Fusion Fuel Green PLC (HTOO) 2023 Q1 法說會逐字稿

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  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Hello everyone, and welcome to Fusion Fuel Green's first-quarter 2023 investor update. My name is Ben Schwarz, and I'm Head of Investor Relations at Fusion Fuel.

  • I would first like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements, including but not limited to the company's expectations or predictions of financial and business performance which are based on numerous assumptions about sales, margins, competitive factors, industry performance, and other factors which can't be predicted. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, and they are not guarantees of performance. I encourage you all to read the disclaimer slide in the investor presentation for discussion of the risks that may affect our business or may cause our assumptions to prove incorrect. The company is under no obligation and expressly disclaims any obligation to update, alter, or otherwise revised any forward-looking statements whether as result of new information for future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

  • Okay, well, thank you all for joining us today. So I'll quickly run through our agenda for the next hour. We will begin the call with some remarks from Fusion Fuel's Chairman Jeffrey Schwarz, followed by an overview of Fusion Fuel at a glance. Our management team will then present first-quarter highlights, financial results, project and commercial updates, and the latest on our HEVO-Chain technology before wrapping up with a discussion of our priorities and milestones for 2023.

  • We then, open up the floor for half hour or so, or facilitate Q&A. As always, previous quarterly calls, questions can be answered in the chat box in the webcast platform at any point. Alternatively, you could also submit your questions to me at the Investor Relations mailbox at ir@fusion-fuel.eu.

  • So without further ado, I'll pass it over to Jeffrey Schwartz, Chairman of Fusion Fuel for some opening remarks.

  • Jeffrey Schwarz - Chairman

  • Thanks, Ben. And hello. As Ben said, I'm Jeffrey Schwarz, Chairman of Fusion Fuel Green PLC, and I'm happy to be able to add my welcome to today's investor update.

  • These have been exciting times at Fusion. In recent months, we've begun the commissioning of our inaugural third-party project for Exolum in Madrid. Firmly planted our flag in another country with a recent awarding of a grant for a mobility project in Italy. A project that will employ the newest addition to the Fusion product line, our HEVO-Chain.

  • We signed a contract with CSIC for the installation of the HEVO-Solar solution. We will be using the newest generation, HEVO 2023 for this project, which we expect to complete by year end. We signed a collaboration agreement with Toyota Material Handling España, providing for a holistic customer solution, combining Toyota's market-leading hydrogen-fuel-cell forklifts and our HEVO green hydrogen production technology.

  • And just last week, if you had been in Benavente, Portugal, you would have seen the first of those newest generation HEVOs coming off the production line. You will hear detail about all these and more in the hour ahead. I'm proud of these accomplishments, but the real reason I joined the call today is to be able to introduce Frederico Figueira de Chaves.

  • Those of you who have followed Fusion already know Frederico, but it is my pleasure and honor to introduce him today as Fusion's first Chief Executive Officer. The organizational changes announced this morning, and in particular, Frederico's elevation to CEO, is the culmination of a process initiated by the Board of Directors 15 months ago with a goal of putting in place the team and the organizational structure that we believed would best position the company to grow to achieve our shared vision of making Fusion a leading player in the fast-growing renewable hydrogen ecosystem.

  • Since assuming the role of company co-head, Federico has worked tirelessly to build a culture that values teamwork and accountability. He has earned the trust and respect of everyone in the organization, from the factory floor at the Executive Committee and in the boardroom. That is why the Board unanimously chose to appoint him Chief Executive Officer.

  • With that, I turn the call back over to Ben, Gavin, and Federico to take you through the first-quarter update.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Great, thanks very much. Let's all kick things off with an overview of our value proposition and positioning in the green hydrogen sector. So Fusion Fuel's mission is to make the energy transition more accessible through the development and delivery of cost-effective clean hydrogen solutions. Our patented miniaturized PEM electrolyzer, the HEVO, is at the heart of everything we do.

