First Solar, Inc.

to Mr. Richard Romero from First Solar Investor Relations. Richard, you may begin.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. Today, the company issued a press release announcing its fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results, as well as its guidance for 2024. A copy of the press release and associated presentation are available on First Solar's website at investor.firstsolar.com. With me today are Mark Widmar, Chief Executive Officer, and Alex Bradley, Chief Financial Officer. Mark will provide a business update and outlook for 2024. Alex will discuss our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2023, as well as our financial guidance for 2024. Following their remarks, we will open the call for questions. Please note this call will include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, that could cause actual results to differ materially from management's current expectations. We encourage you to review the Safe Harbor Statements contained in today's press release and presentation for more complete description. It is now my pleasure to introduce Mark Widmar, Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Richard. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. I would like to start by noting that this month marks the 25th anniversary of First Solar Sounding. making us one of the oldest and most experienced solar module manufacturers in the world. This is a remarkable milestone in a journey that has positioned us as the Western Hemisphere's leading solar module technology and manufacturing company. While we're not the only American solar manufacturer to come into existence at the end of the last century, we're the only one of scale to remain today. However, this is not simply a story of survival. but one about the value of long-term strategic decision-making underpinned by a differentiated technology and business model, driving value creation for our shareholders and our partners. Ours is a story of innovation, values, competitiveness, and perseverance. And we are proud of our work towards leading the world's sustainable energy future. As our journey continues, few years have been as consequential to our long-term growth strategy as 2023. Over the past year, we expanded manufacturing capacity, mobilized at our latest announced facility in Louisiana, produced and shipped a record volume of modules, expanded our contracted backlog to historic levels, and increased R&D investment, and continue to evolve our technology and product roadmap. Let's review the key accomplishments in 2023, beginning with slide three. From a commercial perspective, 2023 continued the momentum established in 2022 as long-term multi-year procurement continued to drive demand. We added 10 new customers and secured 28.3 gigawatts of net bookings at a base ASP of over 30 cents per watt. Despite industry macro challenges such as global oversupply and pricing volatility, we continue to see strong mid to long-term demand especially in the United States, as shown with 2.3 gigawatts of net booking since the previous earnings call at an ASP of 31.8 cents per watt, excluding adjusters, or 33.4 cents per watt, assuming the realization of our technology adders. Our total contracted backlog now stands at 80.1 gigawatts, with orders stretching to the end of this decade. While Alex will provide a comprehensive overview of our 2023 financial results, our full-year EPS came in at $7.74, which is above the midpoint of our initial and Q3 2023 guidance ranges, and included the impact of the sale of our Section 45X tax credits and the impairment of our investment in cubic PV. These items, neither of which were included in our Q3 2023 guidance ranges, adversely impacted our full year EPS by approximately $0.48 per watt. From a manufacturing perspective, we produced a record 12.1 gigawatts in 2023, representing a 33% increase in production over 2022. As a result, we have now surpassed 60 gigawatts of cumulative production since we first began commercial manufacturing in 2002. This growth was driven by manufacturing excellence at our Series 6 factories, which produced 9.7 gigawatts in 2023, an increase of 600 megawatts compared to 2022, and the successful ramping of our new Series 7 factories in the US and India, which combined to produce more than 2.4 gigawatts in 2023. Our top production bin for Series 6 was 475 watts, and our top production bin for Series 7 was 545 watts. We remain committed to progressing our technology and product roadmap in 2023, having recently achieved 22.6% world record Cattail research conversion efficiency based on our CUR technology, and launched the first bifacial thin-film solar panel. In addition, we successfully completed our manufacturing readiness trial under our CURE program in the fourth quarter of 2023 and expect to begin manufacturing modules powered by this technology at our lead line in Perrysburg in the fourth quarter of 2024. It's vital that our supply chain and logistics operations keep pace with our manufacturing expansion plans, and we've made meaningful progress on this front in 2023. Key achievements, including entering into agreements with Vitro to supply American-made front and back glass for our manufacturing operations in the U.S. and with AMCO and ICE Industries to supply steel back rails for our facilities in Alabama and Louisiana. We also signed agreements with Saint-Gobain to supply the back glass for our modules in India. Regarding growth, we exited the year with 16.6 gigawatts of nameplate capacity. This marks an increase of 6.8 gigawatts from 2022, driven by the commencement of operations at our Series 6 factories in Ohio and Indiana. In 20, excuse me, in India. In 2023, we announced a $1.1 billion investment in a new manufacturing facility in Louisiana, which is expected to add 3.5 gigawatts to our nameplate capacity in 2026. When combined with our Alabama facility and Ohio manufacturing footprint expansions, both of which are in progress, we expect 2026 year-end nameplate capacity of approximately 14 gigawatts domestically, with another 11 gigawatts internationally for a global nameplate capacity of approximately 25 gigawatts. We also continue to invest in our technology with our R&D Innovation Center and a perovskite development line, both under construction in Ohio. These facilities are expected to commence operations in the first half and second half of 2024, respectively. Additionally, in 2023, we acquired Evolar, a European leader in perovskites technology, and as this transition, its laboratory in Sweden to become our first R&D facility in Europe. These and other investments in R&D allow us to accelerate the cycles of innovation we believe are necessary to extend our leadership in thin-film solar technology. Turning to slide four, as of year-end 2022, our contracted backlog totaled 61.4 gigawatts with an aggregate value of $17.7 billion, or approximately $0.288 per watt. Through year-end 2023, we entered into an additional 28.3 gigawatts of contracts and an average ASP of $0.305 per watt. After accounting for sales of 11.4 gigawatts in 2023, we began 2024 with a total contracted backlog of 78.3 gigawatts with an aggregate value of 23.3 billion, or approximately 29.8 cents per watt. Since the end of 2023, we have entered into an additional 1.8 gigawatts of contracts, resulting in a total backlog of 80.1 gigawatts. These most recent bookings have an average ASP of 31.9 cents per watt pre-adjuster or 33.9 cents per watt if contract technology adjusters are realized. Additionally, we have received security against 206 megawatts of previously signed contracts in India, which now move these volumes from contracted subject to conditions precedent grouping within our future opportunities pipeline to our bookings backlog. A substantial portion of our overall backlog includes the opportunity to increase base ASPs through the application of adjusters. If we're able to realize achievements within our current technology roadmap, as is the expected timing for delivery of the product. As of the end of the fourth quarter, we had approximately 39.1 gigawatts of contracted volume with these adjusters, which if fully utilized, realize excuse me could result in additional revenue of approximately 0.5 billion dollars or approximately one cent per watt the majority of which would be realized between 2025 and 2027. this amount does not include potential adjustments which are generally applicable to total contracted backlog both related to the ultimate module bin delivered to the customer which may adjust the ASP under the sales contract upward or downward, or for increases in sales rate or applicable aluminum or steel commodity price changes. I'll now turn the call over to Alex, who will discuss our Q4 and full year 2023 results.