Fluence Energy - Earnings Call - Q4 2025
November 25, 2025
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Okay, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Fluence Energy's Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a Q&A session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to your speaker host, Chris Shelton, Vice President of Investor Relations and Sustainability. Please go ahead.
Chris Shelton (VP of Investor Relations)
Good morning and welcome to Fluence Energy's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings conference call. Before we begin, I want to share my excitement as our new Investor Relations Officer. I look forward to engaging with our analyst and investor community. I would also like to recognize Lexington May, who has recently taken on a new role at Fluence. Lex has been instrumental in leading our investor relations program since our initial public offering, and his contributions have greatly benefited our company and its shareholders. Joining me on this morning's call are Julian Nebreda, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ahmed Pasha, our Chief Financial Officer. A copy of our earnings presentation, press release, and supplementary metric sheet covering financial results, along with supporting statements and schedules, including reconciliations and disclosures regarding our non-GAAP financial measures, are posted on the investor relations section of our website at fluenceenergy.com.
During the course of this call, Fluence Management may make certain forward-looking statements regarding various matters related to our business and company that are not historical facts. Such statements are based upon current expectations and certain assumptions that are therefore subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings for our forward-looking statements and more information regarding certain risks and uncertainties that could impact our future results. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of today. Also, please note that the company undertakes no duty to update or revise forward-looking statements for new information. This call will also reference non-GAAP financial measures that we view as important in assessing the performance of our business.
A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures is available in our earnings materials on the company's investor relations website. Following our prepared comments, we will conduct a Q&A session with our team. During this time, to give more participants an opportunity to speak on this call, please limit yourself to one initial question and one follow-up. Thank you very much. I'll now turn the call over to Julian.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
Thank you, Chris. I would like to send a warm welcome to our investors, analysts, and employees who are participating in today's call. This morning, I will review the highlights of our fiscal 2025 results, the accelerating demand for energy storage, and how Fluence Energy is positioned to lead in this growing market. I will also provide an update on our product roadmap, our domestic content strategy, and progress towards OBBA compliance. Ahmed will then cover our financial results and 2026 outlook. Turning to slide four and our financial performance. First, I am pleased to report that during the fourth quarter, we signed more than $1.4 billion of orders, which represents a record level. This brings our current backlog to $5.3 billion, setting us up for renewed growth in 2026 and beyond.
Second, full year revenue came in at approximately $2.3 billion, about $300 million below our expectations, mostly due to delays by our contract manufacturer in ramping up our newly commissioned Arizona enclosure manufacturing facility. We have implemented corrective actions, production is improving, and we are confident in meeting delivery commitments and capturing the shortfall during fiscal 2026. I will discuss these details further in a moment. Third, despite this revenue impact, we deliver a record of approximately 13.7% adjusted gross margin for the year and approximately $19.5 million of adjusted EBITDA, which was at the top end of our guidance range. These results were the product of good execution on projects and cost efficiencies. Fourth, in terms of annual recurring revenue or ARR, we ended fiscal 2026 with $148 million, slightly above our original guidance of $145 million.
Fifth and finally, we ended the quarter with approximately $1.3 billion in liquidity, which puts us in a strong financial position to fund our plans for growth. Please turn to slide five for details on our order intake and pipeline. Our record $1.4 billion of order intake during the fourth quarter included contributions across all our core markets, approximately half were for projects located in Australia. For fiscal 2026, we currently expect the US market will be the largest contributor of order intake, as reflected by our pipeline as of year end. Looking ahead, demand for energy storage solutions is accelerating worldwide, driven by both the rapid decline in capital cost of storage and surging demand for electricity from intermittent renewables, data centers, and industrial complexes.
We have seen a significant increase in larger deals in our pipeline that, as of September 30, includes 38 deals of at least 1 gigawatt hour, more than double the number from last year and nearly five times what we saw two years ago. Please turn to slide six. Earlier this month, we announced a landmark 4 gigawatt hour project with LEED, representing the largest battery project in European history. These projects will use our new SmartStack product and play a key role in Germany's energy transformation. We are very pleased to welcome LEED as a customer and look forward to supporting additional energy transformation projects across European markets. Please turn to slide seven for other emerging drivers supporting our pipeline growth. We have seen significant pickup in demand from data center customers. We are currently in discussions with data center projects representing over 30 gigawatt hours.