  • It's simplified modular architecture unlocks a number of advantages including high-throughput industrialized production, a scalable building-block approach that positions us to create customized fit-for-purpose hydrogen solutions. And cost-competitive distributed or decentralized production of hydrogen, mitigating the need for a distribution infrastructure, which is a costly and critical bottleneck in the market today.

  • We built a strong pipeline of actionable near-term projects in our core markets of southern Europe and United States, with significant grant funding tied to many of those foundational projects, strengthen the economics and derisking the investment case. Our unique and complementary business model position us across the value chain. In addition to selling our proprietary electrolyzer solutions to third-party customers, we also originate and develop green-hydrogen projects with diverse avenues for monetizing value creation.

  • And finally, we are poised and positioned for significant growth ramp as the market matures. With an extensive long-term project pipeline and a world-class production facility located in Portugal, where we're targeting 500 megawatts electrolysis capacity per annum by the end of 2025.

  • So with that, I'll now introduce Gavin Jones, newly appointed Interim CFO of Fusion Fuel. Gavin has been with the company since 2021 in the role of Chief Accounting Officer. Prior to that, he spent over -- well over a decade at KPMG in Ireland. So it's my great pleasure to welcome Gavin into his new role and to invite him to share some highlights from the first quarter of 2023.

  • Gavin Jones - CFO & Chief Accounting Officer

  • Thank you, Ben. Good afternoon or good morning to all of you who have joined our Q1 investor update call. I'm really pleased that my first act as interim CFO is to present our financial highlights for the three month period ended March 31.

  • Some of the key to the highlights include entering to hydrogen purchase agreements with Dourogás and Hydrogen Ventures, issuing invoices to tree external clients. Also, as Jeffrey mentioned, we can commence the commissioning phase at Exolum. We signed the technology sales agreement with CSIC and awarded grant funding towards the mobility project in Italy. Also, in the spirit of sustainability and corporate governance, today also marks the launch of our first ESG report, headlining targets and ambitions for ourselves in the ESG space.

  • You want to move to the next slide, please. We reached an important milestone during this quarter as we recognized our first third-party revenues. This revenue resulted from a technology sales at the supply and installation of 62 HEVO-Solar units that we previously announced.

  • Our cost base reduced when compared to Q4 2022, with notable reductions relating to onerous contract provisions, inventory scrappage costs, professional service and consulting fees. These reductions were somewhat offset by a 1.4 million charge relating to a production line that was scheduled to be installed at our Benavente production facility during 2023. As this production line will no longer be installed as planned, it did not meet the capitalization requirements and was expensed.

  • In line with previous quarters, we continue to recognize non-cash expenses for the awards under our equity incentive plan and fair value gains for our warrants that are mark-to-market instruments. These items culminated in a net loss of EUR2.6 million. Can we move? Perfect.

  • During the quarter, we continued to invest in our core assets. Notably, our Benavente production facility internally generated hydrogen production plants, our HEVO-technology-development assets and their inventory. Any increases in these assets were offset by depreciation and amortization charges.

  • As a consequence in recognizing our first revenues, we also recognized trade receivables, and the amount shown on the slides was received subsequent to the quarter end. As I previously noted, we've also issued further invoices to all their clients during quarter two.

  • Our VAT receivable balance increased by EUR0.6 million during the quarter. In quarter two to date, we have received EUR3.2 million of the amounts outstanding at March 31. To continue the trends of first, we entered into our first debt facility during the quarter and drew down EUR2 million. This facility which is with a Portuguese financial institution, is short term in nature and its purpose is to free up some of the significant receivables we have with the Portuguese government.

  • This EUR2 million has already been repaid during the second quarter as VAT amounts were received. The deferred income balance increased by EUR3.1 million as we received further installments from our C-5 grant award and amounts from customers that did not yet meet the requirements for revenue recognition.

  • Next slide, please. We sold ordinary shares through our ATM facility which raised net proceeds of 2.4 million. Our share-based compensation reserve also increased as we issued or as we granted or is used to our employees and options to our non-executive directors. We have been really successful about securing direct grant awards and supporting partners in their submissions that would use our technology. This is an activity that we intend to continue, and we are already working on numerous proposals, both in Spain and Portugal for the next wave of grants.

