NuScale Power Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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May 9, 2024

Key Takeaways

  • NuScale is in advanced discussions with Tier 1 hyperscale data center and AI companies, with several targeting commercial operation before decade-end, reflecting strong demand for reliable clean energy.
  • Manufacturing readiness has accelerated through a strategic partnership with Doosan, including a new steam generator tube bending shop and delivery of long-lead forgings, further derisking module production.
  • The NRC has accepted NuScale’s 77 MWe uprate design for review, with approval expected by July 2025, broadening the scope of potential customers.
  • As of Q1 2024, NuScale holds $137.1 million in cash, no debt, and expects $50–60 million in annualized savings, projecting quarterly cash burn below $10 million.
  • Q1 revenue declined to $1.4 million year-over-year and net loss widened to $48.1 million from $35.6 million, driven by a $3.2 million restructuring charge and a $9 million non-cash warrant adjustment.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
NuScale Power Q1 2024
00:00 / 00:00

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to NuScale's 4th Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Results Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. All participants are in a listen only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. A replay of today's conference call will be available and accessible on NuScale's website at ir.nuscalepower.com.

Operator

The web replay will be available for 30 days following the earnings call. At this time, for opening remarks, I would like to turn the call over to Scott Kozak, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Kozak.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Welcome to NuScale's Q1 2024 earnings results conference call. Us today are John Hopkins, President and Chief Executive Officer and Ramzi Hamady, Chief Financial Officer. On today's call, NuScale will provide an update on its business and discuss financial results. We will then open the phone lines for questions.

Speaker 1

This afternoon, we posted a set of supplemental slides on our Investor Relations website. As reflected in the Safe Harbor statements on Slide 2, the information set forth in the presentation is discussed during the course of our remarks, and the subsequent Q and A session includes forward looking statements, which reflect our current views of existing trends and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties. You can find a discussion of our risk factors, which could potentially contribute to such differences in our SEC filings on Form 10 ks for our fiscal year 2023 and in our prior SEC filings. I'll now turn the call over to John Hopkins, NuScale's President and Chief Executive Officer. John?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Scott, and good afternoon, everyone. As you all know, NuScale was founded on the belief that nuclear power, a cleaner, safer, more reliable form of energy, is critical to meeting the increasing global demand for carbon free power. Today, we are seeing this belief borne out in real time. As you'll see on Slide 3, the need for clean, reliable power is significant and growing, driven by the electrification of the transportation, building, technology and industrial segments. A recent 5 year projection for U.

Speaker 2

S. Electricity demand growth has doubled from forecast provided just 1 year ago. Overall, peak demand in the U. S. Is expected to grow at least 38 gigawatts over the next 5 years.

Speaker 2

When you consider that the country is on track to close half of its coal fired generation capacity by 2026, The vulnerability of domestic grids to intermittency comes into greater focus, particularly when you consider that in 2023, coal represented more than 16% of U. S. Utility scale electricity generation. The U. S.

Speaker 2

Has made historic investments in climate progress and federal regulations and state policies have helped bend the projected greenhouse gas emissions curve further down. However, the country continues to lag behind Paris Agreement targets to cut emissions by 50% to 52% below 2,005 levels by 2,030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2,050. For example, in 2023, the U. S. Added 32 gigawatts of 0 emissions electricity generation and storage.

Speaker 2

But as you see in the chart, still falls far short of the target addition of 46 to 79 gigawatts needed to keep pace with the country's Paris Agreement goal. Let me add an additional perspective. In March, I attended SIR Week, the flagship annual conference on the energy industry calendar, And the dominant theme was artificial intelligence and AI's insatiable appetite for electricity. Data center and AI driven companies attended event in mass, speaking on panels and seeking out meetings with utility executives, power developers and power production technology companies including NuScale. A few key takeaways from these discussions.

Speaker 2

1st, NuScale's SMR technology resonates so strongly with this group because our solution is scalable, reliable, near term deployable and aligns with their clean energy commitments. In addition, our flexible business model means they will not need to own or operate a nuclear energy plant. 2nd, data center and AI companies are not like traditional nuclear energy customers. The sense of urgency and the pace at which they move are clear differentiators. We are in advanced discussions with a number of these prospective customers and several are considering commercial operation dates before the end of this decade.

Speaker 2

3rd and finally, while these companies are competitors commercially, many are collaborating on energy solutions because they recognize the scope and immediate nature of their common need. As reflected on Slide 4, when you consider how the electricity needs of pet companies have evolved, the sense of urgency they're exhibiting is justified. Most traditional data centers built 10 years ago were energy consumers of 10 megawatts or less. Today, it's not uncommon to see 100 megawatt data centers. There are data centers planned in the next 3 to 5 years that will approach 1,000 megawatts.

