Shoals Technologies Group - Q4 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, welcome to the Shoals Technologies Group Q4 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded.

We have allocated one hour for prepared remarks and Q&A. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Matt Tractenberg, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations for Shoals Technologies Group. Thank you. You may begin.

Matt Tractenberg (VP, Finance and Investor Relations)

Thank you, Karina. Thank you everyone for joining us today.

Hosting the call with me is our CEO, Brandon Moss, and our CFO, Dominic Bardos. On this call, management will be making projections or other forward-looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties and should not be considered guarantees of performance or results. Actual results could differ materially. Those risks and uncertainties are listed for investors in our most recent SEC filings. Today's presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures.

You should refer to the information contained in the company's Q4 press release for definitional information and reconciliations of historical non-GAAP measures to the nearest comparable GAAP financial measures. Please note that the slides you see here are available for download from the Investor Relations section of our website at investors.shoals.com.

With that, let me turn the call over to Brandon.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Thank you, Matt, and thanks to everyone joining us on the call.

I'll begin by sharing key results from the Q4 and our full year key wins and milestones. We'll discuss the current demand environment and review progress on our strategic growth initiatives. Dominic will dive deeper into the Q4 results and provide our Q1 and full year 2026 outlook. We'll finish the call with questions from our analyst. Q4 revenue was in line with our expectations at approximately $148 million, up 38.6% over the prior year period. Our commercial team also drove significant growth in our book of business, adding approximately $175 million in new orders in the period.

This resulted in a company record backlog in awarded orders, or BLAO, of approximately $748 million, an 18% year-over-year increase. We delivered a seasonally strong book-to-bill of 1.2 this quarter, which continues to support the growth we see in 2026. As of year-end, approximately $603 million of our BLAO has shipment dates in the upcoming four quarters or full year 2026. We are set up very well for another successful year of growth. Commercially, we are achieving our objectives of growth and diversification. Profitability, however, was softer than anticipated in the Q4. Our Q4 adjusted EBITDA of approximately $30 million grew by 15% year-over-year, representing 20.4% of revenue.

This was largely driven by higher legal expenses, the ongoing impact of tariffs, product mix, and high labor and shipping costs in the period. As we discussed with you last year, we see very strong underlying demand drivers across the markets we serve. This, when paired with the incremental capacity we will have at our new facility, warrants a more flexible and agile approach to how we determine which projects and which customers to engage with. Opening the lens with which we look at the opportunity set to drive higher revenue in 2026 and beyond, while remaining within a reasonable margin range, will ultimately result in higher profit dollars and free cash flow, which will be reinvested back into the business. This approach removes self-imposed constraints, enabling us to make the right decisions for the long-term health of the business.

I'm very proud of our performance in 2025. It was a busy but exciting year for us. After a challenging 2024, we came back strong and grew top-line revenue by 19%, exceeding our initial expectations and the long-term range shared with you at our 2024 Investor Day. Our U.S. utility-scale solar business grew by almost 11% for the full year, accelerating in the back half of the year and growing 30% when compared to the second half of 2024. International revenue expanded from less than $1 million in 2024 to approximately $13 million in 2025. Our CC&I and OEM businesses exceeded expectations, and we've laid the foundation for our BESS business that is poised for rapid growth in 2026.

Engaging with our customers, we introduced multiple new products in 2025, effectively expanding our addressable market and capturing additional share. We continued to diversify our customer list to include several new EPCs. For example, in 2023, we had three customers that accounted for less than $6 million of revenue. Today, those same customers account for almost $140 million of our BLAO. We've made big, meaningful operational changes as well, including our ongoing move into a consolidated state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. This will enable critical improvements to productivity and scalability as we continue to grow and diversify our business. Given the industry growth we see, it couldn't happen at a better time. During the year, we also completed remediation for all reported instances of the defective Prysmian wire.

This effort was funded through our own cash flow and reinforced our commitment to customers that we stand behind our products and services. In summary of the full year, we're pleased with our performance. We've come a long way in the last few years. Our strategy of protecting and growing our core business while diversifying our offering and exposure to end markets is yielding results. Our focus on improving our operating capabilities while maintaining the commercial momentum you've seen, is how we intend on driving attractive returns for our shareholders. Turning to our various business lines, I'd like to provide some context to our performance in the Q4. The Q4 was another strong period of growth within our core utility-scale solar market. Our quote volume in the quarter exceeded $700 million of unique projects, adding to our strong pipeline.

