FuelCell Energy, Inc.

like to turn the conference over to Tom Gilston. You may begin.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. This morning, Fuel Cell Energy released our financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, and our earnings press release is available in the investor section of our website at www.fuelcellenergy.com. Consistent with our practice, In addition to this call and our earnings press release, we have posted a slide presentation on our website. This webcast is being recorded and will be available for replay on our website approximately two hours after we conclude the call. Before we begin, please note that some of the information that you will hear or be provided with today will consist of forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such statements express our expectations, beliefs, and intentions regarding the future and include, without limitation, statements with respect to our anticipated financial results, our plans and expectations regarding the continuing development, commercialization, and financing of our fuel cell technology, and our business plans and strategies. Our actual future results could differ materially from those described in or implied by such forward-looking statements because of a number of risks and uncertainties. More information regarding such risks and uncertainties is available in the Safe Harbor Statement in the slide presentation and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly the risk factor section of our most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequently filed quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. During the course of this call, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures and we refer you to our website and to our earnings press release and the appendix of the slide presentation for the reconciliation of those measures to gap financial measures. Our earnings press release and a copy of today's webcast presentation are available on our website under investors. For our call today, I am joined by Jason Pugh, Fuel Cell Energy's president and chief executive officer, and Mike Bishop, our executive vice president, chief financial officer, and treasurer. Following our prepared remarks, we will be available to take your questions and be joined by other members of the leadership team. I will now like to hand the call over to Jason for opening remarks. Jason?

Thank you, Tom, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our call today. In the first fiscal quarter of 2025, our focus on cost discipline and moving toward profitability began to deliver results. By launching our global restructuring plan at the start of the first fiscal quarter, we successfully reduced expenses while driving revenue growth, significantly narrowing our operating losses compared to the same period last year. We have strategically right-sized our business and aligned our resources to seize attractive growth opportunities, including the newly announced MOU for our data center partnership with Diversified Energy and our joint development agreement with Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering. We believe the first fiscal quarter of 2025 marks our low watermark for revenue setting the stage for growth as we increase our module deliveries to going to green energy or GGE according to our production and shipment schedule. While our business is evolving, our purpose has not changed. Fiolso Energy remains committed to enabling a world powered by clean energy. Whether you are new to our story or have followed us for many quarters and years, we want you to know that this purpose remains the cornerstone of our business. Our core value proposition enables commercial, industrial, and utility customers to integrate our technology platform seamlessly. No need to overhaul their business operations or face the risk of power interruptions from intermittent technologies. Our aim is to simply help them operate more reliably, efficiently, and affordably, all while reducing emissions and preserving air quality. It's that straightforward. Moving to slide four, I'd like to provide an overview of our five key messages for the quarter. First, following the end of the quarter, we took a major step forward in executing our strategic vision. We announced an exciting partnership with Diversified Energy and TESIAC with the goal of directly addressing the critical energy demands of AI and high performance computing data centers. Through this collaboration, We plan to deliver up to 360 megawatts of electricity to key locations in Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky, which we believe will position PeelSo Energy at the forefront of powering the digital economy in this area. You've heard me talk about data centers. Massive opportunity data centers represent for PeelSo Energy, and this partnership is the first step toward delivering on that vision. When fully implemented, we expect this initiative to be accretive to our business while also serving as a blueprint for the future of energy, where existing abundant natural resources and innovative clean energy technologies work in tandem to meet the rapidly growing energy demands and deliver large scale distributed behind the meter power deployments in this high growth sector. We believe that bringing together fuel cell energy and diversified energy in this way is a powerful demonstration of the AND strategy, a forward-thinking approach that recognizes we don't have to choose between reliable baseload power or clean energy solutions. We can pursue both. Additionally, we expanded our global presence by signing a joint development agreement with Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering, pursuant to which we plan to collaborate on the co-development of large-scale hydrogen production systems and technologies across Asia, New Zealand and Australia. We believe that this agreement will open new doors for fuel cell energy to scale its clean energy solutions on an international level. While these relationships are in their early stages, we believe they will drive growth, enhance our competitive position and create long-term value. We also announced a new partnership with the city of Hartford, reinforcing our commitment to delivering reliable renewable energy at utility scale. Fuel Cell Energy will build a 7.4 megawatt fuel cell power platform to provide class one renewable baseload power to the local grid in direct support of Connecticut's renewable portfolio standard. We are proud to expand our work in our home state of Connecticut. Alongside our projects in places like Bridgeport and Derby, this new development will ensure that thousands of residential and business customers across Connecticut benefit from resilient, sustainable power. Across the country, we are working to advance municipal energy solutions, including our collaboration with Sacramento Area Sewer District and Amoresco, where construction is well underway on our biofuel-powered microgrid project. We have accelerated progress on our advanced demonstration projects. Our collaboration with ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions and our joint development work with ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Company, or ENTTEC, to pilot carbon capture technology at the ESSO Nederland Rotterdam Manufacturing Complex has reached a pivotal stage, and we are poised to move into the second phase of our commercialization for this project in the coming months following successful demonstration. In parallel, we successfully delivered our solid oxide electrolysis cell system to the US Department of Energy, Idaho's National Laboratory, or INL. We are confident that this testing phase will further validate the