Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/FuelCell Energy (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Consensus is that the sources introduced during this AfD are sufficient to meet WP:GNG and/or WP:NCORP. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:13, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

FuelCell Energy
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Previous AfD closed as "Delete" on 10 January 2014, but the article was never actually deleted recreated on 25 January 2014. Company has very little RS coverage beyond routine company profiles and stock updates. –dlthewave ☎ 12:22, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. –  numbermaniac  12:39, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. –  numbermaniac  12:39, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. –  numbermaniac  12:39, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

*N/A per WP:CORPDEPTH. There are a couple of very local newspapers with non-financial information, but they focus on job creation etc, without covering actual company-oriented action etc details. All other sources that weren't covering routine info were non reliable/independent. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:17, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Neutral/Pending while I consider refs Nosebagbear (talk) 16:09, 21 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment: The previous AfD resulted in deletion on 10 January 2014; the present article instance was created on 25 February 2014‎. The same editor has been notified of both AfDs (as well as an earlier CSD on the same topic). AllyD (talk) 14:30, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Connecticut-related deletion discussions. AllyD (talk) 14:33, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for catching that. The article qualifies for G4 speedy deletion, but I thought I would give it a chance at AfD since it's been a few years. –dlthewave ☎ 15:07, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I had a similar view on CSDing, that given 4 years redoing the AfD seemed warranted Nosebagbear (talk) 15:14, 5 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete: Re-creation shortly after an AfD deletion without a review process (WP:DRV, WP:AFC) is to be discouraged, but it is appropriate to reconsider this article here given the 4 years that have passed. The company in question continues to go about its business, as seen in the text and GreenTechMedia reference that I have added. However, while that GreenTechMedia article does show independence, for example in sceptical assessment of claims of profitability being just around the corner, I am not seeing enough to demonstrate attained WP:NCORP notability. AllyD (talk) 14:49, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources. From Notability (organizations and companies) (my bolding): "There has been considerable discussion over time whether publicly traded corporations, or at least publicly traded corporations listed on major stock exchanges such as the NYSE and other comparable international stock exchanges, are inherently notable. Consensus has been that notability is not automatic in this (or any other) case. However, sufficient independent sources almost always exist for such companies, so that notability can be established using the primary criterion discussed above. Examples of such sources include independent press coverage and analyst reports. Accordingly, article authors should make sure to seek out such coverage and add references to such articles to properly establish notability." Analyst reports  This 12 January 2018 articlearchive.is from StreetInsider.com notes: "B.Riley/FBR upgraded FuelCell Energy (NASDAQ: FCEL) from Neutral to Buy with a price target of $3.50 (from $2.50). Analyst Carter Driscoll comments 'After a difficult 1HFY17, we believe FCEL has turned a corner with an improving revenue mix, margin profile, and record backlog. We believe the company should be able to almost triple its operating portfolio from FY17 to FY18, moving from a portfolio of 11.2MW (generating electricity revenues under longterm PPAs) to over 30MW. We also believe the company should be able to garner another multiMW equipment sale and long-term service agreement with a second Korean power producer. Taken in conjunction with the 40MW of projects FCEL should develop for LIPA starting in FY19, a burgeoning relationship with Toyota for distributed hydrogen, and new fuel cell RFPs in CT, we see a more balanced revenue mix leading to higher and more sustainable margins and eventually EBITDA