Emeren Group Ltd

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by for Emarin Group Limited second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Please note that we are recording today's conference call. I will now turn over the call to Mr. Eugeia Zai, managing director of the Blue Shirt Group. Please go ahead, Mr. Zai.

Thank you, operator, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our second quarter 2023 results. We released our shareholder letter after the market closed today, and it's available on our website at ir.mrin.com. We also provided a supplemental presentation that's posted on our IR website that we will reference during our prepared remarks. On the call with me today are Mr. Himanshu Shah, Chairman of the Board, Mr. Yumin Liu, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Ke Chen, Chief Financial Officer. Before we continue, please turn to slide two. Let me remind you that remarks made during this call may include predictions, estimates, and other information that might be considered forward-looking. These forward-looking statements represent Emarin Group's current judgment for the future. However, they are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Those risks are described under risk factors and elsewhere in Emarin Group's filings with the SEC. Please do not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. which reflect Emarin Group's opinions only as of the date of this call. Emarin Group is not obligated to update you on any revisions to these forward-looking statements. Also, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during the conference call are in U.S. dollars. With that, let me now turn the call over to Mr. Himanshu Shah. Himanshu?

Thank you. Great to be here, and good day to everyone. Strategically, Ameren is positioned well, and we do have a strong balance sheet. The two strategic acquisitions that we made 10 months ago in UK and Italy have been operationally accretive to our results. It says a lot about our disciplined acquisition methodology. Our equity buyback also has been accretive to our shareholder value. Proud of our almost 5 gigawatt hour of storage pipeline and team focus going forward, which is a step in the right direction. Our team is also executing well, as can be seen from our second quarter results. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Yumin and Ke to talk about our operating results.

Thank you, Dimash. And thank you, everyone, for joining our call today. I will begin by presenting a high-level overview of our second quarter 2023 results, followed by an in-depth discussion on our guidance. After that, Ke will provide a comprehensive review of our financial results for Q2. We delivered a strong quarter and made good progress on our key strategic initiatives. Q2 revenue grew 312% year-over-year to $33.8 million. driven by strong contribution across all of our business lines. Gross margin was 37.4%, driven by improving mix of higher margin projects, particularly in Europe, where we are benefiting from a tailwind of high energy prices. These results show a net income of 8.3 million, which was a record high for us in the last five years. In our project development business, building on our successful track record in Europe, we sold two major projects in Poland and Hungary for a total of 62 megawatts. Ordering quarter end in July, we successfully closed the sale of an 11.5 megawatt solar project to the Swiss-based energy company MET Group. This marked our first major product sale in Germany and represents a significant milestone for our company as Germany stands as one of the foremost renewable energy markets in the world. In addition, during the quarter, we saw strong revenue and margin contribution from our recently acquired solar farm in Brescia, UK, due to the favorable energy prices. This results given us confidence in our IPP strategy in Europe. Further, in Q2, we executed our storage pipeline strategy and began the monetization process of our storage pipeline with an inaugural 260 megawatt of battery energy storage system projects in Italy. This effort was part of our recent announced strategic partnership with Matrix to develop up to 1.5 gigawatt of portfolio of battery energy storage system in Italy. This solar star system projects add a new revenue stream with attractive margins to our business, and we look forward to sharing further progress in our upcoming quarters. Over the past two years, the European market has been our top strategic priority, and we are very pleased with the progress we have made thus far. We have a very strong pipeline here and it continues to represent Amaran's largest market opportunity going forward. In China, we continue to make progress in our realignment strategy to the rest of the world as development, build, own, or sell, compared to the original strategy as develop, build, own, and IPP. Last quarter, we announced We are refocusing our efforts to find coastal provinces that have the most favorable power prices supported by a strong economy and regulatory environment. We anticipate setting all of our solar assets outside of these five provinces and some in these five focus markets. It will help strengthen our balance sheet. In Q2, we successfully closed the sale portfolio of rooftop distributed generation projects located in Henan Province, totaling 29 megawatts, to CNMP Rich Energy, a prominent leader in China's renewable energy sector. We anticipate unclosing the sale of additional projects in the upcoming quarters in Henan and Hebei provinces. Looking to the remainder of the year, we expect strong performance driven by product sales and contribution from our recent acquisitions. Our four-year guidance for net income continues to be between $22 to $26 million, with gross margin anticipated to exceed 30%. For revenue, we now anticipate results to be near the lower end of the previously stated range of $154 to $174 million due to the project timing. Our net income guidance reflects impressive annual growth of approximately 300%, a milestone we are extremely proud of as our focus remains on profitability, even the volatile nature of our top line due to the project timing. We expect our Q3 revenue to be between 27 to 30 million, and the gross margin to be in the range of 35 to 38%. Regarding our solar development and storage pipeline, over the course of quarter, we conducted a comprehensive review of our global project pipeline and implemented a standardized tier system that spans across both development and storage pipelines. This reappointment has led to the establishment of a more rigorous requirement for projects that are reported in our pipeline. As a result, we will now track and report another one-stage and an early-stage pipeline metric. The one-stage pipeline represents projects with a significantly high likelihood of success completion, thus serving as a reliable predictor of our future revenue. Meanwhile, the early-stage metric encompasses projects for which we have determined a reasonable probability of success. At end of 2023, we anticipate an advanced solar pipeline of at least 3 gigawatts, of which we now anticipate monetizing approximately 400 megawatts of in 2023. Beyond 2023, we are targeting to monetize 5 to 600 megawatts a year. In addition, we expect an advanced storage pipeline of 6 gigawatt hours by the end of 2023. In conclusion, we are optimistic about our revenue growth this year and beyond, driven by a robust product pipeline. Our strong position in rapidly growing solar markets fueled by rising clean energy demand, increased PPA price, and supportive government policies further boosts our prospects. With expertise in solar process development and extensive industrial network, a solid balance sheet, we are making significant progress towards becoming a leading global solar company.