80% of these engagements have originated since the end of the quarter. Fluence is ready to lead in this emerging market segment with SmartStack industry lead in density, reliability, and safety, in addition to its lower cost of ownership. Another set of emerging opportunities is long-duration storage, which is driven by the need for six to eight-hour duration batteries in markets with significant renewable penetration, such as Europe and California. Specifically, in Europe, regulatory schemes are in place to procure this capacity. Today, we have line of sight into 60 gigawatt hours of long-duration storage tenders. SmartStack is well suited to compete in this segment due to its flexible architecture and scalable design. Please turn to slide eight for an update on our team. To capture the opportunities I have just described, we have sharpened our focus on sales and flawless project execution.
To that end, we are excited to welcome Jeff Monday as our new Chief Growth Officer. Jeff leads our global sales and marketing teams. He brings deep experience from Qualcomm, where he built their global enterprise and channel sales teams. Prior to that, Jeff spent 18 years leading sales teams at Apple. His expertise will help us expand the reach of Fluence brand to new customers and industries, such as the tech sector. In addition, we have also expanded John Sanjoranski's role as Chief Customer Success Officer. As one of our company's founders and an industry pioneer, John will leverage our record of successful execution to further differentiate Fluence from our competition. He will also maximize the value of our solutions for our customers with our digital and services offerings.
We believe that these internal changes will streamline our customer experience and position us to win a larger portion of our pipeline. Please turn to slide nine as I discuss our new SmartStack product. We are pleased with the market reception of SmartStack. In addition to its role in winning our LEED deal, this month we are deploying the first SmartStack unit in a project site in Taiwan. We designed SmartStack with the objective of reducing total cost of ownership for our customers. This means in addition to a lower sales price, SmartStack offers lower cost to install and maintain the system over its useful life with top-of-the-line operational metrics. SmartStack is the only product available today that offers battery density of 7.5 megawatt hour per unit, letting customers fit over 500 megawatt hours of storage per acre. That means bigger projects, optimized sites, and better economics, all else equal.
Additionally, SmartStack maintains all elements of fire safety and cybersecurity that have been historically a salient element of our offering. Finally, SmartStack is available with a flexible system architecture that can adapt to customers' specifications. We expect this will be a key selling point for data centers as technology to reduce system latency evolves and SmartStack's kits can be upgraded with new equipment quickly on site. We are engaged with many customers interested in SmartStack and expect it will represent a majority of our orders for this fiscal year. Please turn to slide 10 for an update on our domestic content strategy. Our domestic supply chain is a critical advantage for our business, particularly given that we see the majority of our growth coming from the U.S. market. We have contracted with three key production facilities located in Tennessee, Utah, and Arizona.
The Tennessee and Utah facilities produce our battery cells and modules, respectively, and they have successfully met production metrics in line with our expectations at the time of our last earnings call. The Arizona facility, which manufactures enclosures, has not met its production targets during this period. Without those enclosures, we were unable to deliver our completed products and recognize the corresponding revenue during the fourth quarter. The primary cause of the manufacturing delay has been the slower ramp in staffing the facility, especially for weekend shifts. We have been working with our contract manufacturer to execute a plan to improve staffing levels and further optimize the workflow. As of today, the production rate has improved and staffing levels have in great measure been met, which gives us confidence that the manufacturer will meet our desired target rate by the end of this calendar year.
We expect to fulfill all of our customer delivery commitments over the course of 2026 and book the associated 2026 mixed revenue. We will continue to work with our US manufacturers to scale production and maintain our leadership position. We are committed to serving our US customers with a competitive domestically manufactured solution. Please turn to slide 11 for an update on our prohibited foreign entity or PFE compliance strategy. A quick refresh. The One Big Beautiful Bill or OBBBA included regulations designed to restrict tax credit availability for products manufactured in the US, but supported by companies deemed to be PFEs. To that end, our strategy aims to meet our growing volume demand for domestic content from a diverse set of qualified suppliers. I am pleased to report significant progress. More specifically, this month we have secured a second supplier for domestic battery cells.
This manufacturer is compliant with all OBBBA regulations and furthered the risk of our future growth. Turning to our Tennessee facility, we continue to work actively with AESC to find a comprehensive solution to comply with PFE regulations. The three key pieces to achieve non-PFE status include transfer of ownership, IP, and material assistance. Significant progress has been made in addressing all these three items. The option of Fluence purchasing the facility from AESC remains under consideration as a possible solution. We continue to view the incremental financing need of a potential transaction as being manageable within our available liquidity. Both parties are motivated, and we continue to expect a constructive resolution in advance of the effective dates specified by the law. I will now turn the call over to Ahmed to discuss our financial results and fiscal 2026 guidance.