Speaker 2

The International Energy Agency estimates that electricity demand from data centers globally could top 1,000 terawatt hours by 2026, more than double 2022 levels. Data centers, AI and cloud storage are 20 fourseven power consumers. They require an uninterrupted reliable power supply. At fitterleague, an Amazon Web Services executive commented that the world adds a new data center every 3 days. This need was underscored by a new initiative between Google, Microsoft and Nucor working together across electricity ecosystem to develop new business models and aggregate their demand for advanced clean electricity technologies, including advanced nuclear.

Speaker 2

Initiatives like this will help bring 1st of its kind commercial projects to the market. As you see on Slide 5, nearly every leading hyperscaler has made major commitments to reduce carbon emissions. NuScale's technology has the ability to provide baseload decarbonized energy at scale and can help meet those sustainability objectives. We in turn see our sales funnel for prospective data center and AI customers expanding with significant inbound inquiries from Tier 1 hyperscale computing providers. The most common sentiment we hear in meetings with hyperscalers as well as data center operators like standard powers, I need the power now and how do I get it?

Speaker 2

I want to emphasize this is not a passing need. We already see another big energy consumer, quantum computing on the horizon. Strain on the grid from AI driven power demand is made even more acute due to strong growth in domestic manufacturing as seen on Slide 6. Driven by domestic content requirements and on showing trends as well as promotion of private investment to the bipartisan investment law, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, investment commitments for American manufacturing now since 2021 have exceeded $525,000,000,000 As a result and noted on Slide 7, we continue to progress serious conversations with prospective industrial customers, including in the petrochemical industry about identifying incorporating clean energy options, in particular producing clean, high temperature, high pressure steam for process heat applications. Related to this interest in activity, we are honored that we added Doctor.

Speaker 2

Dirk Schmidt to our Technical Advisory Board in April. Doctor. Schmidt recently retired from Shell Corporation, where he served as their Chief Scientist and Chairman of the Shell Science Council. I will add that NuScale is continuing to innovate in novel ways. For example, we believe we have made great progress converting brine to an effective hydrogen carrier using clean energy from a new steel plant.

Speaker 2

In the near future, you'll see more news on a test performed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory that confirm our patent pending approach. All our prospective customers value the numerous decisive advantages of NuScale technology relative to large scale nuclear and other energy sources, as well as compared to the largely unproven claims of newly emerging SMR technology developers. NuScale enables process heat for industrial customers providing a clean, safe, reliable baseload source of energy with a small land footprint. Our small emergency planning zone allows us to co locate with production facilities. This positions us very favorably when speaking with prospective customers.

Speaker 2

As featured on Slide 8, the strategic partnership we formed with IntraOne Energy, an American independent energy producer and plant development owner with significant energy and infrastructure experience enables NuScale to bridge the power plant development plus ownership value. As seen on Slides 910, with Doosan making significant steps towards production, our readiness is far more advanced than our SMR technology peers that have aspirations for U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Committee approval. And the gap continues to widen between NuScale and our SMR competitors as we continue manufacturing our NuScale power module.

Speaker 2

It also highlights the degree to which we have derisked our modules. In April, Doosan and Nerdability opened a dedicated steam generator tube binning shop. And includes the installation of new state of the art tube bending machines. Recent renovations also enabled the facility to perform tube bending for NuScale power modules, a key milestone in future development. I toured to Dussaud's facility last month in and I am so impressed with all that Doosan has done to support 4 gs and manufacturing new scales power modules.

Speaker 2

We also are continuing to start new 4 gs and expect to have all of the 4 gs needed to support the first 6 upper reactor press initials by the end of this year. I saw that the first 7 large forgings for upper reactor vessels, which we refer to as long lead materials, have made it to the forging and initial manufacturing phase. Our reactive pressure vessels are now ready to enter the next fabrication phase. Our other strategic suppliers like IHI of Japan and Par Systems in the U. S.

Speaker 2

Were also making preparations to accept customer backed orders. This includes fabrication of prototypical NuScale plant components. We look forward to sharing more updates from our suppliers that demonstrate our readiness to deploy NuScale powered plants. On the regulatory side, NuScale's standard design approval application for a 70 7 Megawatt up rate design was accepted for review by the U. S.