Note that these are projects that would generate revenue in 2027 and beyond, further supporting our long-term growth trajectory. Also related to the core U.S. utility-scale solar market, in early 2025, Shoals brought a second patent infringement case against Voltage before the U.S. International Trade Commission, utilizing our new and expanded patent portfolio. While the legal process will likely continue for another quarter or two, we're very pleased that the court recently issued its initial determination in our favor. It's a great first step, and we'll remain patient for the Commission's final ruling in early June. I'm also encouraged by the progress we are making in international markets, as evidenced by our increased quote activity and customer engagement. The products introduced in 2024 are generating interest with key decision makers, while our experience and reputation for quality is winning projects.

We recognize approximately $13 million of revenue in 2025 from international projects and have a record $90 million of international BLAO, which will drive continued growth in 2026 and beyond. Our community, commercial, and industrial, or CC&I business, is performing well. We are engaged with large, well-respected electrical distributors that are driving meaningful quote volume increases. Our OEM business is tracking ahead of expectations, growing at 47% for the full year as our partner continues to see strong demand for their panels. We expect to continue in 2026 with another year of attractive growth. We began disclosing our BESS backlog and awarded orders last quarter, which at the end of Q3 stood at $18 million. That information was designed to provide a starting point that you can use to track our progress against a rapidly evolving market opportunity.

I'm excited to share with you that as of year-end, we have $67 million in BLAO, a testament to the upfront engineering competencies and future manufacturing capabilities Shoals offers. We would expect more than half of this amount to be recognized as revenue in 2026. We continue to invest in scalable production capabilities for BESS. We expect our first new production line to be operational within the coming weeks. I'm pleased to announce a partnership with ON.Energy, a leading developer of advanced power systems for grid-safe data centers. Together, we will address a fast-emerging constraint for AI-driven infrastructure, securing resilient backup power at scale, while enabling data centers to operate as grid-interactive and firming assets. Our partnership brings together two U.S. innovators with complementary strengths in power architecture and execution.

ON.Energy will pair its medium voltage uninterruptible power supply systems with Shoals' advanced DC Recombiners to deliver a solution for AI data centers that accelerates deployment timelines, safeguards operational continuity, and future-proofs energy infrastructure. 2025 saw a return to growth at Shoals. Our markets have been resilient, and our competitive position continues to improve. We've entered new markets with new products, made meaningful progress on our legal actions, and began our move to our new consolidated facility. While the regulatory landscape has been distracting to many, we remain focused on executing our strategy. With that, I'll now turn it over to Dominic, who will discuss our Q4 financial results in more detail and our outlook for the Q1 and full year 2026. Dominic?

Dominic Bardos (CFO)

Thanks, Brandon. Greetings to everyone on the call. Turning to our Q4 financial results, revenue increased by 38.6% year-over-year to $148.3 million. The increase in revenue was primarily driven by higher domestic project volume from both new and existing customers. In addition, as Brandon mentioned earlier, our strategic growth channels of international, CC&I, and OEM contributed to year-over-year revenue growth in the quarter. Gross profit was $46.9 million, compared to $40.2 million in the prior year period, an increase of 16.7%. Our GAAP gross profit percentage was 31.6%, compared to 37.6% in the prior year period, and lower than we anticipated.

We estimate that Q4 gross profit dollars were impacted by $2.1 million of incremental tariffs and logistics costs, $2.5 million of additional labor to support new products, packaging, and delivery requirements, and a half million dollars of additional plant overhead expenses, partially offset by higher volumes. These items negatively impacted our Q4 gross profit % by approximately 350 basis points versus our expectations. While you've heard us consistently communicate our long-term aspirational goal of 40+% gross profit %, we're very clear in 2025 regarding our expectations of gross margin % to be in the mid-to-high 30s. In the long run, we continue to believe that a company like Shoals, that delivers highly customized and engineered-to-order solutions, deserves an attractive return profile.

We must also balance those aspirations with the real market opportunities we have in front of us today. Part of the transformation you see at Shoals includes a renewed focus on innovation, flexibility, productivity, and the maximization of cash flow. The top-line strength we drove in 2025, and expect to continue in 2026, is in part attributable to a larger opportunity funnel, consisting of both traditional and newly introduced products, and a more flexible and customized approach to how we package and ship our solutions. Our strategy of driving incremental operating profit and finding balance between growing the business and driving profitability is one of the most important decisions we can make, and I believe we're doing the right thing. In the long run, the scale and leverage we will get on those incremental projects will allow us to continue to invest, diversify, and grow.

