Energy Vault Holdings, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to Energy Vault's second quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Nitin Dahiya, CFO. Please proceed, sir.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, for joining us today, and welcome to EnergyWall's second quarter 2026 financial results call. Our earnings release and investor presentation are available on the investor relations section of our website, and we will refer to the presentation throughout today's call. Before we begin, I want to remind everyone that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may vary materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. Please refer to our most recent SEC filings and the safe harbor language in today's earnings materials for a discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ. We undertake no obligation to update these statements except as required by law. We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings materials. On a personal note, this is my first earnings call as Chief Financial Officer of Energy Vault. The combination of our differentiated power infrastructure platform, growing contracted asset base, strong execution, and disciplined approach to capital creates a compelling opportunity to build long-term shareholder value. I'm excited to join the team at this important inflection point in Energy Vault's journey. Joining me today is Robert Piconi, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Robert will take us through the strategic and operational update, and then I will take you through the quarter, liquidity, backlog, and our increased full-year guidance. Robert, over to you.

Great, Nitin. Thank you, and I'd like to welcome everyone to our Q2 earnings call. And also, friend Nitin, it's a pleasure to have you here. We're all very excited. Nitin just joined us just last month and excited for the contributions here and this very important phase in our company's growth profile. So welcome, Nitin. I also want to remind everyone that we have posted an investor deck out to the investor website. It would be helpful, I think, for those following through if you'd like to follow through that. I will be referring to some of those charts as we go through and before turning it back to Nitin on the results. Hopefully, everyone's had a chance to take a brief read of our earnings announcement. And as I think the results reflect, I'd say two main things up front. I think, number one, the execution of our strategy. And if you have been following us, that execution means delivering for customers. And that shows up in revenue. It shows up in profitable revenue in gross margins. And it shows up in the quality of the availability of the power solutions we provide. But secondly, I'd say it also reflects a commercial execution and capturing the demand being driven by AI compute infrastructure. This is something we've talked about strategically if you go back the last six to 12 months about positioning our company with our great expertise, with our strong execution capabilities with customers. That's not just here in the US, but that's globally as we've demonstrated and very excited to see not only that begin to show up in the results this quarter, but as we'll talk about in our improved outlook both for this year and for next. The strategy we've been describing is now in full translation mode into some of the results we've just seen. That means stronger growth, higher margins, increasing cash, a substantially larger backlog, and importantly, greater visibility into both near-term revenue and long-term recurring earnings. If you turn to chart three, which is the first page of the deck, three main messages there before I jump into some of the numbers. First, I think the 26 and 27 outlook has strengthened materially, as you've seen in the backlog. The backlog increased by about $650 million to roughly $2 billion. That's a strong 40% increase just quarter over quarter, let alone more than doubling that on a year-over-year basis. And what we see there is expectation also to convert that revenue over the next 12 to 18 months at attractive margins for about 40% of that backlog. This gives us substantial and greater visibility into the delivery ramp ahead of us, and that's both, I'd say, this year and into a very strong Q4 we're going to have, just as we did last year, but also as we look at 2027. Second, we're converting the AI data center and high compute platforms demand into real contracted wins. We've talked about the Crusoe win that was mentioned about six months ago as we began to enter the module data center space. But in addition, we recently announced a 1.25 gigawatt agreement, which is our largest contract in the history of the company, to support an integrated power generation and storage solution for hyperscale data centers. Again, all of these efforts have given us substantially greater visibility into the delivery ramp ahead of us now. Third, we have strengthened the capital formation and the project financing capabilities now. The company, we've mentioned Nitin's appointment here as our new CFO, joining from BlackRock, where he had built a strong career also in the energy infrastructure in addition to other sectors. But also I'll mention Cory Magnuson's appointment as president of Asset Vault in Q2. all of these things adding the deep capital markets, the structured finance, the IPP and project finance expertise at exactly the point where the scale of opportunity is accelerating. And that