Speaker 2

Nuclear Regulatory Commission or NRC in July 2023. We expect the NRC's process to conclude on or before July of 2025. While the design is based on a same fundamental safety case and features approved by the NRC in 2020, we believe that 77 Megawatt NuScale Power Module supports an even wider range of customers. NuScale has deployed 6 E2 centers thus far with 4 of these centers deployed at U. S.

Speaker 2

Universities and 2 internationally. These energy exploration centers are the NRC approved control rooms for NuScale powered plants. As seen on Slide 11, we toured the E2 Center at Seoul National University with NEA Director General Bill Nagwood. This E2 Center models operations for 12 module NuScale powered plants. Among the first NuScale has achieved, the U.

Speaker 2

S. Intersea has approved 3 operators in a 12 unit control room. For the first time since the event at 3 Mile Island, the intersea also approved control room operations without a train shift technical advisor. The U. S.

Speaker 2

State Department announced that A2 Center will be deployed in Ghana and we are in discussions to deploy several more. Akin to Apple Computers deployed to schools, this makes training on a new scale E2 Center the standard for advanced nuclear worldwide. Next, I'll update you on the Ropower project. In late March, U. S.

Speaker 2

Ambassador to Romania, Kathleen Kavalik visited Ropower's Dorchester site. Ambassador Kavelek reiterated America's commitment to deploying a new scale SMR in Romania and underscored that the Ropower project was an important element of the U. S. Romania strategic partnership. Planning continues for Rural Power projects phase 2 front end engineering design work, while commercial and government stakeholders work to finalize terms.

Speaker 2

While NuScale contracted directly with Row Power to complete FEED Phase 1, as planned, NuScale will serve as a subcontractor to Fluor for Ropower's FEED Phase 2. In late April, the President of Romania and a Romanian delegation turned Nuisance Energies manufacturing facility and saw the new scale power module components being manufactured there. Before I conclude, I want to reiterate that nuclear energy is such a valuable commodity in the context of the global energy transition because it's sustainable solution that executes reliably, a pairing that does not exist with other current energy solutions. Whether it's industrial electrification, process heat or the rapidly escalating demand of the data economy, NuScale's SMR technology is part of the solution given our ability to produce clean reliable energy, reach customers and help them achieve their sustainability goals. We maintain competitive advantages of technology, safety, manufacturing readiness, siting and regulatory success and expect to play an integral role in helping a wide range of customers meet their 20 fourseven energy needs while reinforcing and expanding the power grid.

Speaker 2

Now I'll turn it over to Ramzi to provide our financial update. Ramzi?

Speaker 3

Thank you, John, and hello, everyone. Our financial results will be available in our filings. So my focus will be on explaining major line items. I will discuss our Q1 results found on Slide 12 and relevant factors impacting our financial position. All figures following are for Q1 2024, unless I state otherwise.

Speaker 3

I'll begin with NuScale's improved financial position. In January, the company implemented a series of strategic initiatives to better align our resources with NuScale's primary objective of transitioning towards commercialization and revenue producing commercial contracts. These actions further NuScale's long term financial stability by generating approximately $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 in annualized savings starting in the Q2 of this year. NuScale's overall cash position improved during the period and in the Q1 with cash and equivalents of $137,100,000 dollars 5.1 of which is restricted and no debt. This compares to the end of the Q4 of 2023 when the company had cash and equivalents of $125,400,000 $5,100,000 of which was restricted and no debt.

Speaker 3

NuScale also reported revenue of $1,400,000 and net loss of $48,100,000 for the 3 month period ending March 31. This compares to revenue of $5,500,000 and a net loss of $35,600,000 for the same period in 2023. Higher net loss reported in the current quarter is driven by a one time $3,200,000 charge associated with cost reduction efforts related to our transition from an R and D based company to commercial operations and also a $9,000,000 non cash adjustment to the fair value of our warrants driven by the increase in our share price. Looking forward, NuScale will maintain our financial discipline and prudently sustain a conservative liquidity reserve. I conclude my remarks with a brief view of our capitalization summary on Slide 13.

Speaker 3

Additional information may be found in our SEC Form 10Q and earnings release may be available prior to this call. With that, I'd like to thank you again for joining today and for your continued support of NeuScale. We'll now take questions. Operator?

Operator

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. Your first question comes from the line of George Gianuricos with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, good evening everyone and thank you for taking my questions.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Drew.

Speaker 4

So you articulated like a lot of momentum in your discussions with some of the hyperscale data center companies. And I'm curious as to when you see that momentum translating materializing into orders. I mean, it seems like it's close, but any guidance there would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes, George, John Hopkins here. Just, it wasn't that long ago when I commented that we saw a lot of activity with utilities related to coal plant refurbishment. And then last year, we saw a lot of activity in discussions around hydrogen production, process heat, ammonia. However, what I see this time in conversations with these Tier 1 and others as it relates to AI and data centers, it's not rhetoric. They have a demand and they have an immediate demand.

