Montana Technologies Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
March 26, 2025

There are 10 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to the Aerojoule Technologies Fourth Quarter and Full Year twenty twenty four Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note this conference is being recorded.

Operator

It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Tom Devine, Vice President of Investor Relations and Finance. Thank you. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, and thanks to everyone for joining us this morning on the company's full year twenty twenty four earnings call. With me today are Matt Jore, Chief Executive Officer Brian Barton, Chief Commercialization Officer Steven Pang, Chief Financial Officer and Pat Eilers, Executive Chairman. During this call, we'll be referring to a presentation which is available on the webcast platform and on the Investors section of our website. I would like to note that many of the comments made during the prepared remarks and during the Q and A section are forward looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties that could affect our actual results and plans. Many of these risks are beyond our control and are discussed in more detail in the Risk Factors and the Forward Looking Statements section of our filings with the SEC.

Speaker 1

Although we believe the expectations expressed are based on reasonable assumptions, they are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially. And now, I'll turn it over to Matt Johr.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Tom. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us for our year end earnings call. We're excited to be with you today to discuss all that we have accomplished last year as well as articulate our vision for the future. At AirJUEL Technologies, we're driven by a mission that's never been more critical, deploying innovative technologies at the nexus of energy and water. It's right there in the tagline on our logo, Energy and Water from Air.

Speaker 2

The atmosphere surrounding us is an untapped resource of pure water. It's constantly being replenished through the natural water cycle of evaporation and precipitation. We believe that the atmosphere presents a massive opportunity to provide high quality and contaminant free water, alleviating problems related to water scarcity and water contamination. The challenge is that we never have the technology to economically access that water in the atmosphere until now. AirJUUL enables the lowest cost separation of water from air, greatly increasing water sustainability and improving energy efficiency for air conditioning in many industrial sectors.

Speaker 2

We're able to do this by combining advanced sorbents with our proprietary thermal energy recovery system to produce low cost pure distilled water and dehumidified air. In our last earnings call, we talked about the strong attention we've received from customers interested in AirJUUL's ability to produce pure distilled water. Those customer conversations were leading us toward a near term focus on using AirJUUL as a water solution. As we thought about AirJUUL as a distributed source of water for businesses and industrial activities, we look for ways to drive down the cost of water and offer a cost competitive alternative. We've known for years that if we add a small amount of low grade heat to our system, it can reduce the power consumption down to less than 160 watt hours per liter.

Speaker 2

Many industrial operations that produce large amounts of waste heat also have a significant water requirement. At data centers, for example, all of the megawatts of electricity that flow into the servers is converted into heat. The servers need to be kept cool, which is done through a cooling system that rejects the heat into the atmosphere or consider a power plant, which burns fuel to turn water into steam to generate electricity. A massive amount of this energy, nearly 70% is lost to waste heat. One of the reasons we originally formed our fiftyfifty joint venture with GE Vernova to commercialize AirJUEL is that 25% of electricity generated around the world uses GE Vernova equipment and AirJUUL can make use of the waste heat from the power plant to produce water from air.

Speaker 2

Waste heat is a vastly underutilized energy resource. While there are technologies in the market that can harness very high temperature waste heat for reuse or electric electricity generation, they're not efficient or cost effective to take advantage of low grade waste heat below 100 degrees C. With AirJUEL, we're unlocking a tremendous amount of value by utilizing that low grade waste heat to improve energy efficiency and produce pure distilled water. We talked before about the huge growth in data centers to support artificial intelligence and high performance computing. The largest data centers being developed today have several hundred megawatts of power demand.

Speaker 2

Using AirJUEL, we can tap into the low grade waste heat coming out of the data center and use it to produce 100% pure distilled water from air. Not only does AirJUUL act as a pre chiller and reduce cooling cost, but the distilled water produced can then be used within the data center for evaporative cooling, which is the most cost effective method of cooling. By integrating AirJuel into a data center cooling loop and using that low grade waste heat, AirJuel can reduce the data center's cooling costs, improve its power and water usage effectiveness and mitigate its significant water demands through distributed water generation. I'm incredibly excited about this opportunity and we've been getting tremendously positive feedback from data center operators who want to deploy proof of concept units to demonstrate the effectiveness of the AirJUUL technology. Distributed water generation is the other near term priority we're very focused on.