matters because the next phase of growth is not simply about winning more projects. It's about financing the right projects efficiently, protecting our returns, bringing those assets online predictably and at the quality levels we've done to date, and converting that execution into cash flow and long-term shareholder value. If you turn to chart four, we'll jump into just some of the numbers at a high level and then we'll be covering them in more detail in a minute. I think you'll look at numbers we refer to immediately on the number of megawatts. We've discussed the 1.1 gigawatt over the last three months as the last time we were together in May. That's important because Those gigawatts are under our control. Some of them are operating. Some of them are under construction. And some of them are now in a ready-to-build state. That 1.1 gigawatt is what's translating, and I'll share the chart and a few more charts here to look at the timeframes that they'll be coming online. But that will be translating into the $180 million of the recurring annualized EBITDA, which has been fundamental for our strategy the last two years. but importantly, if you shift to the right, the backlog and we'll spend more time and we have a few charts here where we're actually gonna share the composition of that backlog between what's the long-term recurring versus what's our more near-term revenue conversion opportunities. That's increased now to 2 billion, a large increase quarter for quarter, doubling on a year-over-year basis as you see and gives us a lot of visibility. On the revenue side, we've doubled the revenue on a year-over-year basis Again, a reflection of strong execution of the backlog we built last year and projects both in the U.S. and Australia. I think one of the most impressive performances as we looked at Q2 was our gross margin. Gross margin is fundamental because those are the dollars and the cash that get generated from the revenue to cover the operating expense as you go forward. And the fact that we've improved that both on a quarter-by-quarter basis and on a year-by-year basis from an adjusted gross profit up to 38.6%. And the reason we talk about adjusted gross profit because it is the cash gross profit that does not include some of the non-cash depreciation elements associated with our build-own-and-operate portfolio. But even the gas, the gap gross profit, even growing to 31% this quarter, again, just a strong result. What that means is we are executing well We are executing well in the field to avoid any issues that can come up when you're building large energy projects and doing it in a manner with high quality and with high safety. And I think ultimately here, this has to show up in cash and increasing our cash. I think if you look at what we've done the last six quarters now, so this is our sixth straight quarter of increasing cash. I think a great reflection of the focus and some of the discipline of the company to ensure that we are building that cash book. We're improving the balance sheet as we have a lot of attractive investments that we'd like to invest in. It was a 26% increase on a quarter-to-quarter basis and more than 150% on a year-over-year basis. I'd like to turn now to the backlog if you turn to charts five and six and we've provided a little more detail here to give people some color into not only the existing backlog but even as that's going to evolve into the end of the year. As well as on chart six, we have broken down that backlog and characterized it between our build and transfer and our build and operate. And slide six I think is particularly important because it provides More detailed composition showing how that 40% of that backlog is the build and transfer that supports more near-term revenue conversion and cash generation, while about 60% is the build, own, and operate component creates that long-term recurring revenue and earnings visibility. Standing at $2 billion today, that's roughly three times where it stood at the end of 2024. But more important is that composition where we have about 60% of it tied to that long-term recurring revenue from our owned and operated assets, while 40% now, which has grown since last quarter, is supporting that near-term project delivery and revenue conversion over this next 12 to 18 months. And I'd say that's exactly what we wanted to see. While we're making this transition by building and operating Transferring and operating some of these assets on the build, own, and operate strategy, that means we give up revenue as we do that. And that's where we wanted to see good conversion on our build and transfer business to continue to build that revenue and cash growth as we did that. And that's exactly what we're delivering and showing you today. Together, they give us a much more balanced, more predictable, and ultimately a much more valuable earnings model. A little bit of time on chart six because that is a new one. You're looking at our build and transfer breakdown of those megawatt hours. These are storage projects where we talk about them in megawatt hours instead of megawatts. You see there on the revenue side, the total in that backlog is about $700 million of that $2 billion backlog. But in particular, We are also showing the advanced contract negotiation, which represents about another half a billion that we're expecting to execute and close on those. If you look at then the revenue for both this year and then into 2027, there's a total of about 1.2 billion that we have underway. So very excited