Doron Blachar
Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead
Thank you, Assi. Turning to Slide 12 for a look at our operating portfolio. Power generation in our power plants declined by 3.1% compared to last year. This decline is mainly due to the lower generation at our OREG facilities and increased curtailment in Olkaria power plant. However, revenues of our electricity segment remain unchanged with higher average rate per megawatt hour of $89.6 compared to $86.6 for last year. We adjusted the generation capacity of our existing power plants based on their performance this year, as detailed on the slide, and the current portfolio stands at 932 megawatts compared to 914 megawatts last year. This year, the main addition was 19 megawatts in Steamboat Complex following the completion of the Steamboat enhancement. As noted on Slide 13, Puna resumed operations in November 2020, 2.5 years after the eruption of the Kilauea volcano, currently at low output relative to its generating capacity before the eruption. In November, Puna reached 10-megawatt generating capacity, and now it is operating at 13 megawatts. We continue our field recovery work and drilling of new wells, and we expect Puna to increase power generation during the second quarter of 2021. We target close to full production at Puna by the middle of this year. On the insurance front, for the entire 2020, we collected $29.1 million insurance proceeds. The $7.8 million were recorded under cost of revenues and the balance in other operating income. We are still working with our counsel to collect the rest of what we believe should be paid to us. Turning to Slide 14 for an update on our international fund and specifically in Kenya. As discussed earlier, one of the impacts COVID had on our operations in Kenya relates to increased curtailment there by KPLC, which was the main driver to reduction in revenue of approximately $6.5 million compared to prior year. The curtailment continued into the fourth quarter in a lower frequency compared to the first 3 quarters in 2020. We are also encouraged by the improved collection from KPLC that continues reducing the overdue amount. Also in Kenya, we had an important achievement, concluding all open tax audits with the Kenyan tax authorities and reached a favorable settlement related to the 2019, 3 tax assessment originally totaling $200 million. The settlement agreement extended the audit period for the issues addressed within the main assessment to cover the period from 2013 through 2019. Full financial impact was recorded in the fourth quarter of 2020. Turning to Slide 15 for an update on our backlog. Our product segment has been the part of our business most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with our customers' projects around the world being delayed. However, we believe this is a short term phenomenon. In Turkey, a new feed-in tariff was announced. But although it is lower than the previous feed-in tariff, we expect the market to adapt to it, and we anticipate new potential projects in Turkey in the coming months. As of February 24, 2021, our product segment backlog was $33 million. We anticipate continued weakness in our product backlog and as a result, our 2021 guidance for this segment's revenue is significantly lower than recent years. Our business model is resilient and a key part of it relates to our vertically integrated structure, which enables us to better allocate our manufacturing capacity and resources while focusing on internal initiatives to support our electricity segment growth. We started to see this shift already in the second quarter of 2020 and in the full year 2020. Inter-segment revenues increased more than 30% over 2019 and 130% over 2018. Ormat is the only vertically integrated company in the geothermal industry. We can efficiently transition from manufacturing components for third-party customers to develop components for our company-owned projects. This means we can bring projects online more effectively by using internal resources and expertise. This will also extend our energy storage segment as well as our construction expertise is tapped to help development at energy storage products. As a result, we are also able to feed capacity at our manufacturing segment, avoiding unutilized expenses. However, we firmly believe that as the pandemic abates, we will see increasing demand for our products around the world. Partially offsetting the weakness of the product segment has been a consistent improvement in our energy storage business. Energy Storage, discussed on Slide 16, continues to evolve, to grow and to become more profitable, as Assi presented in his financial remarks. This year, we commissioned the Rabbit Hill 10-megawatt storage facility in Texas, which provides auxiliary services and energy optimization to the wholesale markets managed by Ormat. On February 13, weather conditions in Texas caused abnormal reduction in electricity supply, along with record demand for electricity. Some assess that events that are unfolding in ERCOT represents one of the worst shocks to U.S. electricity market in the recent decades. The extreme weather conditions resulted in shortage of electricity supply, which caused electricity and power REG prices to reach record of thousands of dollars per megawatt hour, probably all-time high. Starting February 16 and until February 19, our Rabbit Hill facility could not charge from the grid due to the energy emergency alert, which resulted in limited ability of the Rabbit Hill storage facility to provide power REG services. In order to reduce our merchant risk and increase our contracted revenue in 2021, the company signed a hedge transaction for 80% of the volume at a fixed rate, exchanging the floating power REG hourly revenue for a fixed hourly revenue at the end of 2020. Due to the inability to operate the facility during these times, we expect to record in Q1 financial results up to approximately $11 million of nonrecurring loss associated with this hedge. This event is still unfolding, and our goal is to minimize our exposure. This year, we also completed 2 acquisitions: one is an operating facility in California, Pomona, that shift the EBITDA in margins in this business from loss to profit; the second acquisition was an asset under development, Upton in Texas, that will contribute for the growth of this business. Before I move to a discussion on our growth plans, I would like to briefly discuss our commitment to sustainable future and step we took this year to support the environment, our community and our employees, in Slide 18. Sustainability is the core of our business and our way of life, saving emissions by generating clean energy that replaces the emitting conventional forms of energy. Our goal to increase our clean energy portfolio aligns with sustainability values and further saves emissions to the environment globally. In 2020, the health and safety of Ormat employees, our contractors and the communities in which we live, work and do business are of utmost importance. Throughout this global pandemic, Ormat followed strict protective measures necessary to safeguard every stakeholder health and safety. This includes adhering to all government regulations and maintaining clear, comprehensive plans