The flexibility to make these important trade-offs to maximize profitable growth and ultimately create shareholder value, cannot be done with a focus on a single profit percentage metric. For these reasons, for the foreseeable future, a gross margin % of low to mid-30s will provide us with the flexibility to win new customers, deliver new products, enter new markets, and continue the transformational journey we're on today. Moving on to selling, general, and administrative expenses. SG&A was $27.3 million, which is $5.8 million higher than the prior year period, driven by increased legal expenses, partially offset by a reduction in stock-based compensation. Please note that in 2025, we spent a combined $30 million of legal professional services, an increase of 100% over the prior year.

Recall that $18.3 million of 2025 legal expense related to the case against Prysmian is identified and backed out of adjusted EBITDA. While these elevated legal costs impacted our results in 2025 and will continue in 2026, they will not occur in perpetuity, and we expect them to decline in 2027. Income from operations or operating profit was $17.4 million, compared to $16.5 million during the prior year period. Operating profit margin was 11.7%, compared to 15.4% a year ago. Net income was $8.1 million, compared to net income of $7.8 million during the prior year period. Adjusted net income was $17.5 million, compared to $14.1 million in the prior year period.

Adjusted EBITDA was $30.3 million, compared to $26.4 million in the prior year period, representing 14.7% growth. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 20.4%, compared to 24.7% a year ago, driven primarily by lower gross margin flow-through. Adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.10 was 22% higher than the prior year period. I now want to provide more color on what's driving the shift in profit percentages going forward, so you can understand the gives and takes, what we can influence, and what are more macro in nature. Let's start with tariffs. While our intent was to broadly pass them on to our customers, in several cases, it does not appear to be possible at this time.

We estimate tariffs had a $3.7 million impact to COGS in 2025, or an 80 basis point impact on consolidated full-year gross margin %, heavily weighted in the second half of the year. While this issue is uncertain and rapidly evolving, at this time, our guidance incorporates a similar tariff impact in 2026. We also began our move into our new consolidated factory in late 2025. While this is a huge undertaking, the full economic benefits will not be felt for some time. There are redundancies, additional training, setup, and processes that need to be redesigned and implemented. These initial inefficiencies are incorporated into our 2026 guidance and will be reversed over time as we increase throughput and drive lean process improvement through our manufacturing organization. This was the right strategic decision that will provide the capacity we'll need for years to come.

As we've stated in recent quarters, our plan is to be fully operational in the new facility by the middle of this year. You're likely familiar with the three legal actions currently in play at Shoals: litigation against Prysmian for defective wire, the related shareholder class action and derivative lawsuits, and the ITC case and subsequent district court case against Voltage. The cost for the defective wire case, both in terms of legal expenses and product replacement work we've done since 2023, is shown in our filings and adjusted out of our non-GAAP EBITDA results. However, the legal expense for the two remaining actions has not been called out specifically. Investors may not appreciate the impact or timing of them. As a result of the expected elevated legal costs in 2026 related to these actions, we will provide investors with additional visibility.

In 2026, we will also adjust EBITDA for the spend on the shareholder class action and derivative lawsuits. Our communicated strategy of defending share within our core markets and expanding our reach through new, innovative products that solve customer problems, has yielded tangible results. It's enabled revenue growth of 19% in 2025, and an acceleration in 2026. While they have been well-received by many new and existing customers, not all are accretive to gross margin percentage. Some expand our total addressable market, which opens opportunities by increasing the value to developers and EPCs. Evolving from offering a narrow product set to a diversified portfolio that resonates with a broader customer set will take time and patience, but it's the right thing to do for our customers and shareholders alike.

Operationally, we consumed $4.1 million of cash in the Q4, driven by higher accounts receivable and inventory balances at year-end, partially offset by higher accounts payable and higher deferred revenue. On a year-to-date basis, we have generated $17.1 million in operating cash flow. Free cash flow was negative $11.3 million in the Q4, reflecting both the $7 million impact of remediation costs and elevated capital expenditures related to our new facility. These two items impacted free cash flow by a total of $14.2 million in the quarter. Our balance sheet remains high quality. We ended the quarter with cash and equivalents of $7.3 million and net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 1.3 times.

Our net debt was $129.4 million, a slight increase over the prior quarter. Backlog and awarded orders ended the Q4 at a record $747.6 million, a sequential increase of $26.7 million. Backlog constitutes $326.2 million of the total BL and AO, providing us with confidence that the growth projections we have for the upcoming periods can be achieved. As of December 31st, $603.4 million of our backlog and awarded orders have planned delivery dates in the coming four quarters, with the remaining $144.2 million beyond that. Turning now to the outlook.