about that. That's a reflection of some of the growth we're capturing in the execution on our commercial teams. and the other thing I point out there, if you look to the right, are the gross margins associated with that revenue. So as you saw in the earnings release, and we'll be talking more in a minute, we are increasing our gross margin or lifting that to the upper end of the range. Again, this is driven by strong demand, but also speed. So you hear the term speed to power. If you can execute quickly in this market and with a high probability of strong execution and predictable execution, that's going to buy you not only winning contracts, but it's going to buy you the ability to also drive that growth and, in fact, profitable growth here with our margin profile. The second piece of this chart on page six is the build on and operate side where we've segmented that. That represents the other $1.3 billion of the backlog. These are revenue streams that are going to be anywhere from 7 to 15 years. It's a substantial portion of the backlog, which you want to see that grow and you want to see that continuing to growing. That allows us to have a lot of visibility going forward. And remember, these are streams that are anywhere from 70 to 80% growth margins. So as we build these projects and they come online, we've mentioned the $180 million annualized EBITDA that you're going to see out of this. I think fundamental to our execution to our longer-term strategy of owning and operating energy infrastructure. We'll continue to update this chart to give you that visibility both in the near-term revenue on the build and transfer and as we execute on the build-own and operate. If you go to chart seven then, and as you saw I think in the headline of our earnings release, we are increasing and raising the ranges of our guidance, starting with revenue, where we're increasing from the 225 to 300 to the upper end and even above the high end of the range, 270 to 310 million. Just like last year, as we executed in Q4 in a very large way to over 150 million, last year in Q4, we're going to have another large ramp this year. That supply chain is secured. It includes batteries. It includes some of the other high-voltage equipment. are all driven off of some of the recent contract announcements. Expect to have that margin range then also. You see there we're raising to the higher end there and lifting that range up to the 20-25%. I think as you just saw in the Q2 results that I just reviewed, we're continuing to execute well. I would say that those numbers, and if you look at our Q2, represent over 2x the market in terms as you're executing EPC contracts across the board. And if you look at any of the others in the space that are executing, we feel very good about that range and our ability to continue to execute to the upside of that range. And then very importantly on the cash side, reiterating but narrowing to the higher end of the guidance. So we're lifting our guidance on cash there at $160 to $200 million. These near-term revenue contracts are going to be very helpful to that. We continue to manage that well, and I think the additions of Nitin and Corey between the project financing and the broader capital formation expertise and network they bring to the table will continue to keep us with a healthy and growing balance sheet. Turning to chart eight from the deck, we're reflecting both revenue here and its growth over the last three years. but also reflecting that backlog growth. And we are showing what we expect to be a backlog growth even with some of the revenue recognition we're expecting in Q4 that's going to be approaching almost $3 billion. And again, that's a number we don't take lightly. We're executing with a lot of contracts underway that give us a lot of confidence. And that should give investors a lot of confidence. And that's both some of the near-term revenue for recognition But more importantly, we're going to expect an increasing percentage of that backlog on those recurring revenue streams in our build-own and operate portfolio. I'm going to jump everybody to chart 11 because I want to spend a little time on our powered land portfolio. We summarized some of our existing powered land projects, one of them underway. Our Calistoga Resiliency Center, that's the two-day, the 48-hour backup to the city of Calistoga and Napa. That is supporting Pacific Gas and Electric. So we have a 10 and a half year agreement with them. That project is operating as planned and is there to secure the city in the event of wildfires or wildfires or any other events that would cause the groups to shut down. Shifting to the right there, an update on Snyder and our AI campus. We recently announced just two months ago an update on breaking ground with our Crusoe project. That's the module data center project. It's starting with eight megawatts and heading up to 25 megawatts for the initial deployment. And very excited. We also announced plans for an expansion of that site up to 500 megawatts. So that's going to involve a series of Both generation, renewable, as well as storage as we expand our new AI campus there. That is a wholly owned facility and excited as a showcase center as well with multiple storage technologies already operating there today. For Mesa del Sol and our New Mexico campus, we mentioned this power plant opportunity. We actually had a single page on this in the last deck. where we got right up to the 75 megawatt, which is the next milestone. So we're starting with that