We are committed to delivering the value for our shareholders. Now, let me turn the call over to our CFO, Ke, to discuss our financial performance. Ke. Thank you, Yu-Ming, and thanks to everyone for joining us on the call today.

I will now go over our financial results for the second quarter. Our revenue of 33.8 million increased 312% year-over-year and 163% quarter-by-quarter. The growth in revenue was mainly driven by strong project sales in Europe and our IPP assets. Growth profit was 12.7 million and the growth margin was 37.4%, up from 1.6 million and 12.4% in Q1 2023, and up from 3.7 million and 45% in Q2 2022. Growth margin was at the high end of our guidance rents primarily driven by improved mix of higher-margin projects, particularly in Europe. Operating expenses were $7.6 million up from $4.6 million in Q1 2023 and up from $3.9 million in Q2 2022. The increase in operating expenses primarily results from the recollection of $2.1 million one-time loss from the diversity of our China rooftop projects in Holland Harvest. Lead income attributed to Emerald Group LTD common shareholder was 8.3 million, compared to lead loss of 0.2 million in Q1 2023, and the lead loss of 0.2 million in Q2 2022. Diluted lead income attributed to Emerald Group LTD common shareholder per ADS was 14 cents, compared to zero in Q1 2023 and zero in Q2 2022. Tax using operating activity was 2.4 million, which was mainly for the continuous development of Poland and Hungary COD projects. Tax provided by investing activity was 0.1 million. Tax provided by financing activity was 1.2 million. In terms of our financial position, Cash and cash equivalent at end of Q2 were 60.5 million compared to 66.7 million in Q1 2023. Our left asset value or NAV is approximately 5.98 per ADS. Our debt to asset ratio at end of Q2 2023 was 10.1% compared to 11.3% at the end of Q1 2023. Regarding our stock buyback program, we purchased approximately 1.4 million of our common shares during the quarter and plan to continue to execute on the program over the coming quarters, which has about 15 million remaining in authorization.

Now, we would like to open up the call for any questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press Star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press Star 1-1 again. One moment for questions.

Our first question comes from Donovan Schaffer with Northland Capital Markets. He may proceed. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions.