breakeven.'" This 9 February 2018 articlearchive.is from StreetInsider.com notes: "Roth Capital upgraded FuelCell Energy (NASDAQ: FCEl) from Neutral to Buy, price target $4.00 (from $2.00). Analyst Craig Irwin cites the remediation of the 30% investment Tax Credit which he expects will help broadly improve project economics which should bring in new bookings momentum." This 1 December 2016 articlearchive.is from StreetInsider.com notes: "FBR Capital reiterated a Market Perform rating on FuelCell Energy (NASDAQ: FCEL), and cut the price target to $2.50 (from $3.00), after recent setbacks cause the company to lower its F4Q16 revenue guidance. FCEL guided F4Q16 revenue to $23M–$25M, lower than consensus forecasts. Part of the reduction was from not winning any clean energy awards and part from the reclassification of a fuel cell plant constructed for Pfizer that was originally expected to be sold but will be accounted for as a sales leaseback transaction. Analyst Carter Driscoll commented, 'This morning, December 1, FCEL lowered its F4Q16 revenue guidance after its recent setbacks regarding awards from certain clean energy RFPs. The company is cutting head count to lower its cost structure to better align production levels with its order book, cutting the annual production rate to 25 MW from 50 MW. FCEL is reducing head count by approximately 17%, or 96 positions, primarily in direct manufacturing but also some administrative positions, and taking a $3M charge in FY17, 50% of which is expected to be in cash severance costs. Additionally, the company hopes to lower operating costs and save $6M in annual opex. We believe these steps are the appropriate responses to the loss of expected awards in the aforementioned clean energy RFPs. Until we have more clarity that the reduced production levels are truly temporary in nature, we are taking a more conservative outlook for fuel cell power generation aimed at utility-scale projects and have lowered our revenue estimates and price target to $2.50 from $3.00.'" This 26 October 2016 articlearchive.is from StreetInsider.com notes: "FBR Capital downgraded FuelCell Energy (NASDAQ: FCEL) from Outperform to Market Perform with a price target of $5.50 (from $9.00). Analyst Carter Driscoll commented, 'Yesterday, FCEL disclosed that it did not win approval to move into contract negotiations for the 63.3 MW project located at Beacon Falls, CT. Management disclosed that there was no explanation provided as to why the project was not selected. There were several positive characteristics that appeared to position the project for success. We suspect, but have not yet been able to verify, that economics may have played a part as the award winners for the tri-state clean energy RFPs were wind and solar projects, which typically have a lower generation cost. Regardless, the loss of the project negatively impacts our FY17 revenue and margin forecasts and we have lowered estimates as a result. While we believe there are still some near-term catalysts, we are less confident in the timing of potential awards and believe the stock is in a 'show-me' mode. We are stepping to the sidelines, removing FCEL as our Alpha Generator pick, cutting our price target to $5.50 from $9, and lowering our rating to Market Perform from Outperform.'" This 3 October 2017 articlearchive.is from The Fly notes: "Oppenheimer analyst Colin Rusch started FuelCell rating and a $4 price target, calling the company a 'clear leader' in stationary fuel cell applications that he believes can achieve positive operational cash flow in the next 12-18 months." </ol>

https://www.marketbeat.com/stocks/NASDAQ/FCEL/price-target/WebCite contains a list of analyst reports available under a paywall:

There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow FuelCell Energy to pass Notability, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Cunard (talk) 04:56, 11 August 2018 (UTC) </li></ul>
 * The analyst reports from FBR Capital Markets, Roth Capital Partners, Cowen Group, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Oppenheimer Holdings, and Raymond James Financial are sufficient to establish notability per Notability (organizations and companies). Cunard (talk) 04:56, 11 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete: although this company is listed, it's a micro-cap. With revenues of $185M, it's too insignificant to have generated significant coverage, resulting in a promotional article, as in:
 * "The company has been tapped by the Office of Naval Research to provide assistance on the Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (LDUUV) program"!