Speaker 2

One exciting development on this front is that we have our first AirJUEL operating in Dubai as part of a showcase deployment to highlight the technology and operating principles. This is being done in conjunction with 10X Investments, our local Emirati owned partner in The UAE. We shipped the unit to Dubai in February and it's been operating near continuously since then in an outdoor garden at a UAE government research institution, generating pure distilled water and providing us with tremendous amounts of data that help us continue to optimize AirJUUL's performance. During the mornings, the temperature in Dubai has been in the low to mid 70s Fahrenheit with relative humidity ranging from 50% to 75%. And in the afternoons, the temperature is a few degrees warmer with low relative humidity of 25% to 40%.

Speaker 2

We're very excited to have an operational unit there that is showcasing AirDuel's capability over a broad range of climate conditions for our customers in The UAE and the broader Middle East region. As we just discussed last quarter, we see these regions as huge markets for us with their strong focus on water security. We've also been engaged with the Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine, which is a collaboration between the National Science Foundation and Arizona State University. Through this project, we've identified opportunities where Aerajoule can help mitigate water scarcity in the Southwest United States. As we look toward the rest of 2025, we expect to complete the engineering and design of our preproduction units, which will be capable of producing between 4,000 liters of water per day.

Speaker 2

These are slated for the second half of this year. We also expect to begin proof of concept pilot deployments with up to three data center operators to further validate the feasibility of our waste heat to water from air application. We expect these engagements to lead to meaningful customer commitments. Now let me turn it over to Brian Barton, our Chief Commercialization Officer, who also leads our joint venture with GE Vernova. Brian will do a deeper dive on the waste heat to water application, our customer engagements and how we intend to achieve our twenty twenty five milestones.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Matt. Turning to Slide six, as a quick reminder, AirJUEL works by using an advanced sorbent to bond with water vapor molecules in the air. Once the sorbent has taken up the water vapor, we apply a vacuum to pull the water vapor away from the sorbent. When we have waste heat available, we can direct this heat into our process to help drive the removal of water from the sorbent, greatly reducing our energy requirements in the process. On Slide seven, we illustrate the energetics we've been able to achieve today of just under 160 watt hours per liter.

Speaker 3

This is an unprecedentedly low energy requirement for separating water from air. For either water harvesting or dehumidification applications, it represents a huge step change in performance compared to incumbent methods and speaks to the transformational nature of AirDuel. To elaborate, a typical household dehumidifier, which you might have in your basement, could require around 400 to 700 watt hours per liter of water removed, depending on the humidity in the air. And industrial dehumidification systems, such as desiccant wheels, require over 1,300 watt hours per liter. Or in other terms, AirJUEL is more than four times more efficient than your typical household dehumidifier and more than eight times more efficient than desiccant wheels when it comes to separating water from air.

Speaker 3

Aerojoule's superior performance unlocks a vast array of market applications where Aerojoule can cost effectively produce pure distilled water and dehumidified air. The application we're most focused on in the near term is using waste heat from data centers and other industries to produce pure distilled water for evaporative cooling and act as a chiller to reduce cooling loads. Slide eight shows a simplified schematic of how AirDuel can be integrated into a data center cooling system. In most data centers, heat is removed through a cooling loop. The hotline takes heat from the server hall to a chiller.

Speaker 3

The chiller cools the line and just like the air conditioning unit on your house, the heat is directed to a water or air cooled radiator and rejected to the atmosphere. In either case, the heat is treated as a waste byproduct and produces no value. When we integrate AirDuel into the system, we're able to tap into that waste heat coming from the chiller. We run the waste heat through our aeroguel system, which is producing pure distilled water. Not only does this reduce the thermal load that must be cooled, but the data center can then utilize this distilled water produced for highly efficient evaporative cooling or other purposes.