and protective measures for employees who work in our energy plants, manufacturing facility, offices and elsewhere. We believe that our success depends in large part on our ability to create and engage workforce. Accordingly, investing in our employees is a key element of our corporate strategy. Since the beginning of the pandemic outbreak, we did not lay off any employee due to COVID-19. In the communities we operate, we have created special social projects, aiding thousands of people and donating food and medical supplies. Also, we presented personal protective equipment to hospitals in Kenya, Guatemala, Honduras and the U.S. Moving to Slide 20. As I mentioned at the beginning of this call, 2021 will be significant build up year, comprising mainly of geothermal projects. Our operating portfolio stands to date at over 1 gigawatt, comprising of 873 megawatts of geothermal, 53 megawatts of REG, 7 megawatt of hybrid solar and 73 megawatts of energy storage. We have a robust growth plan to increase by 2023 our total portfolio by almost 50%, with a significant contribution from the energy storage business, as detailed in the following slide. This increase is subject to obtaining all permitting and regulatory approvals required as well as completing the development and construction of these power plants as planned. Moving to Slide 21. Our medium-term goal is to increase the capacity of the electricity segment from our previous estimate of approximately 170 megawatts by end of 2022 to between 250 and 270 megawatts by the end of 2023, representing a total increase of up to 29%. In our rapidly growing energy storage portfolio, we are planning to enhance our growth and to increase our portfolio by up to approximately 400% and add between 200 megawatts to 300 megawatts by the end of 2023. This represents a significant increase compared to our previous growth target of 80 to 175 megawatts we set for 2021, 2022. Additionally, we believe that we may see additional increase coming from potential M&A activities. The next slide displays 14 projects underway that comprise the majority of our 2023 growth plans. We already secured long-term PPA for the majority of these projects and affirm the resource viability. While our electricity segment has navigated the pandemic well, we had some challenges and changes to the timing of projects coming online. The current expected commercial operation of CD4 and Heber is during the first half of 2021, a change that was caused mainly due to delays in permitting due to COVID-19. Slide 23 shows the geothermal pipeline we hold for long-term growth. These are additional prospects that are in different stages of exploration. Moving to Slide 24 and 25. The second layer of our growth plan comes from energy storage segment. Slide 24 demonstrates the energy storage facilities we have announced or started construction. The other projects included in our growth plans are in different stages of development, and the release will require a site control and execution of interconnection agreement, all obviously subject to economic justification. Our current pipeline presented in Slide 25, which is updated frequently, include 33 named potential projects with a total potential capacity of over 1 gigawatt, which are in different stages of development. As I mentioned earlier, we believe that we can develop from this potential pipeline between 200 to 300 megawatts by the end of 2023, mainly in Texas, New Jersey and California. This target excludes any add-on for M&A activities that we are proactively seeking. Moving to Slide 26. The significant growth in both our electricity and storage segments will require robust investments over the next couple of years. To fund this growth, we have over $900 million of cash and available and restricted cash and lines of credits. Our total expected capital expense for 2021 includes approximately $450 million for capital expenditure for construction of new projects of geothermal, solar and storage; enhancement to our existing geothermal power plant that management readies for construction; maintenance of capital expenditures, including our work at the Puna power plant; and enhancements to our production facilities as detailed in Slide 32 in the appendices. Overall, Ormat is well positioned with excellent liquidity and ample access to additional capital to fund future initiatives. Please turn to Slide 27 for a discussion of our 2021 guidance. We expect total revenue of between $640 million and $675 million, with electricity segment's revenue between $570 million and $580 million. The electricity segment includes $33 million from the Puna power plant in Hawaii, assuming we will meet our plans to bring it close to full operations in mid-2021. We expect product segment's revenue between $60 million to $70 million. Revenue for energy storage is expected to be between $20 million and $25 million. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be between $400 million and $410 million. We expect annual adjusted EBITDA attributable to minority interest to be approximately $32 million. Moving to the last slide. The winter of 2020, 2021 brought a wave of beneficial legislation to the renewable energy industry in the United States. In December, the Congress package included extensions to the production tax credit and investment tax credit for renewable projects, including geothermal, solar and storage and recovered energy projects. While the December legislation did not provide a tax credit for stand-alone energy storage facilities, storage facilities related to the functioning of the solar facility were determined to be eligible for the ITC, and we believe that our Upton energy storage facility can benefit from it. In addition, safe harbor provision for renewable energy developers to claim this tax credit was extended from 5 to 10 years. This enhanced flexibility will encourage renewable developers to get construction going on more projects over the next decade. Finally, a few days ago, the California Public Utility Commission, the CPUC, issued a ruling requesting comment on a proposal for 1000 megawatts each of new geothermal and long duration storage procurements between 2024 and 2026. With the tailwind of this support, 2021 is going to be a significant build-up year, accelerating our growth in the storage and electricity with a goal to reach $500 million of annual run rate of adjusted EBITDA towards the end of 2022 that we expect to continue to grow as we move forward with our plans in 2023 and onwards. This goal shows that our way to deliver accelerated profitability growth in the geothermal business is also applicable to our storage business. This will happen by applying our vertical integration approach, mitigation, the partial inherent merchant risk through diversification, using our stable geothermal portfolio as a solid foundation for our storage business and maintaining a strong capital position with access to various sources of capital. We are planning to conduct an Analyst Day likely in May of this year, where we expect to discuss in more details the growth goals in our electricity and storage segments, and our plans achieving the adjusted EBITDA goal. This concludes our prepared remarks. Now I would like to open the call for questions. Operator?