 * The project would not be significantly improved by the retention of this article. Fails WP:CORPDEPTH / WP:NCORP on the balance of things. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:29, 11 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment: That a company is a micro-cap with revenues of $185 million does not mean that "it's too insignificant to have generated significant coverage". From Notability (organizations and companies): "smaller organizations and their products can be notable, just as individuals can be notable. Arbitrary standards should not be used to create a bias favoring larger organizations or their products, though articles about very small 'garage' or local companies are typically unacceptable per WP:NOTADVERTISING." This company has received significant coverage in analyst reports. Here is even more coverage: <ol><li> This is an extensive profile of FuelCell Energy. The article notes: "One of the salient facts about advanced power sources is that new products typically take decades to enter the marketplace. As more than one observer has noted, there is no Moore’s Law for batteries. Sustained government support is thus crucial. With help from the U.S. Department of Energy, FuelCell Energy was able to focus on the thankless task of improving the efficiency, cost, and durability of its molten carbonate fuel cells. After years of research and development, the company demonstrated a 2-megawatt plant in Santa Clara, Calif., which operated from 1996 to 1997. In 2003, FuelCell Energy shipped its first commercial unit. To date, it has installed several hundred megawatts of capacity in 50 locations around the world, most notably a 59-MW combined heat-and-power plant in South Korea. Today, the company is the leading provider of molten carbonate technology. ... The energy crisis and environmental movement of the 1970s brought renewed interest in all kinds of clean power, including the carbonate fuel cell. It was in this ferment that FuelCell Energy, then known as Energy Research Corp., was founded. “What we thought made the most sense was a power generation system that could run on pipeline-volume natural gas, and high-temperature fuel cells like carbonate did that,” Leo says."</li><li> The article notes: "As [fuel cell] is piped between the stages, the gas is at 70 percent purity, and most of the other 30 percent is innocuous steam. So the engineers at the company that built the installation, FuelCell Energy, are pulling off a chemical bait-and-switch. ... In FuelCell’s design, a coal plant adds a fuel cell unit next to its smokestack, and the fuel cell soaks up the carbon dioxide and adds power to overall output. Some energy is used — the demonstration unit here would produce eight kilowatts, enough for a midsize commercial air-conditioner, but in carbon capture mode makes only about six kilowatts — but the loss is more manageable than drawing energy from the coal plant for conventional carbon capture.  And if the Environmental Protection Agency follows through on its intent to require existing coal plants to shrink their carbon output, the company’s fuel cells could do the job in two ways, by capturing some carbon and by raising the electricity output over which the remaining carbon dioxide is spread.  ...  FuelCell energy is not alone in looking for a more energy-efficient way to grab carbon dioxide; other ideas are percolating."</li><li> The article notes: "For years, FuelCell Energy has been considered a company to watch. Its technology promised to help economically reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, which could help combat climate change. The Danbury, Conn., company might be able to make a difference, experts said, if only it had a partner with really deep pockets. Now it has one. In an agreement announced on Thursday, Exxon Mobil said it had tightened an existing relationship with FuelCell in hopes of taking the technology from the lab to the market.  ...  FuelCell Energy’s products can also strip 70 percent of the smog-producing oxides of nitrogen from the exhaust of coal-burning power plants."</li></ol> Cunard (talk) 01:33, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete In the past, Cunard has located good analyst reports. But the ones above are not "analyst reports" but comments on stock price. An analyst report provides in-depth analysis on the company. Also, the links to the articles above are not intellectually independent as per WP:ORGIND. Topic fails GNG and WP:NCORP. <b style="font-family: Courier; color: darkgreen;"> HighKing</b>++ 20:15, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Analyst reports always both comment on the estimated stock price and provide in-depth analysis of the company. They do not merely comment on the price because that would not be useful to their customers who pay a lot to purchase the analyst reports. The quotes I presented here are only snippets from analyst reports that are under a paywall. To get the analyst reports' in-depth analysis of the company, we would need the paywall copies, which I do not have. There is analysis of the company in the snippets presented here. For example, the FBR Capital Markets analyst report as summarized by another source says "Part of the reduction [in price target] was from not winning any clean energy awards and part from the reclassification of a fuel cell plant constructed for Pfizer that was originally expected to be sold but will be accounted for as a sales leaseback transaction."  And another report provides analysis of the company, saying, "Yesterday, FCEL disclosed that it did not win approval to move into contract negotiations for the 63.3 MW project located at Beacon Falls, CT. Management disclosed that there was no explanation provided as to why the project was not selected. There were several positive characteristics that appeared to position the project for success. We suspect, but have not yet been able to verify, that economics may have played a part as the award winners for the tri-state clean energy RFPs were wind and solar projects, which typically have a lower generation cost. Regardless, the loss of the project negatively impacts our FY17 revenue and margin forecasts and we have lowered estimates as a result."  Cunard (talk) 20:27, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

<div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: I would strongly urge participants to keep their comments to a reasonable size to simplify the closing editor's task.