  • Now, I will pass you to Frederico who will provide an update on the business.

  • Frederico Figueira de Chaves - CEO & Board Executive Member

  • Thank you very much, Gavin, and thank you for taking on the role of CFO from me as well. And also, thank you, Jeffrey, for the kind words at the beginning.

  • So I'll cover both technology and commercial activities in my update, starting with an update on our projects and pipeline. So we currently have just over 25 projects in our short to mid-term pipeline. The majority coming from Spain where we are currently commissioning -- the commissioning process of our Exolum project, our first project to go live in Spain.

  • We're already actively marketing our HEVO-Chain offering for delivery as early as this year already. Most notably, we've already received a grant award for a project in Italy using this technology only a few months after launching it. The United States continues to be a market with significant strategic importance for us.

  • Zach and Jason launched our activities in this market last year with the Bakersfield project and have, more recently, brought two other opportunities in North America to the portfolio. We aim to continue to develop opportunities in this market with them in the future, and to enter into technology partnerships with them. Our focus is to mature our pipeline into projects in execution and contracted.

  • Something we have finally been able to make some progress given the licensing and regulatory hurdles. As Kevin noted, we put our first revenues in Q1. In Q2, we've invoiced two other clients, and we're now picking up momentum on the more traditional activities from our business development front. So we expect that to continue as these '25 or '27 also projects mature.

  • I also want to take this opportunity to introduce an exciting concept we've been working on together with our Fusion Fuel Spain partners. Fusion Fuel Spain, together with two leading European energy companies, along with Toyota Material Handling, have created a holistic solution for hydrogen mobility for logistics centers. The partnership provides best-in-class hydrogen vehicles, our highly competitive electrolyzer solution, and therefore, lower cost of production, renewable energy sourcing, and fleet financing options. So it's a true holistic solution for logistic centers.

  • We can offer a competitive green hydrogen and/or mobility as a service options to logistic companies in the region. Zaragoza hub is expected to be deployed in various stages, matching demand growth and hydrogen fleet deployments. In fact, the CSIC project which we're now executing, so our second project in Spain which we're already executing on now serves as the first concrete step in the execution of this particular hub.

  • We find this a truly highly interesting concept and partnership, and we aim to replicate it for other logistic areas across Iberia. So although this is just a concept example, but this is one of several logistic hubs we want to be targeting. We see logistic as a core markets for the green hydrogen world in a market where you traditionally can have captive fleets and fast deployments.

  • On the technology front, I want to also note that some pride that we have actually, last week, started in production of our Gen-4 HEVOs which I have here in front of me. This is a substantial progress in our HEVO evolution. It is eight times more powerful than this one that I have in front of me. That is the first one used in our Evora project.

  • So we have significant reduction in complexity, and therefore, also unit cost. And it showcases the speed of the innovation that's taking place at Fusion Fuel. The HEVO continues to benefit from cheaper power equipment in the overall balance of system, lower operational and maintenance costs and simpler maintenance processes than other large tech solutions. Reduced system losses, lower production costs, and is designed for modular and scalable deployment.

  • We're already integrating this generation to our ongoing projects starting with the CSIC project. So that is the HEVO-Solar project but it will already take in this latest generation of HEVO. The HEVO-Chain will also be built around this core new HEVO.

  • Speaking of HEVO-Chain, I want to introduce the overall concept of this product line. So once again, the new HEVO lies at the heart of the HEVO-Chain offering. Our centralized-electrolyzer offering has two product types.

  • The previously announced containerized solution, which ranges from 1- to 2.5-megawatt option depending on the size of the container, which will enter commercial production in 2024. This was what we announced in December, you see there on the right-hand side. But also, our non-containerized solution still operating with the HEVO at its core, together in a string and together in a tailored system that can be deployed for any project size. We planned commercial production and deployment of this series already in 2023.