I want to first start off with the storage pipeline because that really stood out for me as the target of hitting six gigawatt hours. At this point, it almost makes it seem in some ways even bigger than the solar pipeline, depending on how you measure it. I know that can only back up six gigawatts for one hour. It's not really an apples to apples comparison. So my first question is just the size of it. Does this reflect any kind of shift in strategy in terms of are you moving towards being more of a storage developer than a solar developer? Or is a lot of this maybe combined? And my second question following up on that is just A lot of this is around the storage market in Poland, it looks like. You have it at 3 gigawatts in your advanced stage pipeline. So is there something special about the market in Poland that makes it a good storage market? Do they have special incentives? Is it a high-demand market to get around grid congestion or security concerns? What's making Poland such a big part of that?

Okay, the very interesting questions. The number one, I will say that the storage, we initiated the storage development, storage product development, back to about 18 to 24 months ago. And in the U.S., at the start, literally speaking, U.S. market is a pioneer on the storage development, starting like 2015, 16. And Europe, We started also around 12 to 18 months ago on storage development. And we do see storage sector becomes a very strategic and important play for our whole company. I will not redefine the company as a storage company only, but it is a very important sector in our company. The second point is the two major markets we are developing storage in Europe are Poland and Italy. Even you did not ask, but Italy just very recently, the government announced the full support to storage market, including upcoming clear policies, how developers can develop and benefit from the support of the policies. has been a very strategic market, important market for the company, too. One of the reasons is Poland is moving from a centric of coal-fired production to a renewable energy country, with the 80-plus percent of the coal-fired power production going to promote solar, wind, and all other renewable energy. At the same time, they are in big demand of energy storage projects. That is why we committed to develop a big solar storage, solar pipeline put together with the storage pipeline. And we are confident that the country not only is in big demand, but also we see a big benefits developing those projects and provide good contributions to the company from those

at one stage and early stage storage pipelines. Okay, thanks. That's helpful.

And then I want to talk about the 29 megawatts of rooftop projects that were sold in China. And I guess linking that to there is a $2 million loss on disposable PP&E in the EBITDA reconciliation. So just was that... was the loss, that $2 million loss attached to that sale of projects in China? And if so, you know, just if you can talk at all about what kind of drove the loss on that, you know, was it, were these older projects from years past when solar panels maybe were more expensive? Were there some other factors just kind of, and maybe if that is likely to happen with other assets in China? I'm just trying to connect the dots there and understand it a bit better. That'd be great.

Yes, Donovan. First of all, this deal were good in terms of cash flow for us. We sold at a very good price, but compared to when this was built more than three years ago, the cost at that time is much higher than the cost today. That's because, again, accounting treatment. That's a loss based on accounting treatment. From cash flow point of view, this is a very good deal for us, and we expect to collect very good cash inflow for this project sales. And yes, we are expecting to continue sales out of this Lake State project to, again, collect some cash. But from an accounting point of view, we do expect some of this accounting losses.

Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. If I could just squeeze one more in on gross margins. Gross margins look really great for the quarter. That was nice to see. And I imagine IPP revenue is about 30% of revenue for the quarter. So I'm imagining this is sort of saying, okay, you've been building more of this IPP portfolio. You've got Branston, which has become a big part of it, and then didn't have a strong contribution in Q1 because that's not a sunny time of the year. But now Q2, boom, here we see it. So I'm just curious if you can help us kind of separate out gross margins. Do you have the information? Could you share what the gross margins were for the IPP business? Because I know those tend to be very high. And then if you strip that out, what would the gross margins be for the rest of the business, just excluding the IPP business?

Yes. In Q2, you actually mentioned that, again, Q2 is a good season for the solar generation. So, again, ITP margin is very high, around about 70% gross margin. Our project development is over 30%. And also, again, we did mention the service, different service gross margin, that's also pretty high. above 50%.

That's related to our Italy business. Well, the blended gross margin was 37%.

So is it just that a lot of it was the 30% for projects? Because, you know, the numbers you gave, if you kind of combined all that, you'd think you'd even get into, like, the 40%. So is it the EPC services?

