Arthur A. Chip Bottone
Analyst · Lazard Capital
Thank you, Mike. Can I ask everybody please to turn to Slide #8? This morning, we announced a series of exciting initiatives with a South Korean partner, POSCO Energy. Three different forces are driving near-term demand in Asia for ultra-clean and efficient power plants. The primary driver at present is the Renewable Portfolio Standard that took effect on January 1, 2012. Full [ph] indications suggest compliance with the 2012 goals may be challenging for the impacted utility's independent power producers, but good for us in the sense that they may resort to bidding for renewable energy credits if they're not able to add renewable power generation by year end. Active bidding for rack supports renewable power generation by project investors, such as the owner of the 11.4-megawatt fuel cell park we highlighted last fall. In addition to the RPS market, POSCO Energy's developing export markets in Asia for DFC plants with our support. Finally, the previously announced 100-kilowatt demonstration plants for the commercial building application market are now operational. There are a number of aspects to today's announcement: 120-megawatt order is the largest order the company will have ever received and provides a consistent level of production for our Connecticut production facility for many years. This certainty of demand facilitates manufacturing efficiencies and the value of our supply chain. In addition, the existing 70-megawatt order will be accelerated to meet forecasted demand. The equity investment will further bolster our balance sheet. Our goal is to produce locally with a global supply chain. Production in South Korea is consistent with this goal as we will closely coordinate global purchasing for both facilities. Local production improves responsiveness and decreases shipping costs, and it's worth noting that POSCO will be funding this capacity expansion. POSCO Energy will pay a onetime licensing fee for the manufacturing rights. FCE will also receive ongoing royalties for each completed power plant sold by POSCO Energy. We continue to broaden and deepen our partnership with joint development agreements including the potential for larger-sized power plants. Please go to Slide #9. The economics and attributes of our power plants are well-suited for solving the many power generation challenges facing Europe. These include the need for clean baseload distributed generation, reduced carbon footprint and like countries everywhere, the ability to contribute local content and create local jobs. Our relationship with German-based Fraunhofer IKTS and Spanish-based Abengoa are important components in our overall strategy to develop the large, growing and underserved market for clean distributed baseload generation in Europe. Our business model utilizes a complementary multi-channel approach. First, we sell fuel cell power plants direct to customers as we do in the U.S. and we'll do in Europe through the joint venture with Fraunhofer. And second, we'll sell via partners, which we'll do with the Abengoa. Fraunhofer IKTS is a global leader with advanced ceramics for high-tech applications. Our relationship with Fraunhofer will help us penetrate the European market in 2 distinct and complementary ways: First, Fraunhofer brings a vast network of relationships including government, industry and potential suppliers; secondly, Fraunhofer will apply its considerable material science and fuel cell expertise to our Direct FuelCell technology. We will retain the rights to intellectual property developed by the joint venture. FuelCell Energy has established a legal entity in Germany through the joint venture and will retain majority ownership. The joint venture has been structured to allow for partners and investors that requires minimal cash expenditures as Fraunhofer is contributing their existing R&D resources. We will add resources as demand warrants. Recognize the value of clean distributed generation, a number of European governments have been signed for stationary fuel cell power plants, operating in either clean natural gas or renewable biogas, as well as combining power applications. To illustrate the potential of the European market, in just the past year with a very minimum local presence, we built an active sales pipeline of approximately 45 megawatts of projects. Developing European market will help us diversify our revenues, as our goal is to have a diversified revenue base with equal thirds coming from North America, Europe and Asia. Please go to Slide #10. The focus on customer service supports our revenue growth with comprehensive portfolio of services for fuel cell power plants, including installation services and long-term service agreements up to 20 years in duration. We continuously monitor, operate and maintain virtually every one of our installed base of DFC power plants. We recently executed a service agreement with Southern California Edison and have other service agreements closing during the second quarter of 2012. Our customer value proposition is to operate and maintain the power plants that the customer benefits from the attributes of the fuel cell power generation, but does not need to be involved in the day-to-day operation. This is a model that is certainly difficult for others to replicate. There are a variety of ownership models for our power plants including electric utilities that place the plants in a rate base, end users that purchase the power plants directly and project investors that own the plant and sell electricity and heat