Speaker 3

The data center operator benefits from this aerogel integration in a few ways. For one, by using some of their waste heat, we're reducing the amount of heat that has to be rejected by their existing cooling system. Second, by using that water for evaporating cooling at specific times, we get an efficiency boost to their cooling. Both of these result in lower cooling costs and improved power usage effectiveness or PUE with payback periods on their investment as low as four years. Additionally, data centers would now have a source of distributed water generation that is a viable alternative to building a pipeline to the nearest municipality or trucking in water.

Speaker 3

In the specific example we've shown here, the cost of the water produced can be less than $1.5 per cubic meter, which is achieved by Aerogel acting as a chiller. This OpEx cost of water compares to a typical price of around $2 per cubic meter for municipal water. We've received positive feedback from several data center operators with the diverse need for our aerogel technology. These include utilizing aerogel as a distributed source of water needed to humidify the air in a data center in Southern Europe, lowering operational costs and enabling more evaporative cooling at data center sites in The United States, and collaborating on proof of concept deployments. We look forward to keeping investors updated on those.

Speaker 3

In addition to these proof of concept deployments, another key milestone for 2025 is launching our preproduction unit that can produce between 4,000 liters of water per day. We're targeting the second half of twenty twenty five for this unit to be ready for customer demonstrations. We're currently doing the engineering and design of Engineet, and we expect to start assembling our core product module in the second quarter with testing and optimization to occur over the summer. Then we'll start doing customer demonstrations, both in the Newark facility and through on-site pilot projects. We're confident that once our customers see our scaled up unit operating, customer commitments will follow.

Speaker 3

Now, let me provide some quick updates on the commercial development activities we talked about in the last quarterly call, which is covered on Slide nine. We've restructured this slide a bit and put our near term priorities at the top of the table and our longer term projects at the bottom. Some of these won't have material updates each quarter, but we want to make sure we're being transparent and keeping the market updated as appropriate. At the top of this slide are the data center engagements and our Dubai proof of concept deployment, which we've already covered. Next is Carrier, who is our commercialization partner in The Americas for HVAC applications.

Speaker 3

They've been a great resource for our waste heat to water application for data centers as they are leaning heavily into the data center cooling space. Moving on to the Department of Defense. Our successful field testing and validation trials with DARPA in the fall of twenty twenty four opened up several opportunities for us with procurement agencies and test groups within the different branches of the military for distributed water generation pilot projects. On the food and beverage side, these customers are engaged and excited about the value that Aeradul can bring to their operations. Yet, these are a bit longer timelines and we're working toward potential pilot programs in early twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3

The last two on this list are Climate Impact Corporation and Clarity Technology. We signed an MOU with CIC to explore using aerogel as a source of water for solar powered hydrogen production in Australia. With clarity, we signed MOU to explore collaboration opportunities where we provide dehumidified air, which is expected to improve the efficiency of their CO2 direct air capture operations. We look forward to providing more updates on these opportunities as they develop. Now, I'll let Steven take over and talk about the financial results for last year.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Brian. Slide 10 of the presentation has our financial results on a quarterly basis for 2024 and for the full year. As a reminder, Aeroju Technologies accounts for its 50% ownership in the joint venture GE Vernova using the equity method. These numbers in the table are only for Aerojool Technologies. And the results of the joint venture are reflected in the loss from investment in Aerojool JV line, which was $2,400,000 for the fourth quarter and $5,300,000 for the full year.

Speaker 4

Net income at the joint venture level was negative because it's still in the development stage and there was no revenue reported in 2024. During the fourth quarter, Aerajol's net expenses for the quarter was $2,800,000 which was slightly higher than the prior quarter. This is net of the approximately $800,000 of administrative and engineering expenses reimbursed to Air Agile Technologies by the joint venture under our statement of work. As we've stated in the past, most of our below the line income and loss is made up of certain non cash items, including the non cash gains or losses from the fair value of our earn out liabilities and subject vesting shares that relate to specific provisions from our business combination agreement in March 2024. Measurement of these liabilities occurs on a quarterly basis and the increase in the value of earn out liability and subject vested shares liability in the fourth quarter is primarily due to the increase in our stock price for the quarter.