Speaker 2

And it's it just continues to perpetuate. And it's not that the coal plant have gone away or the hydrogen production. This is compounded by the additional requirements of these data centers and AI. And we have NDAs in place and we put these NDAs in place very quickly because everybody is kicking tires now and wants to see who can deliver first. And as I mentioned, we have I was just in Doosan and I was stunned to see the advancement of seeing 7 of our 4 gs coming offline.

Speaker 2

They're even doing tube bending and they're doing our Helica coil steam generators. They're actually scaled up in testing currently. And these things are invaluable to us because if somebody wants to move quickly, I could probably shave over a year of the schedule, because we already have these long lead eyes in hand. So, I think the difference to your question is that there's a lot of pressure now coming on when I see utilities from data centers and from AI companies in, we need to meet the demand now. And if you can't deal with it, we'll have to go somewhere else.

Speaker 2

And so I'm seeing the utilities now, we had the Inflation Reduction Act and we had the others that I talked about, but I've never seen any movement as fast as what I'm seeing currently right now. So we're pretty bullish on the market. This is exactly what I feel and I kept we needed a burning platform. I think this is going to be what promulgates this industry to really take off.

Speaker 4

Thank you for that. And maybe just as a follow-up, are there any implications to you of the restrictions on Russian uranium imports? Thank you.

Speaker 2

No, there is none at all. Our Chief Technology Officer, Doctor. Jose Reyes, back in the year 2000, made a cautious decision to stay as an advanced light water reactor, predominantly because that's what the nuclear regulators all over the world do. They know light water. And so we're typically what we call conventional fuel, less than 5% a wrench.

Speaker 2

And our fuel is actually manufactured by Framatome here in the United States. So fuel is not an issue for us.

Speaker 4

Thank you so much. I'll hop back in queue.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Marc Bianchi with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hey, thanks. John, I want to follow-up on that last discussion about the data center demand. You mentioned there were several that wanted to have commercial operation before the end of the decade. How many do you think could be awarded to the industry? So I'm curious of how meaningful this would be, and I know you probably don't want to get into saying how many you could get, but just what are the real prospects that are out there?

Speaker 5

Is it like 2 or 3? Is it 10? Help us understand how much that

Speaker 1

could be.

Speaker 2

I think what it comes down to, Mark, and thank you for the question, is the capacity to execute. One thing we don't want to do is overextend our capacity to execute. So what I'm looking for right now and our model is pretty simple. We will take 1st of a kind risk, provide us long term our PPAs. And that's what we're asking for.

Speaker 2

So right now, we've got 6 modules coming offline. Doosan says they could fabricate 20 modules in an annual timeframe and they're actually gearing up as they said before. So and what I like the fact on these what I call fungible assets, I can move these modules. We're building in a factory. So as you remember, our model is predicated not to do one off projects, but we have 1 or 2 and we can relocate these from the factory.

Speaker 2

As we're building in the factory, you're doing the commercial work in the field simultaneously. So we can move pretty quickly. So for me right now, I'm not greedy. Just give me one plant, one plant to start. And I'm telling you, I've never you probably hear it.

Speaker 2

This is the first time I've really seen activity moving. People ask me about is Standard Power. They're still there. These are large and complicated financial transactions that just take time to finalize. But, the Santa Clara has not gone away.

Speaker 2

And again, the others like the Amazon and Google, you read the announcement with Nucor and Google and Microsoft teaming together. I was recently at a conference and I heard one of the senior executives say, in the market, we're competition. Commercially, we're competitors. However, when it comes to energy, we're collaborated because we all have a standard need. And they're looking to move where time is of the essence.

Speaker 2

Right,

Speaker 5

right. Okay. I guess just 2 others for me. 1, in the quarterly filings for the last few quarters, there has been a sales and marketing agreement. I think it started out as about $20,000,000 a few quarters ago and it's been amortized lower as time goes on.

Speaker 5

Is that the agreement with EntraOne? And if not, is there some expectation for some sort of an award to occur because of this agreement? And if an award doesn't occur, do you get the money back or something like that? Maybe you could just talk about what's going on there?

Speaker 2

Yes. I don't know if I'm at liberty to really say where that money went other than it is for development purposes. And again, this is a, as I said, these are complicated transactions. And I will say our partner, IntraOne, they're in discussions with the top 5 tier banks. I mean, I'm in discussions with them as well.