Is that part of what kind of – Yeah, EPC revenues, yes, you're right. EPC revenues, over $8 million, but the EPC margins are very low.

yeah is it is it sort of um between zero and ten but still positive i mean was it positive for the quarter it's a one percent almost break even okay got it i i know how that ties into all your models so i totally understand that all right thanks guys i'll get back in the queue thank you thank you one moment for questions our next question comes from phil shen with roth mkm you may proceed

Hey, guys. This is Matt on for Phil. Thanks for taking the questions. First, I just wanted to get your outlook for energy pricing in the back half of the year and where you think that could go in 2024 and if you continue to expect to benefit from higher energy pricing.

Let me answer your question in two ways. One is, for example, we do have our major contributor 50 megawatts president project, we do have four-year PPAs starting from April 1st this year, going there all the way four years locked PPA with very favorable PPA price. All other, talking about the merchant price in the European market, we see the current price is absolutely a lot lower than 12 months ago or even than like eight, nine months ago, okay? going to in the average country by country about $70 to $90 per megawatt hours. But going into 2024, we do see the uptrend of the price going from the current number to as high as 25 to 40% higher compared to today. That literally led us to believe our IPP strategy in Europe is absolutely sustainable. and we are applying our IPP strategy continuously in Europe.

Okay, great.

Another point on this one is the demand for renewable energy, solar specifically, is so big in Europe, and we have been seeing all those strong support from all the governments in Europe. That will help on the demand side, while when the demand is high, the price remains to be very, very good throughout the 2024 based on the forecast. Again, our Brunson project, we signed four-year PPA with much, much higher price than our current emerging price.

So we'll benefit from that.

Okay, yeah, great. Thank you. Appreciate the color there. And then moving to the U.S. utility-scale market just as a whole, We've been doing some work recently that there could be some slowing because some developers might be having difficulty accessing liquidity for project financing and working capital, resulting in some project delays. Are you seeing this at all? And if so, how big of an issue do you think this could be for the industry looking ahead?

Very good question. You are absolutely the expert on this one. We do see from no matter West Coast or East Coast, PJM, PG&E, all those utilities they put a hold of their approval process for the interconnection queue. That is also one reason that we mentioned that we have a lot tighter control on our tier system, qualifying our products into the advanced tier or the advanced stage. We absolutely consider that as part of our quality or part of our considerations. I do see that the speed of the development may get picked up sooner than later within the next six to 12 months in the U.S. You know, we feel proud about one big thing we present today, which is a very profitable quarter because of our contribution from the European business. Our U.S. is low as we see same as many other companies who reported the last three, four weeks. But we reported today a very strong order, thanks to our balance, our strategic business operation in Europe. Again, I would like to add, again, we talk about this, we have strong balance sheets, that's part of our competitive advantage. I believe we talked about this in the last quarter, we have deposit put refundable deposit with this U.S. utility project. So, again, we offer strong balance sheets. We can compare the orders. We can carry this on, and you will see the results of our U.S.

results in the second half and the next year.

Okay, great. I appreciate the color, guys, and I'll pass it along.

Thank you, Matt.

Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Amit Dayal with HC Wainwright. You may proceed.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. With respect to the storage pipeline, you know, can you clarify if the solar pipeline and the storage pipeline are tied in some fashion? Just trying to see if, you know, when you are successful in converting your solar projects, does that also imply that you will convert the storage projects as well, or are they a little independent?

Very interesting question. We have two different portfolios when we talk about megawatt hours on the storage. One is the solar attached to solar called Solar Plus. But here, when we say that the one stage of the storage pipeline, the majority, or almost all of them, are independent storage projects.

And those are not solar attached. Okay.

And it's also, that is also a trend we are developing. And in different countries, you have different strategies developing different sizes. And even in the different states, in the US, we have different approach on the size of the storage facilities. So, but most of them are independent storage projects.

And you didn't see anything from storage in 2Q, right?

No. Actually, we talked about this last year. We started our storage initiative. Actually, in Q2, we already recognized the revenue and profit. We talked about the Italy projects. And we continue to see this marketization in Q3 and Q4. Overall this year, we expect between 8% to 10% of that profit will come in from the storage business. So we're positive about our storage development here, and you will see more in the coming years.