Speaker 4

Our net loss for the quarter was $14,300,000 For the full year, we did raise $62,000,000 equity capital with approximately $50,000,000 coming from the pipe that we did in conjunction with our Go Public transaction. The other approximately $12,000,000 was raised opportunistically back in computing from primarily existing investors. We ended the year with $28,000,000 of cash on the Aerogel Technologies balance sheet and another $1,900,000 of cash at the joint venture level, which is not consolidated. Looking ahead to the rest of 2025, we have sufficient cash on hand to support both our operations and those of the joint venture. For this year, we're expecting to spend approximately $13,000,000 to $15,000,000 at the joint venture level to support all of the ongoing commercial activities as you've heard on the call.

Speaker 4

At Aerogoint Technologies, our fourth quarter operating expense run rate is a good estimate to use for our 2025 quarterly spend. I will further add that the joint venture, our partner GE Vernova also has the right to match our capital contributions on a pro rata basis. If they elect to contribute capital to a joint venture, that could reduce the total cash needs from the Aerogel Technologies level.

Speaker 3

This week, we entered into a committed equity facility of B. Riley for up to $30,000,000 The facility functions similar to an at

Speaker 4

the market equity program for non shelf eligible issuers. With our current balance sheet position, our business plan in 2025 remains fully funded and the committed equity facility provides us with additional financial flexibility to raise incremental capital on an opportunistic basis and support future growth.

Speaker 3

Now, I'll pass it back to the

Speaker 4

Q and A portion of the call.

Operator

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. Our first question is coming from the line of Sameer Joshi with H. C. Wainwright.

Operator

Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 5

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Just a couple of technical questions to start with on Slide eight. The annual energy savings from AirJuel, what are they compared to like what is the comparison with for this savings?

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks for the question. Yes, sorry. In this specific example on Slide eight, we're looking at a data center that is operating with a air cooled chilling operation and looking at its cooling expenses with a typical PUE in a Phoenix type of area and then enabling a more efficient cooling operation through the use of Aerojoule generating water and then using that water for evaporative cooling. So the cost basis and assumptions are primarily on the improved efficiencies when using Aerojoule as a chiller with a higher efficiency chiller and then the water that's used for evaporative cooling?

Operator

Unfortunately, it does look like we lost Sameer. I'm going to move on to the next person. Our next question is coming from the line of Jeff Grampp with Alliance Global Partners. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 6

Good morning, guys. Wanted to dive into the data center opportunity a bit more. I think you noted in the slides you have three kind of potential proof of concept projects you're looking at. What stage of maturity would you say these conversations are in considering this is kind of a newer opportunity you guys have kind of put out into the market? And is there kind of a rough timeline or estimation of when you think those could potentially be executed?

Speaker 6

Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes, thanks. I would say that the point of the technology as mentioned earlier in the transcript, right, we are at the stage of engineering the product and we will be deploying the units in second half of the year and into 2026 for proof of performance and value at data centers. And so we're going to be collecting data and really looking at the productivity and the return on the investment at the customer sites. And then that will turn into follow on commitments with the promising performance we're expecting.

Speaker 2

Hey, Jeff, this is Matt. I'll add to what Brian said about that to answer that question. We one of the things that I've learned for sure is out there talking to the customers and Brian and his team are leading the commercialization charge. But going out there and listening to the customers and listening to what the real demands are. Most people know how much power these data centers are consuming.

Speaker 2

There's a lot of education about how much water they consume. So I was pretty shocked to read a stat recently. 76,000,000,000 gallons of water was consumed by data centers in 2023, a remarkable stat. And so I'm excited not just about the opportunity that Brian is presenting, but the opportunity to actually bring water back to these municipalities where data centers can't even get permitting.