  • I want to highlight some of our 2023 strategic priorities a little bit different than the general business milestone that we have going on. So now, with the HEVO-Chain offering, the northern European market becomes a potential addressable market for us. The electrolyzer market in northern Europe has been moving quickly. And although southern Europe benefits from a very cheap and readily available renewable power, the northern European market has been moving faster in terms of actually deploying electrolyzers.

  • With our HEVO-Chain offering, we now have a highly competitive solution where we can enter this market, and we plan to do so already this year. Also, we want to strengthen our balance sheet and our capital position. Our strong tech offering and robust pipeline enables us to target being cash flow self-sufficient at some point in the second half of 2024. We continue to explore all options to ensure we have a balance sheet that allows us to execute on our strategy.

  • On point 3 as previously mentioned, we'll continue to evolve the HEVO-Chain offering to be able to be deployed at the large-scale projects that we're engaged in. In particular, the non-containerized version that I mentioned previously.

  • As we're a young company in a fast-growing industry, it is critical to ensure we maintain a strong corporate culture around operating as a team, executing quickly, and ensuring robust processes. This is a core element of our governance in our first ESG report that we also published today. We've been successful by being nimble and quick, and now, we need to safeguard these elements as we grow and mature as a company.

  • Lastly, I want the focus that we're undergoing on ensuring we can pursue strategic partnerships. Across the industry, we see exciting opportunities, be they in the development funding, technology, or even production space. We'll continue to explore these to strategically add value to our proposition where we can. Already, our Fusion Fuel Spain -- or Toshiba on the membering of Toyota on the handling side partnerships are just some examples of our efforts to make sure that we bring in, and partner with strong propositions to add to our offering.

  • Lastly, I want to -- as we always do, just finish up on tackling our key milestones for 2023 and our progress against them. With a new more powerful HEVO, we are well underway to have an expanded production capacity and minimal additional costs. As I mentioned before, this HEVO now in front of me is eight times more powerful than the one before, yet it doesn't take eight times the time to make it. So we are able to produce a lot more electrolyzer capacity now with this offering, which is helping, of course, our production capacity.

  • The HEVO-Chain non-containerized unit will be ready for deployments in the coming weeks, and so, that will already finalized different trials and ready for deployment. We continue to execute on our contracts, obviously, the recognizing revenues, being able to issue invoices and receive payments from clients has been a major milestone in that front. We have two large projects that we are currently in contract negotiation for deployment about later this year. And we also continue to see a wave of interest in projects coming to our commercial team for -- even for deployment as early as this year.

  • Now, on the project development side, licenses and regulatory frameworks continue to be a major bottleneck in some situations, but we do see some progress in Spain in particular. Portugal has progressed slower than we had hoped but we have started several of these projects several years ago. So we are now hoping that they are reaching a level of maturity where we can start deploying some of those large projects that we've had from us for a while now.

  • We're on the cusp of hydrogen deployment in a very large scale in Europe. The urgency and appetite for projects has never been greater, and we're finally seeing governments not only making promises or announcing ambitions, but finally, actually taking action. Examples of these are both the Portuguese and the European hydrogen banks hydrogen options go live later this year. The sponsor start change and step up in the industry overall. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to work with my Fusion colleagues, to play a leading impactful role in this hydrogen market.

  • So I thank you all for your time, and I'll pass back to Ben so you can go through the Q&A.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Thank you, Federico. Just as a reminder for those of you who have questions, you can submit them in the chat box on the webcast platform or direct them to the IR mailbox at ir@fusion-fuel.eu.

  • So let's open things up with a handful of questions that I received the e-mail from Chris Tsung at Webber Research. His first question is around Bakersfield. You're in the US and the JV with Electus, commenting on the latest information that provided in the 20-F filing. So just update there, and perhaps, also, commentary on how the JV is structured and the respective roles of Fusion Fuel on Electus Energy.

  • Frederico Figueira de Chaves - CEO & Board Executive Member

  • I'll take that one. So the -- we continue to work with Electus Energy, the details are polishing so we can't disclose at this time, it's still too early for that stage. But as noted, we did engage with Black & Veatch to start feasibility study of the project, and now, the development work on that continues. Given its location, California, it does require lengthy licensing time, a process which has started, but we will expect to continue to make progress although it will be, frankly, still some fair amount of time before we're able to give meaningful updates on that side. I will note that that is a very large project.