Ahmed Pasha (CFO)
Thank you, Julian, and good morning, everyone.
Today, I will review full year 2025 financial results and our liquidity position, followed by a discussion of our fiscal year 2026 guidance. Starting with slide 13, covering fiscal year 2025 performance. Over the course of the year, we generated revenue of around $2.3 billion. As Julian mentioned, this figure falls short of our expectations by $300 million, largely due to a slower than anticipated ramp-up at one of our contract manufacturing facilities in Arizona. While this shortfall was a challenge, I want to highlight that our disciplined execution and operational focus enabled us to deliver on our profitability and bottom-line objectives. Regarding production, most of our US-based contract manufacturing facilities have been operating at their targeted capacities, including both cell and module manufacturing.
However, the newly commissioned enclosure facility in Arizona faced some challenges, primarily due to the longer lead time to attract and train the workforce necessary to drive productivity. This was the primary factor behind the lower than expected revenue in the quarter. Working in collaboration with our contractor, we have seen significant production improvements since September. The majority of personnel required to execute our plan have now been hired, and we are on track to achieve our targeted production levels. Our adjusted EBITDA for the year was $19.5 million, which came at the top end of our guidance range, even as revenue fell short of expectations. This outcome underscores our operational excellence and strong execution. Turning to slide 14, we achieved a record level of 13.7% adjusted gross margin for the year, above the top end of our expectations.
In addition, our rolling 12-month adjusted gross margin is consistently at or above 13%. This reflects our strong focus on productivity and successfully leveraging our supply chain. Turning to slide 15, we also finished the year with a record of approximately $1.3 billion in liquidity, up $300 million compared to the end of fiscal 2024. This includes more than $700 million in cash, with the rest available through our credit facilities. This strong position gives us confidence to make investments that will grow our business and strengthen Fluence's reputation as a reliable partner. Looking ahead to fiscal 2026, we intend to invest about $200 million in our business. This includes approximately $100 million in our domestic supply chain and the rest in working capital to support 50% revenue growth. Turning to slide 16, today we are introducing our guidance for fiscal year 2026.
We expect revenue in the range of $3.2 billion-$3.6 billion. We began this year with 85% of our guidance midpoint already in our backlog. This strong coverage materially de-risked our FY26 revenue compared to the historical level of around 60%. We anticipate realizing one-third of this revenue in the first half of the year and the rest in the second half. We expect our adjusted gross margin to be between 11%-13%. This range reflects a period of higher costs associated with the rollout of our Gridstack Pro product, which will make up 70% of our 2026 revenue. We anticipate margin will improve over time as we continue to leverage our disciplined execution and our growing scale. We expect operating expenses to grow at less than half of the pace of revenue, consistent with our guidance in prior years.
This includes increased spending on sales, marketing, and R&D to support future revenue growth. For adjusted EBITDA, our guidance of $40-$60 million reflects expected revenue, adjusted gross margin, and higher operating costs from planned investments in sales and product initiatives. With respect to ARR, we are initiating guidance of approximately $180 million by the end of fiscal 2026, representing over 20% year-over-year increase. In summary, with our strong liquidity, focused execution, and robust order book, we are well-positioned to deliver on our plan. With that, I would like to turn the call back to Julian for his closing remarks.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
Thanks, Ahmed. Before we take your questions, I would like to conclude with the following five takeaways. Market leadership. Demand for energy storage is accelerating globally.
Fluence is capitalizing on this environment with notable wins such as the 4 gigawatt-hour LEED project in Europe and a rapidly growing pipeline of data center customers and other large-scale deals. Product leadership. SmartStack is a key differentiator versus the competition. With increased density and a very competitive total cost of ownership, we expect SmartStack to drive a majority of future orders. Operational execution. We have made significant progress to strengthen our domestic supply chain advantage. We have addressed production issues at the Arizona facility, and all our domestic manufacturers are now on track to meet our expectations. Compliance and readiness. We have strengthened our ability to deliver PFE-compliant products to customers with the addition of a second domestic battery cell supplier. We continue to make progress towards OBBBA compliance with our Tennessee manufacturer and expect resolution ahead of regulatory deadlines.
