ReneSola Ltd (NYSE:SOL) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Philip Shen: Right. So this should smooth out your revenue and cash generation over time. So that’s good. Shifting gears to a new topic, FERC in the US recently approved in order 2023, which could have meaningful positive impacts to the US pipeline, not just for you, but for US pipelines in general by weeding out a lot of projects that do not yet have site control. In addition to penalizing develop – actually penalizing the RTOs if they don’t complete the studies on time and forcing the RTOs to group studies together. I was wondering if you can comment on how you expect FERC order 2023 to impact your US pipeline. Could you lose some of your pipeline because you don’t have site control or do you have site control on all your pipeline assets? And do you expect this to actually speed things up for you? Thanks.

Yumin Liu: This is a very good point that the – from a company, our company, we embrace or we love this FERC rule for two reasons. One is, not many companies/developers have a healthy balance sheet. As we mentioned, we do have a strong balance sheet, implementing our development strategy. The second is, our company does have a very tight control on the tier system we are working on. We use a very tight controlled tier system to value the progress of our projects and we implemented the tier systems throughout all regions in the US and Europe. And we do not count any deal without site control even under the Tier zero. And Tier zero is a typical pre – or early-stage deal. Not really in our 3 gigawatts or advanced-stage yet. Okay, so we feel so good when we see this new policy coming up and that will eliminate bunch of unqualified competitors which who can use that irrational philosophy to compete in the market. Now we see it’s a good thing is coming up.

Philip Shen: That’s great. Okay, last one –

Yumin Liu: Phil, just one – when we list our pipeline in the US advanced pipeline, almost 1.5 gigawatts, they’re all Tier 1 above. So we are – we have very good pipeline here.

Philip Shen: Very good to hear. Last question and then I’ll pass it on. AI and data centers are driving a lot of demand. You highlighted that in your prepared remarks. Can you share what percentage of your US pipeline is going to serve maybe in the form of PPA, you have a relationship with an AI or data center end market or customer? Thanks.

Yumin Liu: We put our strategy internally, evaluating the data centers and data center spots and looking at the possibilities to building up or selecting sites for solar, especially storage assets around the data center need. Okay, I do not have a story to present at this time, but we are actively working on those very possible stories to support the AI operation in the future. Especially we talk about the hybrid deals which can provide the quality and reliable power supply to those AI operations and that can become a big driver for our growth when we select new deals into our development pipeline.

Philip Shen: Okay. Thank you, both. I’ll pass it on.

Yumin Liu: Thank you, Phil.

Philip Shen: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Donovan Schafer with Northland Capital Markets. You may proceed.

Donovan Schafer: Hey guys. Thanks for taking the questions. So first, I want to ask for the revenue range that you gave for the first half of 2024. If we just – I want to talk just strictly about kind of non-IPP revenue, because we can kind of estimate IPP revenue and maybe back that out or something. So when we talk about the first half of 2024 revenue, and again, the non-IPP part of that, how much of that is expected to come from the delayed projects that were supposed to happen, be monetized in the second half of this year?

Yumin Liu: Okay. Let me answer first and then pass to Ke for details. Number one is, as I mentioned, we have six projects delays for the closing from ‘23 to ‘24, and most of them will be pushed into first half or maybe I’m looking at one deal, maybe pushed to the second half, okay. But I will say the revenues in the first half, other than the IPP and the DSA, those are considered DSA and IPP are consistent revenue basis instead of a pending on certain one closing of the sale. But the other, I would say at least three or four closings expected mostly will be in Q2 this year accounted into this revenue.

Ke Chen: Yeah. Donovan about $6 million to $8 million is from delay of Q4 2023.

Donovan Schafer: Okay. All right, that’s helpful. And then another question is, are you guys still planning on filing a 10-K for the –

Ke Chen: Yes,

Donovan Schafer: For 2023, okay. And what’s the timing on that? Is it a deadline at the end of this month or given your small cap and you’re converting from being a form filer to 10-K, do you have until the end of this month or is it till the end of April?

Ke Chen: Right now is end of month.

Yumin Liu: No, end of April –

Donovan Schafer: Okay. Yeah which one is it? Is it the end of April or the end of March is the deadline?

Yumin Liu: End of April is most likely as the – now we are the first time becoming the local filer. So we need to work with auditor and also work on all ten countries recovered in the project development and operation. So the – most likely will finish the filing of the 10-K and 10-Q in April.