Speaker 6

Yes, that's great. I appreciate that, Matt. I also wanted to get a better understanding of on the new slide deck you guys have put out, you have kind of a comparison of your efficiency relative to competitors across the spectrum of humidity. And it's pretty interesting that your efficiency stays quite strong even in lower humidity environments. I'm curious if you could educate me a bit more on how that's achieved and is it fair to conclude that potentially higher demand places for you guys could be lower humidity given that the relative performance is quite a bit better?

Speaker 2

There's a couple of things.

Speaker 5

This is

Speaker 2

Matt again. I'm sure Brian can add to this too because he's doing a lot of work in our test facility and production facility in Newark, Delaware. But for me, it's there are two ways that these kinds of efficiencies can be garnered. The first one is uses our vacuum swing compressor where we take the vacuum, we take the air out and under vacuum we pull the water vapor off of this special sorbent material and then slightly compress it and elevate its temperature so it can condense. That's a beautiful scheme.

Speaker 2

In this case here that you're seeing on that slide, when you apply a small amount and we're just talking about a 30 degree delta T in temperature, small amount of low grade waste heat, you enhance that even further and importantly eliminate the need for a compressor. So that compressor is the spinning part that allows us to get to those energetics without waste heat. But with waste heat, we eliminate it. So it really improves reliability in addition to what you're seeing on screen on that slide in terms of efficiency. Brian, anything to add?

Speaker 3

No. Thanks.

Speaker 6

Thank you. Perfect. Thanks for those details. If I can sneak one more in. Stephen, I want to make sure I heard this right in the prepared remarks.

Speaker 6

You said that the budget for the JV in $25,000,000 is $13,000,000 to $15,000,000 dollars And if I did hear that right, that looks like that's maybe a little bit of a step back from the run rate in the back half of the year. So just wanted to, I guess, understand some of those moving parts with respect to the outlook of JV spend? Thanks.

Speaker 4

Yes. No, $13,000,000 to $15,000,000 is a good approximation of the budget at the joint venture level for the full year. If you compare this to some of the monthly periods in the back half of twenty twenty four, There was just some higher expenses incurred for the build out of the facility in Delaware, which is one time in nature. And this year, we think $13,000,000 15 million dollars is a good indicator of what the ongoing spend would be. R and D efforts continue as planned, but like I said, there was just some one time expenses incurred in the back half.

Speaker 6

Got it. Perfect. That makes sense. All right. Thank you guys for the time.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Sameer Joshi with H. C. Wainwright. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 5

Yes. Good morning once again. I think I got disconnected and maybe some of the questions I asked were already addressed. So the proof of concept deployment that is being planned in Dubai, is it also at the 160 watt hour per liter efficiency level or is it going to be slightly different than just wanted to understand that?

Speaker 3

Yes, I can take that question. The proof of concept unit that's in Dubai is higher than 160 watt hours per liter. Primarily, its main purpose is proving the operational process in Dubai that it can operate under a wide range of humidity conditions as well as temperature conditions. And we are seeing good productivity out of that unit and good demonstration of the operating principles. That unit has some of the, I would say, Gen one or Gen zero technology elements that give it higher energetics on a per liter basis.

Speaker 3

We will be upgrading the unit in the near future to achieve really attractive energetics.

Speaker 5

Understood. And then correct me if I'm wrong, but are you still targeting that sub 100 level sub 100 watt hours per liter level of efficiency. I think you are trying to be at 60 to 90. Just wanted to see and more importantly at 160 watt hour per liter, is it commercially ready to go? Are there customers at this level?

Speaker 2

I can take this. Yes. This is Matt. Sorry, Brian.

Speaker 3

Yes. Let me take it, Matt. Thank you. I think I'll take those in reverse. So the 160 watt hours per liter that we're at today that we've demonstrated today using the incorporation of this 60 degree type of waste heat is now proven embedded for months in our new ARC operations.