Looking forward, these achievements position us to maximize stakeholder value by consistently meeting our commitments to customers and shareholders, reinforcing our reputation as a trusted industry leader.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the Q&A session. To ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, simply press star 11 again. As a reminder, in order to accommodate all participants in the queue, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please stand by while we compile Q&A roster. Our first question coming from the line of George Gianarikas with Canaccord. Your line is now open.
George Gianarikas (Sustainability Research)
Hi, good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking my questions.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
Hey, George, good morning.
George Gianarikas (Sustainability Research)
I'm just curious if you can share any thoughts on what you're seeing in the competitive environment, any changes there in the U.S. and internationally. Thank you.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
I mean, internationally, not real change. It's a very competitive market, and the Chinese players continue to drive the competition in a way. The U.S., the competitive market is changing. We see more and more customers that prefer to use U.S. or non-PFE manufacturers, even if they're not required to do it because the projects are safeguarded under the law or that provision. I would say that, but it's an evolving matter that we see coming. That's kind of today where I see the market.
George Gianarikas (Sustainability Research)
Thank you. Maybe as a follow-up, Ahmed, I think I heard when you were talking about gross margin or margin guidance for 2026 that you expect margins to improve over time.
Were you referring to gross margins moving beyond the 11-13% range you guided for next year, say, in 2027, 2028? Thank you.
Ahmed Pasha (CFO)
Yes. Yes. Hey, George. Yes. I think our goal is to continue to improve the chart that we have disclosed. I think our goal is to continue to show that chart going forward, to show the trajectory and the difference we are making. Our guidance, as you recall, was 10-15% in the past. I mean, I think we have not changed that going forward. So our goal is to continue to improve that trendline.
Thank you.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
Thanks, George.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.
Brian Lee (Clean Technology Analyst)
Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Kudos on the quarter here. I appreciate all the color, Julian, on the data center sizing.
It sounds like that opportunity is coming to fruition here pretty quickly given the timeline you expressed. Can you maybe help us a little bit understand, first, the sizing of the market? I guess if we take the 30 gigawatt-hours of data center projects in the pipeline and leaves, that's maybe, if we estimate, maybe $6 billion of the total $23 billion pipeline or in that neighborhood. Is that kind of the way to think about it? What do you think the overall TAM is and what Fluence's market share could ultimately end up looking like?
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
Good question. Let's start with the TAM. Last quarter, we talked about a TAM of around $8 billion. I think that it's clearly the reality is proving that the numbers are significantly higher. The market has still very, very different numbers.
I said we have seen numbers of the 10 times the $8 billion or more than 10 times the $8 billion. It's still unclear. We have to, I think, wait a little bit more. Clearly, it's a market that is expanding. Of the 30 gigas that we talked about, as of September 30, only 20% of it, one small portion of it, were in our pipeline. The rest were contacts that we started with customers since then. If you ask me today, this morning, roughly half of the 30 gigas are in pipeline. The other half, we're working on it. What we're looking is, will they happen in the next two years? Do we see our product is suitable to do what they want? Generally, I think we are fine.
What's a big change from telling you a quarter ago, this is an $8 billion market requiring these very, very complex capabilities to today? I think there's a big change in terms of what we can do for what our technology and Fluence, in particular, can do for data centers. I would say the way to think about it is that there are three needs. One is what we call interconnection flexibility, the ability to manage the energy demand in a way that you can interconnect easier to the grid, and you can manage, and the distribution companies or the service provider can manage your demand to keep the so that is, by itself, I would say today, the biggest driver.
People who want to connect quickly to the grid and want to ensure that the data center meets the availability of the grid and can give the assurances to the grid operator that they will not disrupt the grid. We can do that today. That is what works. We have no need to improve in our technology stack to be able to do it. The second one that is also a rising need is backup power. Historically, we have not played that game. With our costs coming down as they are and our density improvements, we can now provide backup power and significantly reduce—I will not say eliminate, but significantly reduce the need for diesel generators. That is the second need that we are seeing.
We can accelerate interconnection to the grid, and we can reduce some of the costs of the diesel generators by providing backup power. The third one is the one we have talked about in our last call, this power quality, this idea that we will have to manage the variability of energy demand by AI data centers. If you ask me today, that hasn't been the first thing. There are other technologies that can address that. That's the first one. The second one is that it is a need that is not as big as we thought it was going to be. It's probably around that $8 billion number.