  • As we announced, it's about 75 megawatts in terms of electrolyzer size. We do, and as I mentioned before, Zach and Jason created two new opportunities in the US for earlier -- sorry, North America for earlier deployment, and the slightly smaller scale which we could tackle faster. So we hope to be able to be announcing further details of those projects soon. It's important for us to note that the US market continues to be a priority for Fusion Fuel.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Thanks, Frederico. The second question was, how are we tracking against our full-year 2023 guidance?

  • Gavin Jones - CFO & Chief Accounting Officer

  • I'll take this one, Ben. So I think, during the Q4 investor update, Frederico presented our full guidance for 2023 and 2022. We are currently tracking positively towards those projections, and especially, when it comes to revenue and costs. So I think, even previous to Q4, Frederico would have provided guidance of between maybe 4 million and 4.5 million for operating cost per quarter excluding that one-off charge, which I mentioned during my slides, we were within that bookish.

  • And with cost reduction plans that we put in place and cost efficiencies, we expect us to reduce further as we continue on in the year. So to answer your question, Ben, yes, we were still within the parameters of the guidance we provided previously.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Thanks, Gavin. Sticking with you, can you -- as a question on capital planning and strategy, can you walk us through how we plan to fund our CapEx requirements through this year and beyond?

  • Gavin Jones - CFO & Chief Accounting Officer

  • No problem. So I think, as Federico mentioned, most recently, we're currently looking into and investigating various capital areas where we can strengthen our balance sheet. Multiple discussions with financial institutions based here in Europe and wider.

  • As I mentioned as well at the outset, we have invoiced three external clients so far in 2023. We want to continue that momentum as we push into the latter stages of Q2 and into Q3. And again, as I mentioned, we entered into our hydrogen purchase agreements as well with Dourogás and Hydrogen Ventures. So we will look to use any inflows from those contracts to continue our CapEx but it will be through a capital raising means as those discussions reach conclusion.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Thanks, Gavin. Sorry, go ahead Frederico.

  • Frederico Figueira de Chaves - CEO & Board Executive Member

  • I also want to add around -- just clarity on the CapEx we use that might be associated with projects. So the -- we do -- as anyone who's been following us for a while, we do the development for a number of projects ourselves, however, the total investment value for those projects is significant. In the triple-digit millions uptake. We've mentioned this before but just to clarify again, we intend to have financial partners for those projects.

  • So those projects in the SPVs ought to be owned by the financial investor, which takes on that CapEx responsibility. We've created the opportunity and we intend to deploy our technology into it, but funding those projects through to completion is not in short-term capital plan.

  • Gavin Jones - CFO & Chief Accounting Officer

  • And Ben, just one piece, if I may as well that I forgot to mention was the grant inflows, which we've now started recognizing or receiving. Over the last four or five months alone, some of the awards that we've received over the last 18 months have actually been provided and paid out. And so again, we hope that that's a positive trend that will continue during 2023 and '24.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Thanks, Gavin. Just sticking with that, going out of order a little bit, sticking with that point around grants. There's a question here around, should we expect continued delays in grants being paid out? And do we expect this to lead to any liquidity challenges or project delays down the road?

  • Frederico Figueira de Chaves - CEO & Board Executive Member

  • So I will take that. I think what we have noticed is that grants payments can be unpredictable, it's not necessarily always delays. We have seen them sometimes taking nearly years to get paid, and other times, be as quick as one week. So what we are looking to do is obviously, to partner with some commercial banks and so on to take the uncertainty of that timing of the payment away from us, so that we can proceed and operate in a more normalized function.

  • Of course, if that's not possible, that could delay projects, could delay activities. Although, I will note once again that we are not looking to take on the investment risks of the projects ourselves, we'll just hand them onto a third party. So depending on the capital position of that third party, they will have to decide how they want to take that timing risk themselves.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Great. There's a question here from Amit Dayal of H.C. Wainwright, it's a question around maintaining our outlook for 2023 and 2024. We already covered, I think, 2023 and said, yes, we are we're confident with that guidance. Preliminary-2024 outlook has not changed since our 4Q-'22 call.