Speaker 3

And we are focusing our product development efforts around commercializing that technology. So that will be ready in the second half of the year, launching with that Re Seed to Water product with demonstrated performance below 160 watt hours per liter. As a to get to the first part of the question, as a technology company that's really focused on improving, we will continue to drive the performance better and better as we evolve. We're already seeing the capability to continue to progress this 160 down even lower, and we'll provide more material updates when they become ready to announce. But we are still targeting, right, the sub 100 watt hours per liter.

Speaker 3

We have entitlement to achieve that based on kind of the fundamentals of how our systems operate. And as we evolve and advance our technology, we will continue to march down on the energy capabilities.

Speaker 2

And I'll add two things, Sameer. This is Matt again. Oh, Sameer, yes. I just wanted to add a couple of things. As Brian said, we will target those lower energetics and it really will help to scale.

Speaker 2

As we get larger and larger systems in place, we'll be able to put redundancies in place for the system components where these modules get hooked up together. But the one another thing that I've learned is that here there's a quite inelasticity in pricing for distilled water around the world. In water scarce regions, the energetics is always important, but I'm surprised at the actual inelasticity of the cost of water. It's a remarkable thing when you look out at what desalination does to Gulf waters and coastlines. So there's a big, big effort, especially in The Middle East to mitigate that situation and cost is almost sometimes not the first

Speaker 6

issue. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Understood. Thanks for that. And just one last sort of clarification question. The three proof of concept projects that you're evaluating for your data center operators, are those going to be at this thousand liter is that going to be one AirJU unit or multiple units?

Speaker 3

Yes, that will depend a little bit on exactly how we deploy the units and with whom and where they are, as well as a bit on the timeline. So, we will have a mix of units in different sizes that are being deployed with those customers. And really, just to kind of echo again some of the engagements with the data center community, we're seeing both traction from the desire to take waste heat into water and allow data centers to be built in regions that have lower cost energy, but may not have the availability or be concerned about the ability to secure water. And that may have a different type of unit deployed versus another data center type of customer that really wants to improve their operational efficiencies and improve their PUE and their WUE, but really around operational cost improvement. And for that, we would focus on maybe a different size or timing of that unit.

Speaker 5

Understood. Thanks for that. Congrats on all the progress and good luck.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Sameer.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Jeffrey Campbell with Seaport Research Partners. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 7

Good morning and congratulations on all the progress today. I'll ask two questions. One, I was curious to know to what extent carrier is involved in any of the current data center efforts or when you think that they will become more involved in the data center efforts?

Speaker 2

Before Brian, leading our commercialization efforts, can answer that question with respect to the data centers. But I will say this, from the standpoint of a partnership, you couldn't ask for a better partner. Carrier has been exemplary. They've educated us about what it takes to succeed in the long term play, which is the air conditioning systems. And so these water initiatives and the data center initiatives really give us that stepping stone into that long term air conditioning, dehumidification market.

Speaker 2

So a shout out to Carrier for sure. Brian, you can address the specific data center project we're undertaking.

Speaker 3

Yes. I would say that in general, we're working very closely on a weekly basis with the Carrier team on how to integrate and deploy the AirJUEL technology at data centers. Carrier is obviously very strategically focused on data centers and has a wealth of technologies to improve the cooling costs at data centers. And AirJuel is being made it nicely with those carrier technologies.

Speaker 7

Okay. And I guess what I'm trying to understand at this point is, is there an entry point for you in the data centers prior to being fully integrated with Carrier? And then is there a timeline for being more integrated with Carrier? And what sort of improvement or how would that affect your approach to the data center market?

Speaker 2

Yes. Jeff, this is Matt. I just would say preceding Brian here, as I said, the data center play and the water play gives us that stepping stone to that fully integrated system across the board for the commercial HVAC markets that we've been pursuing with Carrier. Specifically for the data center, Brian, you can maybe further elaborate on that project.

Speaker 3

Well, just to say that the first stepping stone in our commercialization strategy with data centers is to get units on the ground globally where they're needed to be generating water from waste heat as proof of concept. And in that scenario, the waste heat could come from a variety of sources. And the next step is kind of directly connecting into the hot side of the tiller, right, the heat rejection side, and then doing that integration. That integration is relatively low risk, being that those chillers today have already done a fair bit of waste heat utilization. For example, district heating that's been done in parts of Europe with taking data center heat to district heating.