It is something that data centers, when they looked at what they're doing, their speed to power is a much more important element than this one because the other one they can manage in some other way. We are committed to delivering the three products: the interconnection flexibility to accelerate interconnection, the backup power capabilities, and these two that we can do today. We are very well-positioned to do. SmartStack is the densest project in the world. It is a project that, because of the pods, the way we're designed, provides very good safety, better than, I would say, very, very good. Third, our cybersecurity, our total control on software, our ability to ensure that no one else can get in. The power quality is something we're working on with our inverter manufacturers. We'll get it resolved quickly, but it is still a work in progress.
We thought that was going to be a gating item. The backup power is going to be a gating item for us to serve this market. That is no longer the case. It is, I would say, a cherry on the top. If you can deliver the last two, and this one is great, but it is not a gating item. Great market, multiples of what we told you in terms of what we do, and we do not need to do a major technology. My last point, we do not have a clear view today. This is just starting on how much we can capture. I will say we are very well-positioned to do it. Safety, density. Some of our competitors are claiming density, which is 25% less than what we can do.
That tells you we can do very, very well, and we hired Jeff. Jeff comes with knowing how to serve this market. He's been one of the instructions, "Go and get this done." This is not only happening in the U.S. This is a global phenomenon. We have our pipeline. It's mostly U.S. today, but we're starting to see pipeline coming both out of Australia and Europe. Sorry for the long answer, but we're excited about this opportunity.
Brian Lee (Clean Technology Analyst)
Yeah. No, I can definitely sense that. I appreciate all the color. Maybe just one more question on that topic. From a P&L timing and impact perspective, can you give us a sense of the conversion timeline for this data center pipeline? Is any of it embedded in your revenue guide for fiscal 2026? Just lastly, margins relative to core margins.
Are these going to be higher margin just given the customer subset you're dealing with? Curious on the impact on margins as well. Thank you, guys.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
I will say that of the 30 gigas, half are 2026 order intake, half are 2027, give or take. Most likely, projects that will be will convert to order intake later in the year. No revenue for 2026. We have to see how much revenue for 2027 is unclear. In terms of margin, hey, it's a new segment. I don't want to talk about it publicly, but what I will say is that we can provide a lot of value to our customers. A lot of value. We can deliver our product quickly, give them the confidence on our security, the best density. We are very confident that we can create a lot of value to our customers.
That's what we're concentrating on.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of Dylan Nassano with Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.
Dylan Nassano (VP)
Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
Hey, Dylan.
Dylan Nassano (VP)
I just wanted to go back to the Q4 kind of underperformance versus the guide. I know that in the previous quarter, manufacturing delays kind of came up, but it sounded like maybe those were resolved and you were operating on schedule again. I just want to check what kind of changed between the last call and now. Are these incremental kind of problems that popped up? Anything you can give us just to kind of boost confidence going into the quarter that these are kind of resolved at this point?
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
We have, thanks, Dylan. Clearly, we're disappointed with what happened.
I mean, first thing, I don't want to sound apologetic in what I'm telling you, but what do we have? We have our suppliers in the US, many, but let's say the three main suppliers. Out of the three main suppliers, two are doing great. I will say even more, the two that have the more complex process are doing very well. We are very happy, ahead of schedule, doing wonderful, no problem. We have a less complex process, which is enclosure manufacturing. When we met last quarter, we had a plan that was going to allow the delivery of our revenue for the year, but it required a major staffing process. I think we underestimated the ability to staff that facility. I think that today, we have done two things.
We have clearly gone out and continued staffing and preparing people. We are essentially done in terms of staffing. There are still some people, but it is essentially done. We have made some changes in the way we are with our contract manufacturer to ensure that we meet our, that we need to facilitate the manufacturing process. That is the right word. I think the two combinations, having staffed the place and we are talking about a significant number of people. This is roughly 5,600 people that we needed for that facility to work with three chiefs and all of that. We were fully, essentially fully staffed. With the changes in operations, we are meeting our numbers. I think we expect to do, we were doing at the end of last quarter, one and a half enclosures per day.
We are already at five, and we are ramping up. I don't know if we will be able to meet our numbers very well. We are very confident today. Unfortunately, we did not meet what we could not deliver on the revenue. We are disappointed, but we learned very quickly. Our operational manufacturing team is very, very good, and they have put in place the correct measures to do this. Yeah.
