Charles Frederick Dunleavy
Analyst · UBS
Thank you, Brian, and thanks, everyone, for being with us today. Brian and I will be available to answer questions following our prepared remarks. First, turning to Slide 3, let me provide an update on fiscal 2012 and other recent developments in a very productive time here at Ocean Power Technologies. As I'll discuss further in a moment, we just signed an agreement with Lockheed Martin to enhance our efforts to bring a large-scale wave power station to Australia that leverages a AUD 66.5 million grant, which we have received from the Commonwealth. This is very exciting, and we're gratified to have the support of a strong company such as Lockheed Martin behind the initiative. In addition, building on the successful completion of ocean testing of OPT's first utility-scale PB150 off Scotland, we recently completed testing of the company's new advanced power take-off system for our PB150 PowerBuoy in Oregon. We're also making progress towards deployment of that system. We continue to work on our WavePort project in Spain and are accelerating our business development efforts in the autonomous PowerBuoy market after the very successful operation of the U.S. Navy's Littoral Expeditionary Autonomous PowerBuoy. At the same time, we reduced our annual operating loss and our cash usage as well during fiscal 2012. Now, let me go into more detail on some of our latest developments. Turning to Slide 4. A very important milestone for OPT in fiscal year 2012 was the ocean deployment of our LEAP autonomous PowerBuoy off New Jersey. This buoy, which is significantly smaller and more compact than our utility PowerBuoys, exceeded the project's specification for payload power delivery during ocean operations last fall. Our partners for this effort included Rutgers University's Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, CODAR Ocean Sensors and Mikros Systems Corporation. The buoy was designed by OPT to provide persistent energy for the U.S. Navy's radar and communications payloads, which call for continuous power of 150 watts. The actual results showed that the PowerBuoy supplied constant power in excess of 400 watts throughout the entire deployment period and produced 8 sustained electrical power of 1,500 watts. Such performance more than supported the payload 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the duration of the ocean operation. In fact, the onboard power management storage system allowed the payload to be operational even during extended periods of 0 wave activity. The PowerBuoy operated on a fully autonomous basis, implementing the requisite power management for self perfection functions without the need for human intervention. It's always maintained, even as the autonomous PowerBuoy withstood Hurricane Irene, which hit the New Jersey coastline on August 27, 2011, and had waves of up to 53 feet. These results demonstrated strong performance under our contract with the U.S. Navy for their maritime security mission. More broadly, the fact that we can offer the unique ability to supply persistent levels of power in deep ocean, even during extended no-wave periods, represents an entirely new offering to satisfy offshore power needs for a multitude of applications. We're currently in active dialogue for other potential commercial applications of the autonomous PowerBuoy by the oil and gas industry as well as by oceanographic, data-gathering initiatives and desalination companies, all which could replace diesel generators that are costly, dirty and require frequent maintenance. We're placing more resources into developing these attractive end markets for our autonomous PowerBuoy. Turning to Slide 5. I'd like to give you an update on our current initiatives in Australia and Japan, where we've seen some exciting activity lately. As announced earlier this week, we entered into a teaming agreement with Lockheed Martin, with the specific goal and focus to develop a 19-megawatt wave energy project in Australia. Lockheed will provide the systems in the areas of design manufacturability of our PowerBuoys, supply chain and overall project management. The project is to be developed by a special-purpose Australian company, Victorian Wave Partners, which is currently owned by our subsidiary, Ocean Power Technologies (Australasia). We're actively assessing financing opportunities for the project and pursuing power purchase agreements with local industry utilities. In addition, we have begun the permitting process for the project and community consultation is well underway. The potential project has been received very positively in the community. Funding for the project include the previously announced grant of AUD 66.5 million or about that same amount in U.S. dollars from the Commonwealth of Australia's Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism. The grant is subject to a funding fee which sets out the terms, including funding milestones, which require significant additional funding to enable the receipt of the grant funds and also the completion of the project. We also wish to express our appreciation for the Commonwealth government for their continued support of this project off the coast of Portland, Victoria, which we expect to create a significant number of local Australian jobs as we develop this project, and also maintain operations over the life of the power station. In Japan, we've been working closely with our partner, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding, on the next phases of development of a PowerBuoy project there. Analysis and design work is expected to continue through much of fiscal 2013, after which a recommendation may be made on final deployment parameters for a PowerBuoy to be built and operated off Japan with the follow-on potential for a multi-megawatt wave power station. Turning to Slide 6. I'd like to give an update on our important project in Reedsport, Oregon, which has received funding support from the U.S. Department of Energy and also from PNGC Power, a power cooperative serving the Northwestern portion of the United States. We recently announced progress here as well with the successful completion of the rigorous testing on our next-generation power takeoff unit, or PTO, which has been shipped to Oregon for integration with the rest of the PB150. As a reminder, this PowerBuoy's direct drive PTO was developed to be more durable, involved, less maintenance and provide better long-term efficiency than our previous hydraulic design. From a technology standpoint, it's a significantly forward. Over the coming weeks, the PTO will be integrated into this spar. We'll then perform some further testings, after which we will complete final assembly of this spar, float and heave plate, then the entire PB150 will be transported from Portland to the Reedsport Coos Bay coastal area for interim staging. We expect this first Reedsport PB150 to be ready for deployment late this summer, with the exact deployment timeline to be decided by the weather window. Lockheed Martin is providing design, manufacturing and supply-chain management expertise on this project to enhance our technology, as we move towards larger-scale commercialization. We look forward to updating you on the developments on this project in the months ahead. Now let me give you an update on developments in Spain, as shown on Slide 7. We continue work on our previously announced EUR 2.2 million WavePort project to design, supply and deploy a PowerBuoy with an advanced energy conversion system that includes a new wave assessment model. The grant OPT is part of a total award of EUR 4.5 million to a consortium of enterprises which includes OPT. Substantial progress is being made along with our consortium partner, the United Kingdom's University of Exeter, DeGima in Spain, the Wave Energy Centre of Portugal and Norway's Fugro Oceanor. The new system is expected to assess the characteristics of incoming waves before they reach the PowerBuoy power station, allowing more time for OPT's proprietary electronic tuning to react. This could significantly boost the output of the PowerBuoy and reduce the cost per megawatt hour of energy produced. The PowerBuoy being developed for the project is planned to be installed on an existing mooring site off Santoña, Spain. Now let me turn the call over to Brian for a discussion of OPT's operating results for fiscal year 2012.