Speaker 3

And if we can so the integration part is lower risk, but we that's the second step. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Okay. Hey, Pat, I think sorry, Jeff, I think Pat Eilers, our Executive Chairman had a comment here.

Speaker 8

Yes, I'll just add just a quick comment for everybody just with regards to Carrier's commitment. We had our fourth quarter board meeting at their global headquarters over in Miami, Florida or Palm Beach to be specific in early February. And Dave Gitlin, the CEO of Carrier, made time to get together with us as well. They are committed and we will get more definition on your question over the ensuing quarters here. But we're very encouraged by their engagement and their commitment to making this a successful commercialization strategy with them and specifically in the data center space.

Speaker 7

Okay. And just simplistically, what I'm kind of getting from this is that you produce water now, it will go into some kind of existing cooling system, whether it's evaporative or feed the chillers or whatever. And then later on, when Carrier has it integrated into an HVAC system, then it could be their equipment that's in the data center taking advantage of your water.

Speaker 3

Is that kind of a

Speaker 7

reasonable way to think of it?

Speaker 2

Yes. That's a fair statement. The other thing you want to think about is the highest value of water oftentimes is the fact that it's distilled. It's three times the value of ordinary municipal water. So we'll be looking at that in addition to that.

Speaker 2

But to your point, it eventually we're excited about being integrated with carrier systems, not just in data centers, but everywhere, producing water and dehumidified air.

Speaker 7

Right. And my other question, just to kind of shift gears away from the data centers, could you provide an example of how AirJUL might be utilized in the food and beverage industry? I know CO2 emitters are talking a lot about trying to figure out ways to get their CO2 into food and beverage because there's apparently a shortage of supply. So I'm just wondering how the distilled water would work in some of the people you're talking to?

Speaker 3

Yes, let me take that. There's really two main thrusts in the food and beverage sectors. One is on dehumidification. You saw today on the slides that we are four or eight times more efficient than some very common dehumidification methods that are used in the food and beverage industry. And then on the water side, there are actually many examples of food and beverage companies needing to relocate or move their assets from regions where there is water scarcity and securing water for expanded operations is very important to the food and beverage sector.

Speaker 3

So, they're very driven and motivated to improve their water security across the board and they have a ton of waste heat, right? So typically, right, we're a good match for taking that waste heat and solving some of their water security and scarcity challenges at the same time.

Speaker 7

Okay, great. Thanks for the color. I appreciate it.

Speaker 6

Thanks, Jeff.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Mark Lester with Eastern Investment Company. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 9

Hi, Matt and team. Congrats on progress to date and pretty excited about the water from waste heat applications here. My question simply speaks to for water harvesting and stand alone units. Is that something that's still in the developmental pipeline here? And any thoughts you can have on progress towards that?

Speaker 2

Hey, Mark, good to hear from you.

Speaker 3

Thanks. Go ahead, Matt.

Speaker 2

No, no, no. I'm just saying hi to Mark. You know where we're going. Yes.

Speaker 3

Okay. Yes. Hey, Mark. This is Brian. Hi.

Speaker 3

Yes. We do have very concrete plans on a standalone unit for generating water. And really that can be done through a couple of different ways. The most easy or lowest hanging fruit way is to couple it with a number of heat generating sources, be it heat pumps or other high efficiency ways of bringing in heat. Second to that is we do have a number of compressor programs that will be coming online, I guess, coming to fruition in the very near to medium term that will further improve the commercialization timelines for standalone units with compressors.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Mark.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd now like to hand the call back over to Matt Jore for any closing comments.

Speaker 2

Thanks everybody for joining the call today. You can see we're very, very excited about what's coming up in our future and we'll look forward to, as Brian said earlier, providing transparent information as we progress. Hope everybody has a happy twenty twenty five summer.

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Enjoy the rest of your day.

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Earnings Conference Call
Montana Technologies Q4 2024
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