as an update. I'm on track to start with that in our Q1 there in the state of New Mexico. We have a lot of expansion planned given our ownership rights on the surrounding land. We had mentioned we had acquired 225 megawatts of also of gas generation and reciprocating engines capability. and also would complement that with storage and solar over time up to the one gigawatt in that area. We have multiple locations in and around that area as well that we're advancing and having multiple discussions with hyperscaler off takers and expecting to be announcing some things here in the coming months as we get to the second half of the year. So excited about these larger opportunities. They do create the 15 year plus revenue streams were investing for them in the right infrastructure and the assets. And as we've seen with the 1.25 gigawatt announcement of power generation and storage together that's behind the meter, we're adequately and I think very, very quickly advancing our knowledge and our execution here in the space. Page 12 is a chart that we've also showed for the first time last time that shows the details of the projects that make up the $180 million of annualized recurring EBITDA. So these are the 1.1 gigawatt of projects and essentially all operating within the same timeframes we outlined before. The first two there on the left are already operating there for the 2025. They went online. That's Calistoga and CrossTrails. We're expecting to hear more about SOSA here in the coming months. We already talked about the CRUSO deployment. And then there's a set of other listed projects that's both in Australia. and in Japan where we announced the acquisition that was closed in a more near term two projects in particular of the 350 megawatt there that you'll be expecting to hear more of in the coming months and then our New Mexico power land project here. So all within line I think with what we reported before and good execution of the team to stay on track in various phases of the planning, the construction and a lot of the financing efforts underway there. We also provided on page 13 a level of detail that walked through each of the years and how we expect those megawatts to come online. These are annualized numbers. So the way you can read this chart is looking at the number of megawatts and gigawatts we bring online and the associated EBITDA that's an annualized number as we bring them online. So that's where in this illustration that we have here. We have the walk year by year that we expect to achieve getting up to roughly and almost 5 gigawatts by 2030 and approaching a number of about 2 billion on an annualized basis of the EBITDA. Again, this is another one we'll continue to keep investors updated about and I think important to continue to look at the megawatt ads as we announce new projects here for the second half of the year. Finally, and just to finish and wrap up, and now before I turn it over to Nitin, talk about some of the focus areas on page 15 for this second half of the year. I think primarily, and as job number one with us, as you continue to hear, it always starts with execution. And that's for the second half of the year, we've outlined some additional revenue growth and upside on that revenue and margin. that we expect to deliver. That's going to come through how we always do things in a very disciplined way, a very passionate way in serving our customers. And we see even upside to some of the projections we have here that we're expecting to close on now in the next coming months and we'll be sharing more as we give additional updates in November. I think converting on this owned and operate pipeline to the megawatts under control is another key one to watch. We have multiple projects to add to that 1.1 gigawatt. This is fundamental, I think, to continue to build and execute on our strategy to build a recurring and annualized EBITDA streams. Thirdly, as you saw in the announcement and executing around the large behind-the-meter modular generation and storage platform that we announced, again, this deal was all about speed to power. recently executing it has a large amount of revenue for both the second half and in particular Q4 this year, but also for 2027 as we announced. We're hoping to expand this platform and this relationship into many parts of the U.S. given the demand we see and in particular given some of the wait lists and the waiting lines you have to power. So with this behind the meter solution, we believe we can get customers to power much more quickly. Fourth, We're working on the further optimization around the capital structure of the company and essentially reducing our overall cost of capital. That involves not only strengthening the balance sheet, but we're also building our own team and a self-financing team as opposed to paying a lot of fees and costs to outside advisors. So that's fundamentally to some of the leadership announcements that we've announced in the last three months. And then finally, as we look globally, you can expect to see continued footprint expansion. in these key growth markets. So we've been very focused on only the largest and I think the most attractive storage markets. Most recently, adding that acquisition in Japan, continuing to expand in Australia will be important. And right here at home in the U.S., continuing to build and expand given the tremendous demand we see in the AI compute infrastructure. With that, I'm going to turn it back to Nitin to go over some of the details of our financial results.