commercial potential of our solid oxide solutions. As a reminder, this project, partially funded by the 2020 US Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy Award is exploring how hydrogen production operations can help nuclear plants diversify and boost profitability by seamlessly switching between electricity production and hydrogen production. As the profile of nuclear power grows as a viable clean energy option, we believe our commercialization work at INL will position us to serve this expanding market effectively. Fourth, we continue to execute on developing modules for GGE's fuel cell power platform at the Hwasong Baron Industrial Complex, the world's largest fuel cell power platform in South Korea. We are building an inventory of modules which we anticipate shipping over the balance of the year. This partnership has been successful for fuel cell energy and GGE. and we expect that it will be an important driver of our results through the remainder of fiscal year 2025. And finally, we are demonstrating strong progress in cost management. Our cost and operating expenses have dropped significantly compared to the same period last year, and our loss from operations has improved both sequentially and year-over-year. We believe we're on track to reduce operating costs by approximately 15% in fiscal year 2025 versus fiscal year 2024. And we remain laser focused on aligning cost and driving concrete progress toward profitability. Moving to slide five. I wanted to update you on how this quarter aligns with our powerhouse business strategy. I'd like to emphasize the focus pillar we refined at the start of the fiscal year. Designed to advance our core technologies and safeguard our competitive position in the and energy marketplace, we believe the results you see this quarter, cost control, a steadfast commitment to our established technologies, and targeted growth opportunities in our highest potential areas are clear indicators that our focus is paying off. This discipline strategy not only underscores our confidence in our direction, but also sets the stage for scaling our existing platform and driving future innovation. On slide seven, I'd like to expand on our executed MOU partnership with Diversified Energy and Tessiac in more detail, highlighting our collective aspirations. Through this collaboration, we have agreed to establish an acquisition and development company that will be focused on delivering clean, reliable power from natural gas and coal mine methane to meet the increasing demand for distributed and resilient data centers. We believe that utilizing coal mine methane will not only showcase the fuel flexibility capabilities of our platform, but will also deliver an environmental benefit by reducing coal emissions and providing a net zero baseload data center solution without compromising resilience. Through our planned collaboration, Diversified Energy expected to supply midstream infrastructure, low carbon natural gas, and carbon neutral coal mine methane. Fuel Cell Energy plans to deploy its Fuel Cell Energy platforms to deliver distributed, high efficiency baseload power generation, emissions management, and thermal energy solutions including electricity, and waste heat-driven absorption chilling. And TESIAC expects to leverage its world-class investment and development expertise to secure competitive financing options to accelerate deployment while maintaining long-term profitability and scalability. Turning to slide eight, here you will see a graphical representation of how the parties to this memorandum of understanding envision working together in pursuit of data center opportunities. With this partnership, we bring a bundle of fuel, midstream infrastructure, distributed power generation, and financing as a compelling proof point. We anticipate our discussions with data center owners, investors, and developers will gain momentum. We believe the macro tailwinds are firmly on our side as technology companies, hyperscalers, and private capital investors are poised to invest tens of billions of dollars in data center development over the coming years. This capital is expected to be directed toward meeting the growing AI services demand, which requires gigawatts of energy that traditional grid sources simply cannot deliver immediately. Fuso Energy's microgrid capabilities are ready to close the power gap to provide reliable baseload power for this rapidly expanding sector. On slide nine, I'd like to provide further insight into our recently announced joint development agreement with MMHE. Building on the MOU signed in February 2023, we believe this JDA marks a pivotal step forward for both companies fueled by our shared vision of making e-fuels and decarbonizing petrochemicals with clean hydrogen production easily accessible and viable. Under the terms, of the JDA, we will unite fuel cell energy's advanced solid oxide electrolyzer technology with MMHE's expertise in large-scale fabrication to develop modular solutions for the rapid deployment of commercial hydrogen production. In tandem with this initiative, we are collaborating with Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering Holdings, Bernhard, on a fuel cell energy contract award for a detailed feasibility study of a low-carbon fuel production facility in Malaysia. This agreement not only expands our footprint in Southeast Asia and Australia, but also reinforces our strategic commitment to advancing a practical and energy addition. Aside from our groundbreaking data center partnership and our strategic joint development agreement with MMHE, Our ongoing product development initiatives are advancing at rapid pace. Module production for our carbon capture and storage project with MTEC at the Port of Rotterdam is complete, and they now await commissioning with shipment of the modules expected in mid-2025. We are entering an exciting new phase of proving the viability of commercializing this critical and differential direct point source capture technology. We have completed construction of our carbon recovery plant in Torrington, Connecticut, and commissioning along with preliminary testing is currently underway. Having a working demonstration platform is an essential step that will allow prospective customers to sample the captured CO2 to validate for use in their products or processing. Our first at-scale electrolyzer unit arrived at Idaho National Laboratories and is now being installed for demonstration marking a significant milestone in our technology development. Even as we sharpen our focus and cost control, we are seizing growth opportunities by executing our projects with the rigor our customers expect. To sum up our quarter in one word, focus. This newly strengthened pillar of our powerhouse strategy, evidenced by our global restructuring, rigorous cross discipline, and focus on targeted growth opportunities is already delivering positive outcomes for fuel cell energy. It's visible in our lower expenses. It's evident in our narrowing operating losses. It's reflected in the initial stage of our data center partnership following months of dedicated groundwork. It's encapsulated in our new JDA with MMHE. It's at the core of our push for operational excellence and our commitment to scaling and innovating for the future. I am confident that you will continue to witness these positive trends throughout the year. Our goal is to ensure this quarter stands at the low water revenue mark of fiscal year 2025, paving the way for increased product sales, enhanced service revenue, improved generation fleet efficiency, and continued progress in commercializing the future of clean energy as practical and not demanding change. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CFO, Mike Bishop.