Ahmed Pasha (CFO)
Yeah. Dylan, the only thing I would add is I think that from our perspective, as Julian said, yes, because of the labor shortage, we were roughly one and a half containers per day. Fast forward, we added 500 people. We are now running at five containers per day, which is in line with our expectations for the quarter. We feel pretty good where we are.
Equally importantly, I think we pulled our levers to deliver on our profitability commitments. As you saw, the margin and the EBITDA, we are in line with our top end of our range.
Dylan Nassano (VP)
Got it. Thank you. I appreciate that. My follow-up, I just wanted to check on this new cell supplier. Can you just give us any more color around how much incremental capacity this may get you? Are you prepaying for any cells similar to what you did with AESC? Mostly just curious, does this get you net additional capacity to serve the US market?
Ahmed Pasha (CFO)
I can take that question. Dylan, yes. I think this gives us enough capacity to serve our projected loads for the next couple of years. We feel pretty good what we have signed. In terms of the deposits, no material deposit commitments.
I think it's just as we get the deliveries, we make those payments.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of Ameet Thakkar with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Ameet Thakkar (Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I just wanted to kind of go back to kind of the implied EBITDA margin for this year versus last year. I mean, it looks like the EBITDA margin is down. I know the gross margin is also kind of down sequentially. It looked like the implied ASPs in your bookings are actually up pretty significantly kind of quarter over quarter. I was just wondering if you could kind of walk us through why, I guess, the gross margin is lower year over year versus kind of rolling 12 months. Thanks.
Ahmed Pasha (CFO)
I think the ASPs, your question is, yes, I think is down, but no surprise.
I think ASPs are down roughly, I think, give or take 10% or so. In terms of the gross margin, I think we basically are pretty much in line. I think the EBITDA margin, as you asked, is obviously there's an operating leverage because volume was less. Last year, our overall revenue was $2.7 billion. This is $2.3 billion. Yes, I think. The more important thing, frankly, from our perspective is as we grow the top line, we will benefit from the operating leverage. Our goal is to continue to grow EBITDA. Obviously, that is what the shareholders care. At the end of the day, top line is great, but at the end of the day, that should translate into the bottom line. That is what we as a management team also are on the same page. Stay tuned.
I think our goal is to continue to improve the top line and also the bottom line.
Ameet Thakkar (Director and Equity Research Analyst)
I know you kind of talked about a couple of kind of uses of liquidity for next year, but just in terms of kind of the kind of the free cash flow expectations relative to that $50 million kind of EBITDA guidance at the midpoint. Any kind of, I guess, guideposts there, please?
Ahmed Pasha (CFO)
Yes, I think the $50 million EBITDA, I talked about the working capital, roughly $100 million as our revenue is growing from $2.3 billion to $3.4 billion. A billion dollar or so of additional, as if you recall, we said in the past, working capital needs are roughly 10% of our growth in revenue. So about $100 million of working capital needs.
$100 million of investments in the domestic content, as I mentioned in my remarks. Beyond that, we do not have any material commitments. I think next year, our goal is to be free cash flow positive as our revenue grows and our EBITDA grows. I think that is the goal. This year, $50 million is the EBITDA, but then we have working capital needs of $100 million. More importantly, or equally importantly, liquidity will remain very robust with this working capital use. Our goal is to continue to strengthen our balance sheet with growing cash and our credit facilities. I feel pretty good where we are going to land at the end of the year.
Ameet Thakkar (Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you very much.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies. Yolanda, it is now open.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Jefferies)
Hey, good morning, team. Thank you guys very much. Nicely done this quarter. Just following up, I'm in a little bit about some of the margin commentary and just filtering that back in with AESC. Can you comment a little bit on how you think about margins being tethered to whatever happens with respect to your domestic supply, whether that's with AESC or incremental supply? Is that part of the commentary about margin improvement? Related, can you just give a little bit more of a detailed update around AESC specifically? I know that you sort of "procured a backup here," if you will. How is that relationship evolving here? How would you frame out volumes from one side or the other side of that supply arrangement now at this point?
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
In terms of margins, in terms of AESC, I mean, any deal we might do with AESC will be aggregative. That is the way you need to think about it. When and if it happens, we will communicate what it means in terms of margins. I think that Ameet's point was more general. When you looked at our performance, at least since I got here, we got a company with negative margins of 4%. We are now on a rolling average of month average. We are now at 13.7%. My point is we all here want to commit to continue showing a growing line. That is kind of what we are doing. We are finding ways to do it today and continue to work on it. That was more of that coming in that direction.