Understood. Thank you for that.

Another question was around the margin outlook. Some of them we've already addressed. But these 35%, 37% margin levels, can this be sustained in 2024 also? Or can you help us maybe get some clarity on what are the drivers behind margins? Is it depending on whether IPP or project sales come through? in different percentages for the quarter? Like, you know, just trying to see, I know there is, you know, it's a fluid situation for you guys, but, you know, is 35 to 37 a little bit higher than normal, or is that potentially going to be a normal level for you, you know, into 2024?

Yeah, that's a lower margin we have targeted, and again, we say it's between 27 and 30 percent, and again, because our nature of project development. We focus on RTP, NTP sale, and the IPP model.

So we believe that will be our margin target going forward. Okay. Yeah, that's all I have for now, guys. I'll take one of the questions offline. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Pavel Mokunov with Raymond James. You may proceed.

Thanks for taking the question. I remember you have talked over the past year about looking at some new European countries to enter. I think, you know, maybe Czech Republic, Greece, Turkey, but it seems like you've remained focused on your existing geographic footprint. Can you talk about that?

Interesting question. We are continuously looking at new market to expand our business in Europe. We are looking at the several countries now, but it's a little bit too early to talk about it before we ink a deal in the European countries. But literally speaking, we are looking about three to four countries in Europe. And also, as I mentioned, we are also looking to expand our business into Australia, the Asia Pacific area. That's the plan. And also the plan is for both solar and storage. It's a combined strategic play for the company inside out. Paolo, I just would like to talk about storage because you probably know U.S. storage market is relatively in advanced computer Europe. Europe is a little bit behind. And in Europe, you know, U.K. is maybe number one right now. But the coming market is Italy and Poland, which we have a leading position. So that's why we focus on those two markets and to monetize or get the leadership in those two markets. That's why you see our storage pipeline increase quite a lot in those two countries.

Speaking of storage, you know, we're watching battery costs coming down, you know, quite substantially. I would love to get your thoughts on the battery market and also if you're observing module prices down 30% according to some estimates in the last 100 days. Is that consistent with your analysis?

Absolutely. We do see the capex from the two things you mentioned, that for example, today's price is over $300. And we do see that this price should be going down the next 12, 18 months, or even sooner, to like at least 25, 30% lower. And that is the first part of the story. And capex on the solar side, lead by led by by module price decline we do have seen the you're right about the over 30 percent decline but in the last three months i would say about 20 25 in general it did not really happen too much in the us yet but the in europe absolutely it happens even goes below the price we can we can purchase

back to before COVID.

Why are European prices, so there are no tariffs, but of course that's always been true. Why do you think European module prices are so cheap right now?

I think oversupply has been built up throughout the whole industry, no matter its modules or battery storage. And the oversupply will continue to be the case. In the next, I will say a longer term, not only talking about 12, 18 months, will be longer. That drives the price either at a stabilized low or even go lower. But we feel very comfortable at this time as it is comparatively pretty low as we feel comfortable about it.

Okay, last question. Your IPP revenue, $10 million in the quarter, but you sold some IPP assets. So will that number come down from current levels?

Yes and no. The one is that we talk about IPP portfolios. We have U.S., Europe, and China. We sold the China one, okay? The U.S. and literally... mostly Europe, will continue to be very strong. But China, we sold, or will continue selling, some Henan Hebei provinces. The solar farms, the legacy ones, is Henan Hebei province. The IPD, we talk about the government subsidies in those legacy solar farms. And that is one of the reasons we are considering, or we implemented the sales strategy. But at the same time, we are also building new solar projects in China, in the focus market. We do see some revenue coming down as we saw some in Q2, but the impact to the whole scheme is minimal.

Yes, Paolo, whole year the IPP revenue is still about maybe 20% of our total revenue. Got it. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Paolo. Thank you.

Thank you. And as a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Donovan Schaefer with Northland Capital Markets. He may proceed.