  • Frederico Figueira de Chaves - CEO & Board Executive Member

  • Yeah, we maintain the same guidance. Again, the sum of these projects can be chunky as noted, so obviously, the timing of when to they will start the deployment can impact those targets. With the information we have available, those continue to be our ambitions and targets.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Great. Sticking with analysts here, a question from Erwan Kerouredan at Royal Bank of Canada. In light of the leadership changes announced this morning, how should we be thinking about the Americas? Should we expect the appointment of a head of Americas reporting into Frederico anytime soon?

  • Frederico Figueira de Chaves - CEO & Board Executive Member

  • So this is still to be determined. As noted, Americas continues to be a strategic priority for us. We do still expect in time to be working with Zach and Jason on developing some projects in the United States -- North America in the future. And as also noted on strategic partnerships, naturally, strategic partnerships to cover the American market is obviously a question that's going through our mind. it is still early days, it's still something that we are we are working on, but the likely scenario is that there will be multiple solutions for such a large and principal market for us.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Thanks, Frederico. I'll pass over to Gavin for this next question. Do we expect the current rate of dilution, both through sales of securities through the ATM and the award of options to be -- to continue to be steady at these levels for the foreseeable future? What would it take for this pace to increase or decrease?

  • Gavin Jones - CFO & Chief Accounting Officer

  • Thanks, Ben. I think if not steady, definitely reduced. So if we think about the options and RSUs, these were predominantly -- or our predominantly issues to retain key employees, and also, attract new hires. As those who have followed us in the past, we've grown our headcount from very small amounts to 150, 160 people, so we don't expect to be granting too many more options or RSUs in the near future.

  • On the ATM, we have not sold any amounts under the ATM facility in Q2 to date. But again, but I'm repeating myself again, we're looking at various ways of strengthening our capital position. And obviously, if we're successful in one of those, that will obviously reduce the dilution from any future ATM sales as well.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Thanks, Gavin. I think this one is a more strategic question, perhaps for Frederico.

  • Question around why the development and evolution of the green hydrogen economy is taking so long? What do you see as the primary challenges and obstacles? And what changes needed or two, to address that and build some momentum in the competitive space?

  • Frederico Figueira de Chaves - CEO & Board Executive Member

  • Thanks, Ben. So naturally, the first point to note is this. How items have been used historically has been a very, shall we say, chemical processes that are truly commoditize. These are activities with low margin and they're very sensitive to increases in costs.

  • Green hydrogen, blue hydrogen, or clean hydrogen let's call it, still operates as a premium to grade, and therefore, it takes time to be able to replace the gray views, the traditional activities. What we've seen is obviously the support from governments have come to support the green premium in these early stages of the market. And we're seeing, of course, new uses for hydrogen such as mobility which will justify a higher cost of hydrogen.

  • Legal regulatory environment, license environment as well as demand have all been slowly working together to start framing a world where green hydrogen is truly economically viable in large-scale use. I think, with the IRA, now with latest European activities, that starts to truly be the case, and that's why we're seeing such a rapid ramp-up in interest and green hydrogen activity in both markets. So we are -- I think, the world is waiting for something to move. The US was the catalyst to get everyone else moving, and now we're seeing that dynamic in market that we haven't seen before.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Thanks, Frederico. I would also mention, if I can get up on my soapbox for just a moment. And I think that there is a -- I talked about this before, a dislocation between what was being announced and what's drawing a lot of attention in the market picture. A really large multibillion-dollar mega projects and what's actually being developed in the field, which are predominantly, projects in small- to mid-scale space that have a much more modest capital requirement.

  • So we feel like we are pretty well positioned given our unique competitive advantage by virtue of our technology in that small- to mid-scale space. While the rest of the industry, and more importantly, while the rest of the value chain, particularly on the infrastructure side, scales up to support more widespread adoption of green hydrogen.