In terms of AESC, what I will say is that we are meeting the OBBA compliance is a complex process. We have been able to make a lot of progress. Generally, you can look at it from three areas. You need to meet the IP. I think we have a solution that's done. The IP for that production facility meets the criteria of OBBA, or will meet the criteria. We have the material assistance, the need that the suppliers of the facility cannot come from PFE suppliers. We have a plan that will deliver that. We have the ownership. The ownership is the one where we are still debating. We are making good progress. We are committed to resolve it, but we have not reached a final deal.
We have always said we're not the only option in town. There are other ways that they can resolve this issue. I don't want to—we clearly believe that we are the best option from my point of view, but they can do something different. On the new supplier, I mean, what it is is we're generally diversified suppliers. That's a rule of life. We're diversified suppliers, and the demand we see is very big. We need to continue to meet the growing demand. Our philosophy of diversified suppliers and the growing demand call for the second supplier. That is where we are. We see this as one of our competitive advantages. We are a first mover in this area, and we want to continue being the first mover. That is the reason for our strategy.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Jefferies)
Just to clarify that real quickly, basically, your current plan and current margin expectations assume that you're served with AESC. Would it be improved or detrimental to shift the supply if I heard you right or understand?
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
Yeah. I will say the following. As I said, a potential deal with AESC will be aggregative to the current numbers. That's the answer I can provide. All right.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Jefferies)
You're already haircutting it. Okay. Understood.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
No, I'm not haircutting. I'm having no deal yet, Julian.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Jefferies)
Okay. All right. Got it. Thank you. No, no. That's why I asked. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
David Arcaro (Executive Director of Equity Research)
Hey. Thanks so much. Good morning.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
Good morning.
David Arcaro (Executive Director of Equity Research)
In terms of the data center pipeline, I was curious just to get what you're currently seeing. Is this bringing larger project sizes versus your current backlog? Is it more US-heavy in terms of region where you're seeing that demand? I would be curious what kind of duration you might be exploring for those types of projects.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
Yeah. I will say that generally, we've talked during the call. One of the big drivers of the elasticity of demand, where you can see the elasticity of demand for our technology as prices have come down, has been how projects are getting bigger. We have today 38 projects that are 1 gigawatt hour or more. I don't think that the data centers are bigger, naturally bigger, they're in line with what we have when you looked at it. Some are smaller, some are bigger, but generally in line.
In terms of where geographically today, I will say the majority come from the US. We have seen some with the pipeline developing in APEC. Europe is a little bit behind. That will see what we will see this as a global market. That is kind of our view. In terms of duration, depends on the use case. We see from two to long-duration storage, both, nothing below two. That is where we are.
David Arcaro (Executive Director of Equity Research)
Okay. Got it. That is helpful. I was just curious about strong order intake in this past quarter. I was wondering if you could talk to whether there is a common driver there that you are seeing. It does not seem to be data center growth just yet, if I am interpreting that correctly. What are you seeing in terms of what drove the strong order rebound? Good.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
It was Australia, the big driver of the strong quarter in the strong order intake. We have these deals in Australia, as you know, that were delayed in 2025. We signed them all, and most of them occurred late in the year. That is a big driver of it. We see for 2026, the U.S. being the big driver and a little bit of a change. We will see some, I expect to see some data center stuff happening in 2026, late in the year, most likely.
David Arcaro (Executive Director of Equity Research)
Okay. Great. That all makes sense. Thank you so much.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of Mark Strouse with JPMorgan. Your line is now open.
Mark Strouse (Equity Research Analyst)
Yes. Good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. I just wanted to go back to the second domestic content supplier.
On that, I think you said that your needs are met for the next couple of years. I just wanted to clarify, is that capacity available today, or is there kind of a ramp period that we should be expecting?
Ahmed Pasha (CFO)
No, I think the capacity will be available in about the next 10-11 months. I think the capacity that we need to serve our load, as we discussed during the call, we have about 85-90% of our revenue in our backlog. We have already secured the capacity for that. We do not need this capacity, but we are now locking in additional capacity to basically secure our future business.
Mark Strouse (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. On the long-duration side, is SmartStack the only go-to-market solution that you have there?
Are you potentially looking to partner up, maybe being a systems integrator for some of the more emerging technologies that are out there? Thank you.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
SmartStack will be our what we're going to learn. We believe that very competitive. So it will be SmartStack.