Hey, guys. Thanks for, you know, allowing time for some follow-up questions. I want to dig just a little bit more into the Polish storage market again just because I know, you know, it seems like it's – it looks like it's a very big opportunity for you guys. I know, you know, you have a legacy kind of, like kind of relationships and you guys have been in the Polish market for a long time. But I'm curious if you can elaborate on like, so to take a counter example, I know Spain, for instance, you know, Spain is kind of notoriously a terrible market for storage because, you know, it doesn't have capacity markets. It doesn't have markets for things like voltage, you know, regulation or other ancillary services. So there's almost no financial incentive there. to do storage projects in Spain. So in Poland, in the Polish market, you know, do they have, is it a capacity market? Do they have, you know, these storage projects, someone, an asset owner operating a storage project, can they get compensated for all these ancillary services? Or is it, are there more just sort of like direct subsidies or something? Like what's the economic case for batteries and how that's structured in the market in Poland?

I think the Poland market, we know the demand is there. The utilities with the high demand of the renewable energy and transferring the 80 plus percent of the coal production to the more renewable energy, they absolutely invade demand of the storage. So that is the given. The second is, we do know people are active purchasing or giving pretty good values of the storage projects, including we are even in the process of setting our first storage deal in Poland. Going into the details of what you just discussed, the revenue streams, I think as we know the utility utilities and the government, they are developing the scheme as of now. And I think we expect that will be coming. Just similar as I mentioned, Italy, UK as a front, but Italy will start immediately starting as early as next quarter. And Spain, you are right, but that is why if you see our deck of the pipeline, we are very cautiously developing Spain's storage market.

Yes, I did.

We are very committed. We are very committed. We are very confident that Italy and Poland will become our two major storage markets at least at the near term for the next six months or so in Europe.

Okay, and then I also just wanted to ask Because when you made the Branston acquisition, you also highlighted and talked about some of the additional assets you would hang on to as IPP assets in Europe. And so you've got 60 megawatts in Europe. I think 50 megawatts of that is Branston. So I know it's a small piece of things, like the remaining 10 megawatts. But if I recall correctly, I think those were in Hungary. It might have been Poland, but you were going to, And I don't think they had PPAs you were going to sell at the merchant price. So I know this could jump around a bit, but I'm just curious, can you share with us what kind of gross margins you're getting from the other, outside of Branson, from the other IPP assets? And if you're still planning on accumulating some of the ones in Hungary or Poland or other countries in the pipeline right now.

I think we explained before that we made a little bit revision of our strategy on IPP in Hungary as of the economic situation of the country. Although the country still maintains the BBB minus credit rating, and also we are actively developing projects in the country, but we decided not to keep a big IPP portfolio in the country. So that is one part of the story. Another one is in Poland, we already started the construction of our IPP portfolio. The first under construction is a little bit less than 20 megawatts, including several projects. And we are planning to build them and get them online in the Q1 next year. So that is part of the portfolio and a little bit less than we predicted. but there are many different considerations why we slow down a little bit of the IPP construction, including, as I mentioned, Hungary, the big change on the Hungary strategy, but also on the considering all the lower capex and also the target portfolio in Poland, we do face a little bit challenge of the interconnection. So when we get interconnection approvals, over planned IPP assets, we will construct them. So our IPP strategy in Europe continues. And also, as I mentioned, you talk about the price of other than Princeton. Princeton has a four-year PPA that will end another three and a half years. But in other countries, for example, in Hungary, that is one of the countries we see 2024 price will be around 30 or 30 or 35 40 percent higher as forecasted than the price today okay similar to several other countries we see about a minimum 20 25 percent uh tariff increase in the countries in general on the merchant basis and does that get you to that like 70 kind of gross margin for assets like that or um is it kind of

We have to think about that differently.

I would think the merchant basis, the Brest with a high PPA price for the four years, it definitely gives us a good margin. And in general, merchant basis, I think the average margin should be around 50%.

And that's 50-5-0 or 1-5? 5-0. Okay, fantastic. Okay, thank you guys. I appreciate it. And I'll take the rest of my questions offline. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no more questions in the queue, that concludes our call for today. Thank you, everyone.