  • Question here around the HEVO-Chain, and a request to clarify the benefits, and I guess importantly, the differences between the two solutions. Can you see speak of the benefits of each and where they would be most focused?

  • Frederico Figueira de Chaves - CEO & Board Executive Member

  • So the HEVO-Chain, again, we'll start with the advantages of using our smaller modular solution. Any product using the HEVO will benefit from these advantages, namely the fact that it's modular, allows for relatively easy operating maintenance. So as opposed to having to send a full stack back if there's an issue or having to shut down an entire plant if there's an issue or something needs to be repaired, we can simply take out the offending draw cube or unit, and the rest of the plant can operate -- can continue operating as normal.

  • We also -- each member in each unit operates independently even though they are on a string, which means that any mismatch losses in the system are actually only at the individual HEVO level and not the full system level, so we have much lower losses from the system. So these are the -- some of the large scale advantages of the HEVO itself.

  • The HEVO-Chain solution takes advantage of those, is able to then have a much cheaper power system. Because the HEVO require a lot less power to -- or amps, i should say, current to go through them, and this reduces the overall cost of the HEVO-Chain. Both HEVO-Chain units, the containerized the non-containerized version can be scaled. For example, we do not need to fill the container all in one go, so they can be scaled and they can be ramped up in phases as client needs.

  • So we do have projects where they have a phase one and phase two. There's also one in containerized solution which is 0.5 megawatts, and then, a second 0.5 megawatts to be complemented as the -- in this case, for mobility as a fleet is deployed. But the HEVO-Chain containerize has its full system included, has the water system, power collect system included.

  • Now, if you have a large system, you will be then replicating these power and water systems, whereas in the non-containerized version, you're able to tailor it to the size. And that's the advantage of the non-containerized versus the containerized. They are for different use cases, and both I would say, very competitive in their markets.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Yeah, thanks, Frederico. A comment here around technology sales and what that process, what that sales cycle looks like and how those contracts tend to be structured as payment done upfront? Is it after delivery? Is it in peaceful fashion?

  • Frederico Figueira de Chaves - CEO & Board Executive Member

  • The -- let's call it, each negotiation is its own world, but in general, the approach that we're taking is that there is a certain amount of upfront payment. This allows us to invest in the working capital to buy the materials, to buy items needed for the production of that item, and then, certain milestones to be -- certain amounts delivered in certain stage in the production phase and so on. There are subsequent payments, there is a remainder withheld until the end which is only paid after successful commissioning and acceptance of the unit. So the payment is phased and it is designed in a way to ease the working capital part for that production.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Thanks, Frederico. Question here around the efficiency of the HEVO 2023 and how many kilowatt hours is required to produce a kilogram of hydrogen? I'm going to say that has not -- unchanged relative to prior versions. And that -- but it's important to note the distinction between the efficiency that the stack level versus the system level. But Frederico, I'll let you chime in on that.

  • Frederico Figueira de Chaves - CEO & Board Executive Member

  • Yeah, that's right. So efficiency in stack level continues to be the same and extremely attractive. The exact decimal, I can't remember but it's in the 47. something, that's now escaping me on the stack level. And at the full system level, it's around 52 kilowatt hours per kilo.

  • These are highly competitive numbers for electrolyzer system. And again, we've been able to maintain those numbers as we're advancing the HEVO and making it more powerful. And by more powerful, we mean more electrochemical cell, real estate or space, and therefore, higher hydrogen production with the same unit here and Spain. Overall, we have space.

  • Ben Schwarz - IR

  • Great. Thanks, Frederico. So I think we've reached the end of the Q&A session with plenty of time to spare. If there are any further questions or unless Frederico or Gavin, you have some final thoughts you want to share? If not, then, we can wrap it up here.

  • So a big thank you to everyone who's joined. If you -- if any questions come up, or you felt your question was not answered sufficiently, please do reach out to me and the IR team at ir@fusion-fuel.eu and we will look forward to seeing you all again at our next update.

  • Frederico Figueira de Chaves - CEO & Board Executive Member

  • Thank you.