For the quarter ending March 31st, 2026, the company expects revenue to be in the range of $125 million-$135 million, representing 62% year-over-year growth at the midpoint, and adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $16 million-$21 million, representing 44% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. Turning to the full year, as we enter the year with $603 million of backlog and awarded orders currently expected to ship in 2026, we remain mindful of the elements beyond our direct control. Similar to last year, we estimate the volume of projects that might be delayed out of the year, as well as the volume of projects that we can still add to the calendar year.

For this year, we need to also incorporate our new BESS customers and product delivery schedules that are dependent upon totally different factors than our historical utility-scale solar projects. As a result, our expectations for revenue are a range slightly below the $603 million backlog and awarded orders on the books at year-end. We believe this range to be reasonable and achievable. Therefore, for the full year 2026, we expect revenue between $560 million-$600 million, representing year-over-year growth of 22% at the midpoint, and adjusted EBITDA in the range of $110 million-$130 million, representing year-over-year growth of 21% at the midpoint.

For the full year, we expect cash flow from operations in the range of $65 million-$85 million, CapEx in the range of $20 million-$30 million, and interest expense in the range of $8 million-$12 million. With that, I'll turn it back over to Brandon for closing remarks.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Thank you, Dominic.

As we enter the new year, I reflect on where we've come from and look ahead to where we're going. The broader U.S. market appears to be extremely resilient. Our customers are busy moving projects forward, and we remain committed to meeting their needs. As we have discussed, the need for new energy supply is real. The massive investment cycle in AI and data centers, combined with the continued industrialization and onshoring of manufacturing, will drive load growth far in excess of what we've seen in recent decades. Solar is still best positioned to meet these rising energy needs today and through the balance of the decade.

While industry growth forecasts vary greatly, in our view, sustained solar capacity additions are the most likely outcome. We are preparing Shoals to be agile in our production capabilities in a stable or growing demand environment.

In 2026, Shoals celebrates its 30th year of doing business. It also marks 5 years since becoming a public company. Since our IPO, our annual revenue has more than doubled from $213 million to $475 million. We've generated more than $220 million of cash flow from operations that has been reinvested in the business, and we've maintained market leadership by a wide margin.

We've built a company with a strong foundation on innovation and quality, and to fully achieve what we know we're capable of, transforming the company from a narrow product offering in a single market and geography to a more diverse and durable business, meaningful change will continue to occur. Today, we are in an exceptional position from both a commercial and operational perspective.

The strategic plan we constructed and process improvements we've implemented have begun to yield tangible results. We've protected and grown our core markets. We've reignited the innovation engine. We are building new businesses in new markets that expand our total addressable market, while aggressively diversifying our market and customer exposure.

We've invested in the right physical assets, including automation and technology, that will drive productivity for years to come, and we've assembled an experienced team of business leaders that will enable us to continue the transformation of Shoals. These changes are both critical and deliberate, and come at a time where the world is struggling to keep up with energy needs, both here and abroad. The long-term secular tailwinds are intact and strengthening. We're very excited about the trajectory of our business in the markets we participate in.

We want to thank our shareholders and customers for their continued trust and our employees for their hard work and dedication.

Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session.

Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. A kind reminder to pick up your handset when asking a question. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.

Your first question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Managing Director)

Hey, can you guys hear me okay?

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Yes, sir. Sure can, Julien. Loud and clear.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Managing Director)

Hey, top of the morning to you guys.

Thanks, Matt. Just a couple questions here to hit it off. First off, just in terms of book and bill in the year, just when you think about setting that benchmark here for top-line revenue for 2026, how are you thinking about how much You could actually book in this new environment? You guys made some comments on that in the prepared remarks. Related here, can you comment a little bit about seasonality?

What else is going on when you think about this new set of customers that you're alluding to here? Just, it seems like a very conservative benchmark, given what you're coming into the year with and where you're setting your full year revenue numbers at. I've got.

I'll throw you a quick follow-up on that just in terms of BESS. What is the right order rate when you think about the trajectory of a continued ad backlog? Pretty impressive Q3, Q4 over Q3.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Thanks, Julian. Great questions.

I'll start with the first. When we think about our book-and-turn business historically, last year and even the prior year in 2024, I mean, it's reasonable to think that $50 million-$70 million in book-and-turn business is probably a pretty reasonable number to think about. What we've got to keep in mind this year is we're still in an environment where there's some level of uncertainty, but we didn't see that level of uncertainty materialize in 2025. It still exists in our current landscape, we wanted to be prudent about our guidance.