Mark Strouse (Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of Christine Cho with Barclays. Your line is now open.
Christine Cho (Managing Director)
Good morning. Thank you for taking the questions.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
Good morning, Ms. Smith.
Christine Cho (Managing Director)
With respect to the data centers, you mentioned the three different ways that you can serve data centers, the interconnection, backup, and power quality. Would you be able to sort of break down the opportunity set here and maybe rank it? Is half of the opportunity for power quality and backup is the smallest? And for duration, you mentioned two hours is the low end. I'm assuming that's for power quality.
Is it similar for those who are interested in getting storage for interconnection purposes?
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
Yeah. First of all, that's what I would like to highlight. We have these three needs. What's wonderful about our technology, and now talking about battery storage, not necessarily ourselves, is that we can stack up these three needs with the same technology solution. While the other technology solutions can do one or the other, they cannot do what we do, which is facilitate interconnection, do backup power, and do quality. That makes the difference. I think that's what makes our solution so attractive to our data centers. We can resolve three problems with one technology. That's very, very good. In terms of the add the two hours, this depends on the need of the customer. I cannot really put out, can tell you this is what drives it.
Generally, you are right on the view that backup power and interconnection flexibility will tend to be longer duration, while power quality will tend to be shorter duration. Generally, that's true. I think you need to think about this differently. It's the ability to serve the three needs with the same infrastructure. That's what we are aiming for because I think that will make our technology the preferred technology solution to resolve, to address these problems.
Christine Cho (Managing Director)
Okay. If you are able to vertically integrate with AESC, how should we think about what the mix will be between the AESC supply and the second supplier? With this second supplier, is the contract for a set amount of time? Lastly, for your international projects, are you also diversifying your sales suppliers there?
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
We always diversified internationally. We are just being diversified locally.
My view on this, and I, is that we convert any battery into a great technology solution. That's what we do as a company. Talking about who the battery supplier is not as relevant. Shouldn't be as relevant. My customers shouldn't care. And my financial investor shouldn't care. The real value we bring is the ability to make any battery great, no matter what. That was my answer to it. I don't know what the mix will be, but as I said, for my customers, it will be irrelevant from a product delivery and capabilities, what batteries I put in.
Christine Cho (Managing Director)
For you, doesn't it matter in that if you are using AESC and you're vertically integrated, it's higher margin for you versus?
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
Yeah. I care about my customers. That's what I do. Yeah. We will figure out that part.
The important thing is the ability to or the route to success in meeting your customer needs. That's what drives the company. You're right. We might be able to get a capture because if we were to be vertically integrated, there will be more margin on one or the other. The way to win is meet the customer needs. That's the way to win. If you try to optimize something else, you lose this side. Your customer needs, and that drives profitability, that drives margin, that drives everything.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of Justin Clare with ROTH Capital Partners. Your line is now open.
Justin Clare (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Hey. Good morning. Thanks for the time here. I just wanted to follow up on the second source of the sales supply here. I think you mentioned it'll be available in the next 10-11 months.
Just at the beginning of the year, do you expect to depend on the source of sales from AESC for domestic US projects until that second source is available? I am just trying to get at how important is it for you to resolve the challenges with the FEOC restrictions by early calendar 2026 in terms of thinking through the outlook for the year.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
Very, very important. That is what I will say. We have a plan, and we have been working on it, and it is very, very important to do it. That is what I can tell you. I mean, we will get it done.
Justin Clare (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Good to hear. Just a follow-up on the data center opportunity. I was wondering, are you seeing or could you talk about the ability to kind of successfully accelerate interconnection with storage being added to data centers?
Is this being done today, or do you need the regulatory framework to change in order to support this use case? And then wondering what the timing of orders associated with that use case might be.
Julian Nebreda (President and CEO)
We have not signed any of these contracts yet. This is a work in progress. We believe we have the ability to ensure that the data centers meet the interconnection restrictions that they have. I will say yes. I do not think you need a major regulatory change. It is just ensuring that you meet whatever the grid is offering.
Justin Clare (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. Okay. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that is all the time we have for our Q&A session. I will now turn it back to Chris for any closing comments.
Chris Shelton (VP of Investor Relations)
Thanks, Livia. Thanks to everyone for participating on today's call.
We look forward to speaking with you again by first quarter results, if not before then. Please do look forward to meeting with everyone as your questions arise.
Operator (participant)
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.