through the long-term power purchase agreements. Project finances are enabler of demand so it's worth highlighting a recent managing transaction by a project investor that owns 4.2 megawatts of plants. This project investor and plant owner used equity to finance the purchase of the plants. The investor then raised approximately $23 million from the issuance of California Municipal Finance Authority revenue bonds a few months ago. This is the second project investor to raise capital for municipal bonds. We announced an 11.4-megawatt fuel cell park that became fully operational this past fall. Subsequently, a 10.4-megawatt fuel cell park became operational in South Korea. These types of installations are ideal solutions for electric utilities that need to add capacity throughout their network. Fuel cell parks can be added as power demand warrants and where the power is needed, minimizing investment in transmission and distribution, while enhancing power reliability and energy security from the distributed generation aspect to these fuel cell parks. We met our commitments under a 100-kilowatt joint development program with POSCO Energy and both demonstration plants are operating. This development will support the compliance-oriented building application market segment. The photo on the bottom of the slide shows one of the units located adjacent to a hospital. The team at FuelCell Energy is proud that our power plants have generated more than 1 billion kilowatt-hours of ultra-clean and renewable electricity since 2003, are exceeding the output of any other fuel cell company in the world. Please go to Slide 11. Our vision is to provide ultra-clean, efficient distributed generation baseload power for less than the cost of crude-delivered electricity without incentives. The global market is very elastic, meaning as you approach this point, the market grows well beyond the current $12 billion estimate for power plants and services. We can attain profitability at 80 megawatts to 90 megawatts of production. This is our first objective, and we're on a path to accomplish this with increasing volume. The work we are doing in opening new markets will drive our growth above our current capacity levels, while delivering reduced cost and operating leverage. Our focus on operational excellence is producing continuous improvements in our business and getting us closer to profitability. Our annual production rate was 4 megawatts in 2003 when we began commercializing our fuel cell power plants. Since then, in response to increasing order flow, the rate increased to 22 megawatts in 2010. It is now 56 megawatts, more than double what it was only 2 years ago. We have been asked, "How much volume will be necessary for us to achieve our vision of below-grid electricity pricing without incentives?" We estimate that in an annual production rate of only 210 megawatts, and will drive fuel cell power plant generation costs down to about $0.09 to $0.11 per kilowatt hour. This is a very achievable production volume, particularly relative to the POSCO Energy announcement this morning. Our growing services business is contributing to revenues. Growing installed base drives production volume for stack replacements at existing installations. We have service agreements with terms up to 20 years. With a growing installed base and longer-term service agreements, more production will be allocated to restacks over time, providing recurring source of production. Just to be clear, we are planning for rapid and extensive growth, so I feel it is useful to investors to understand the recurring business aspects of the business model from restacks and annuity-like recurring revenue. Our growing installed base and product backlog exceeds 300 megawatts if I include the 120-megawatt announcement today, this expanding installed base will drive future service revenue. Our track giving dynamic business model features diverse revenue streams including sales of products and adjacent services across multiple vertical and geographic markets. We sell directly to customers and via partnerships. Our company is creating permanent jobs in the United States and abroad that are tied to local demand. This strategy attracts the support of governments that are seeking the benefits of ultra-clean distributed baseload power generation, while simultaneously creating sustainable jobs. Please go to Slide #12. We are leveraging our flexible business model and executing on our global expansion strategy. We are moving towards a vision of grid parity pricing, which we estimate we can achieve in an annual production rate of only 210 megawatts. We have delivered improved margins and cost reductions leading to improved EBITDA results. Our initiatives with POSCO Energy bolster our balance sheet, provide multiple years of committed production for our U.S. manufacturing facility and leverage our partnership to grow stationary fuel cell adoption in Asia. Our existing new relationships -- exciting new relationships with world-renowned Fraunhofer IKTS will open many doors for us in Europe and will contribute to product enhancements. Our new partnership with Abengoa will help us to penetrate the market for stationary fuel cell power generation in both Europe and Latin America. Services is becoming a profitable portion of our growth and adding diversity to our revenue. In conclusion, I want to thank our talented associates for making excellent progress and our investors for their confidence in us. Thank you for your support. Operator, we'll be happy to take questions at this time.