up capital and now has $90 million in the bank, Roger Saillant, president and chief executive officer, said at the company's annual meeting. Product placement also has increased, with fuel-cell units in six countries and 21 states, he told a crowd of about 100 gathered at the Albany Marriott on Wolf Road in Colonie.
  
Customers are now "sampling, testing, shooting at, biting, kicking" the machines, Saillant said. Flanked by display units of the avocado-green GenCore, which Plug is marketing as a backup power source for remote cellphone towers, and GenSite, which makes hydrogen gas for industries, he said the largest remaining risk factor is how long the market will test before adopting Plug's products en masse.

Meanwhile, the company continues to develop its technology, trying to bring production costs down and reliability of the systems up.

Official business was brief at the meeting. Three directors -- George C. McNamee, chairman of First Albany Cos. Inc.; Douglas T. Hickey, general partner at Hummer-Winblad Venture Partners; and J. Douglas Grant, a director of Sceptre Investment Counsel Ltd. -- were re-elected to the board for three years.

In his presentation, Saillant did not delve into financial matters or make projections about the current year, sticking instead to a review of the "adoption curve" that shows how Plug plans to move its fuel cells into the mass market.

He showed photographs of the GenSys on-site power-generating systems, which have been installed at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and at the Naval Support Unit in Saratoga Springs. The units now have a life span of a year, he said, "which in terms of where we were is a dramatic improvement."

They need to last 2 to 5 years to be commercially viable, he said. Questioned more closely by a shareholder, Saillant said the progress is a remarkable achievement. The first units lasted only 200 hours; within three years, the technology was lasting a year.

"It won't take another three years to get to 16,000 hours," he said. "It will take considerably less than that."

After the meeting, Colin Campbell, a stockholder who has owned Plug shares since its initial public offering, wanted to know how many of the company's fuel-cell units had been bought outright, as opposed to being helped along with government grants.

Of the 40 GenCore units Plug has shipped, about half did not have grant support, said Mark Sperry, chief marketing officer.

"That's encouraging," Campbell said.

Robert N. Drake of Stony Creek, who drove more than 70 miles to attend the meeting, said much of the presentation went over his head.

"Very technical," said Drake, who owns about 300 shares of Plug stock. But also informative, he said.

"I don't consider myself an environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination, though I don't dump my garbage by the side of the road," he said. "I love these people here. The whole deal with this."

Shares (Nasdaq: PLUG) closed Thursday at $7.50, up 4 cents.