FuelCell Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCEL) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jason Few: Jeff, thank you for your question. On the first part of your question, we’ve talked about for the US is a manufacturing facility that would have the ability to produce at 400 megawatts. We have since refined our view of that, and our view of the capital required to achieve that has come down by a factor of about two-thirds, or roughly, in terms of how we think about the cost. The facility that we have in Calgary is 40 megawatts is what we’re expanding there to, and we think that we have the ability to get that to 80 with minor investment in making that happen. So we’re excited about the opportunity to get the Calgary facility also to 80. But in the US, we think that’s important, one, just because of where we see opportunity, and two, obviously to make sure we’re in full position to take advantage of the IRA as we are with our carbonate platform, which we’ve always manufactured that here in the United States.

With respect to the 100-megawatt opportunity, what I would say there is that if you think about the way our business works or our modules work, depending on when modules were installed, that’s what really creates the opportunity for the upgrade cycle. So it’s not an even distribution in the way you might think about it. So we can look to maybe help with that a little bit more in terms of how you might think about it, but that’s all going to be driven by when modules come up for renewal and are working through those contracts with each of the GENCOs in the Korean market.

Jeff Osborne: So just to follow up on the CapEx, if it previously was $300 million and two-thirds less, is it $100 million now or are my figures off?

Jason Few: Initially to build out a facility, that’s more of what we’re thinking will end up being.

Jeff Osborne: Got it and then you [won’t be] (ph) more specific on Korea and how many units are roughly five years old that might be up for renewal? Is there a way of thinking about that portfolio and what would be up for the next 12 to 18 months?

Mike Bishop: Jeff, this is Mike. Let me take a shot at that. So, and as you mentioned, currently we do not have product backlogs, so would not expect to see product revenues early in the fiscal year. But as Jason said, we are in the process of working through transition of the portfolio in Korea, which is currently under POSCO Energy or KFC. That’s 100 megawatts of opportunity. It’s all of our carbonate fuel cells. So we do have inventory for that. As those renewals happen and these repowering opportunities happen, we will be as prudent as we can about shipping those modules to Korea. There is a time lag there, but we will be producing the inventory and we’ll be able to ship modules to Korea in the second half of the year. It just really depends on timing of transitioning these projects from POSCO Energy or KFC to FuelCell Energy and the cycle in which those renewals happen.

Jeff Osborne: Perfect. And just lastly, Mike, is there any more — similar to the $10.5 million from performance guarantees, is there any residual performance guarantees flowing through in the next fiscal year from prior unit shift that we need to model pure profit on?

Mike Bishop: We wouldn’t expect anything significant there, Jeff. Those modules which the performance guarantees were related to were Noeul Green and those were installed this past quarter.

Jeff Osborne: Great, that’s all I have. Thank you.

Mike Bishop: Okay, thanks.

Operator: Our next question comes from [indiscernible] from Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi, thank you. Good morning, everyone. I just had maybe one or two quick ones. Just on the timing of the pilot for the carbon capture with Exxon, could you maybe share more about how — when the pilot’s going to take place, when that’s going to be — what’s the next steps after that?

Jason Few: Sure. So if you think about the announcement we just made yesterday, part of that work that’s going on with Exxon includes their participation with the Innovation Fund in the EU. And right now the timing for the pilot is slated for early 2026. And there’s a — there’s documents out there that you can see online around the EU innovation funding to give some more clarity on that, but we expect that we’ll be operational in that time frame.

Unidentified Analyst: Awesome, thank you. And then just in the hydrogen hubs, I know that you talked about your technology being in the two hubs and then also you have discussions going around, so maybe just timing around that as well.

Jason Few: Yeah, so I think the — if you think about the hubs and what’s going on there, the negotiations between, I’ll call them hub owners for lack of a better expression, is going on between them and the DOE around how the funding is going to work. But what we’re excited about when you look at all seven hubs, four of the seven all have an aspect of transportation tied to them. We think our Toyota project is a great example of our ability to execute a project like that very quickly. If you think about the fuel mix or the way in which the DOE is trying to demonstrate these hydrogen hubs, there’s a cross between doing electrolysis, whether that’s through wind and solar or things like hydro, or utilizing fuel to do that. There’s also hubs that have the opportunity around doing blue hydrogen as it used to be called and doing that by capturing CO2.

So we think we’re really well positioned to add value across all seven of the hubs. And so as those hub owners work through the funding cycle with the DOE, we are working with them in lock stop to provide technology as part of the solutions they need to make the hydrogen hubs work.