Speaker 2

And what they're looking for is bankable projects. As I commented before, they don't necessarily want to just go and finance a nuclear power plant. These banks are looking for assets under management. So they're looking at what IntraOne brings is the overarching infrastructure of not just nuclear, but it could be LNG, hydrogen, ammonia, etcetera. So we're assisting in some development costs and making this market happen.

Speaker 2

And I'm glad we did it because I'm starting to finally see hopefully this is going to come to fruition.

Speaker 5

Okay. And then the last go ahead, John.

Speaker 2

Go ahead. No, I'm sorry, I interrupted. Sorry.

Speaker 5

I was just going to ask one for Ramsey on cash. So the queue has a $33,000,000 cash use and you talked about in the slides here of the $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 of annualized savings that will happen in the Q2. So, that's like $13,000,000 a quarter of savings. Should the implication then be that like the cash use in second quarter and beyond should be in that ballpark of $20,000,000

Speaker 6

So Mark, when we announced our cost savings plan in January, we did mention a savings of $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 on an annualized basis. Our cash from operations for this quarter was I think about negative $33,500,000 I anticipate that our cash burn on ongoing basis will be sub $10,000,000 dollars We took a number of kind of one time charges during the Q1. So I think you're about in the ballpark if you're thinking 20% or low 20s is a quarterly cash burn rate, just based on where we stand today.

Speaker 5

Okay. And to confirm that that doesn't contemplate any further ATM sales. I know you could do those, but the numbers we're talking about here that's before any benefit from ATM.

Speaker 6

I'm talking about cash flow for operations. Yes. Got it. Yes. Great.

Speaker 6

Absolutely.

Speaker 5

Thanks very much. I'll turn it back.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Fink with B. Riley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Hey, good evening, guys.

Speaker 5

Hi, Rob.

Speaker 7

For Row Power hey, guys. Understanding that the timing for road power is out of your control, can you just remind us what the final steps are there to finalize terms for the Phase 2 FEED work?

Speaker 2

Yes, Ryan. It's, in fact, I just we had an update this morning with our Real Power client. And as I commented, I was with the President of Romania 2 weeks ago in Romania when he toured the Dusson facility. We completed working with Fluor Corporation to FEED Phase 1. We're now entering into the LNTP or the limited notice to proceed FEED Phase 2, where NuScale is the subcontractor to Fluor Corporation.

Speaker 2

And their vote was to have occurred in April 17 with the shareholders of Rural Power. However, for whatever reason, we don't know. Also, we were told it has nothing to do with NuScale technology or the contractors. It's politically driven in a year of elections that they postponed the date, the shareholders voted to June, July. And we are told as of this morning that that's still progressing.

Speaker 2

It's not a financial issue. It's and all we know is that the vote has been abstained or delayed until June, July timeframe. So that's the extent of what they've told us. Okay. Yes, the limited to proceed phase is, as I said, Flores we're a subcontractor with Flores.

Speaker 2

The duration of that is about a 1 year duration before they move into the final notice to proceed. Does that help?

Speaker 7

Got it. Yes, sure does. Thanks, John.

Speaker 6

And then

Speaker 7

just one more, wondering if you had any update on the 2 SMR appropriations programs that we spoke about a little bit on the last call.

Speaker 2

Yes. It's still, we're waiting for the request to come out. It's the initial is there's for $800,000,000 in our discussions with government. That award will probably be go on to the next administration. But then there's another award for $100,000,000 that we're waiting on manufacturing and supply chain of normally about $100,000,000 in what we were told the turnaround from that on that time on that contract is 90 days.

Speaker 2

So we're still waiting and hopefully it will come to the 4th year. At least that $100,000,000 we'll know here pretty soon. Is what we're told. It is an election year, mind you.

Speaker 7

Yes, understood. I appreciate that color. I'll turn it back. Thanks.

Operator

We have reached the allotted time for questions. I will now turn the call over to NuScale's CEO, John Hopkins for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thank you, operator. As we stated before, NuScale is the only SMR design certified by the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory NuScale has industry Anuschale has industry leading manufacturing readiness and is well positioned to commercialize and deliver clean energy at scale.

Speaker 2

Nuclear technology is essential to powering the global energy transition, and we believe we are at the forefront of that effort with our work to deliver safe, scalable and reliable carbon free nuclear power. I believe we are off to a good start in 2024 with progress on all fronts. And I look forward to what we will accomplish together throughout the remainder of the year. I'd like to thank everybody for their interest in NuScale and for participating on the call today. Operator?

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

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