 * Here is more information from another source, Smarter Analyst, about the analyst reports (bolding added to emphasize some of the analysis):<ol><li>This 7 June 2018 articleWebCite from Smarter Analyst notes: "Oppenheimer analyst Colin Rusch maintained a Buy rating on Fuelcell Energy (NASDAQ: FCEL) yesterday and set a price target of $4. The company’s shares closed yesterday at $1.74. Rusch wrote: “FCEL posted solid revenue but disappointing GM on product and generation revenue. We expect both to recover as revenue grows, especially as the company finishes liquidating high cost inventory. We continue to believe FCEL has a clear path to cash flow breakeven as it grows product sales to Korea and expands its owned project portfolio. We are encouraged by Korean customer signals, project wins in the US, and progress on securing project financing. We would not be surprised to see the company to be able to announce new orders in Korea over the coming months as it moves forward building the US portfolio. We remain constructive on the shares as we believe concerns about sustainable growth and cash burn are overblown.”" This provides extensive analysis of the company.</li><li>This 11 June 2018 articleWebCite from Smarter Analyst notes: "B.Riley FBR analyst Carter Driscoll maintained a Buy rating on Fuelcell Energy (NASDAQ: FCEL) on June 8 and set a price target of $3.50. The company’s shares closed on Friday at $1.75. Driscoll wrote: “CT clean energy awards the next catalyst. FuelCell Energy (FCEL) delivered F2Q18 revenues and EPS below our estimates, largely from the timing of additions to its power generation portfolio and a $0.4M charge to COGS for abandoning a small project no longer deemed economically viable. FCEL’s record backlog of $1.6B and recent ITC extension support the transition to building its power generation portfolio, which remains on track to grow almost 3X to reach over 30 MW (generating electricity revenues under long-term PPAs) by FYE18. Management detailed the financing needs and economics of a theoretical $40M project (we estimate 12 MW) that would utilize project debt for construction and FCEL’s working capital position and deliver ~40% EBITDA margins.”"</li><li>This 10 June 2016 articlearchive.is from Smarter Analyst notes: "In a research report released today, FBR analyst Carter Driscoll reiterated an Outperform rating on shares of FuelCell Energy Inc (NASDAQ:FCEL), with a price target of $9.00, after the company missed fiscal second-quarter forecasts on lower revenue, and various one-time expenses. ... Driscoll wrote, “We are more cautious, near term, as project awards are slower to materialize, but we believe they will come. Weak F2Q16 results partly reflect the ongoing transition to more sale/leaseback projects, low-margin component kit sales to POSCO (which end in F4Q16), $2M in nonrecurring charges for rectifying past service contracts (hurt service margins, but should be over), and higher-than-expected product investments. Due to slower-than-expected awards from multiple RFPs that FCEL bid into in F1H16, the company cut FY16 guidance, from $170M–$210M, to $140M– $170M. We view this as a timing problem, not a demand issue.” “With 125MW worth of competitive bids over multiple potential projects, there is no shortage of demand; we believe FCEL stands to win at least a substantial portion of them. But the timing of awards appears tilted towards the latter part of FY16 rather than towards the current quarter,” the analyst continued."</li></ol> Cunard (talk) 20:48, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Randykitty (talk) 20:23, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep Cunard's sources and analysis do demonstrate that the article passes WP:GNG. Hzh (talk) 22:24, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. <i style="font-family:'Rock salt','Comic Sans MS'; color: Green;">Tyw7</i> (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 18:01, 14 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep per Cunard. Satisfies GNG. 185 million dollars is not small either. James500 (talk) 15:49, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep - (altered vote) the additional sources, particularly the ones with significant non-financial detail (about what they do etc), I feel give a satisfying of NCORP. Many of Cunard's sources do still fail CORPDEPTH, but I believe sufficient detail is provided to meet the required criteria. Nosebagbear (talk) 16:12, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. I hope someone takes it upon themselves to improve the article with the sources mentioned here. Daask (talk) 18:13, 21 August 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.