Additionally, as we've taken on new customers they've got different expectations, different project delivery schedules than we've experienced in the past, so we wanted to incorporate that in our guidance. Additionally, as we diversify our business into new products and markets, and , those products have yet to deliver yet, we want to make sure that we have given ourselves some room there as well in our guidance.

As it relates to the order book, specifically to BESS, as we've mentioned in the past, the bookings for this particular business could be lumpy. They're large projects in nature, and we are very excited about the $67 million of backlog and awarded orders. We've effectively quadrupled our bookings number from last quarter.

We think that the bookings there could continue to be lumpy, while revenue recognition, once we get going with our new production line here in the coming weeks, will probably be more stable.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Managing Director)

Got it. This is really just what is it about the business backdrop that gives you pause just elaborate quickly, that gives you that pause on right, as the translation to revenue this year? Is there anything about the environment in particular you want to stress, or it's just truly the nature of the new customers here?

Brandon Moss (CEO)

I think it's just the nature of the new customers in our traditional solar business. We want to be mindful that they may have different project patterns than our historical customers. And just give ourselves room, Julian, to make sure that that book-and-turn business either supersedes any project delays or potentially overcomes project delays. If the year materializes as planned and projects go off as scheduled, I would look for us to be at the upper end of our revenue range.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Managing Director)

Yeah, that's pretty clear here. Excellent.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Thank you.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Managing Director)

Thanks, guys.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Yes, next question, please.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Philip Shen with Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Philip Shen (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

You guys, thanks for taking my questions.

Wanted to check in with you guys on the margin outlook. Dominic, you talked about this new range of low to mid-thirties due to a number of reasons, new customers and delivered new products, et cetera. I was wondering if you could give a little more color there. How long should we expect this level or this new range to be in place? Beyond 2026, do you think we should kinda think about this as the range also for 2027 and 2028? Can you talk about pricing? , to what degree have you guys lowered pricing, and is that a big driver of this new margin range? Thanks.

Dominic Bardos (CFO)

Sure, Philip. Let me start with the 2026 outlook on margin, where we've said it's the low to mid-thirties. I think it's very important for us to really focus on some of the more transitory things and then also what might take a little more time to evolve. As we said in the prepared remarks, we do include some tariff impact that is expected to be absorbed by Shoals. As we saw on Friday, this is a very fluid situation, but we do have inventory that has capitalized tariff expense that will still be with us for the first half of the year. Another thing that we've been talking about is the move into our new mega facility. We expect to be moved in by the middle of this year.

First half of the year, we're moving in. In the meantime, we do have some inefficiencies created by still operating now in 3 facilities during this transitional period. That is something that is certainly factored into our guide with the lower gross margin percentage. As we talk about gaining efficiencies over time, we absolutely will have cost out initiatives and margin improvement initiatives going into 2027 and beyond. I do believe with our product mix, the third component, that we have talked about introductions of new products, capturing new share and new customers that don't use the BLA product system, and those have a margin percentage dilutive issue. An example being a Long Tail BLA product, as an example. We've talked about the fact that product mix is important.

I would characterize this year's margin guide as one that should see the lowest margin % of the year in the Q1. Then we'll start to see a gain back as we start getting some synergies and get some costs out as we move into the new facility and we get the scale that we've been talking about to leverage those new fixed costs. For the short term, I think this is the right margin %, and I expect that 2027 margins would be higher, but we're taking off the table any discussion of 40% return in the near term. I just want to be very clear about that.

Philip Shen (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, great. Thanks, Dominic.

That's very, very helpful. Shifting over to a comment I think you guys had in your Q1 guide. I think you guys talked about certain customers changing order patterns. Can you talk about what that is, and then alsowhat the seasonality or the kind of cadence of revenue might look like by quarter for the year as well? Thanks.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Yeah, Philip, I mean, to just, I guess, first and foremost, we believe the market's very, very strong. I don't want this to get misinterpreted as we've got, we don't have confidence in the market. We, we certainly do. There's very strong near-term indicators, whether it's crew counts on the ground, installing solar products, tracker installations, which we follow, are very strong. As we all know, the long-term fundamentals for energy consumption is certainly there, and that's evidenced by a really strong quarter of quoting for us at $700 million. As, as , probably as good as anybody, Q4 is usually a softer month as it relates to quoting and installation, and we saw a very strong quarter.

I think as important as anything, we continue to believe there's a strong preference for our solutions that we're providing and executing in the field. As we mentioned in the prepared remarks, our core business accelerated about 30% in the back half of last year, and that gives us a lot of confidence. We're optimistic about our sustained bookings growth. We've had great bookings growth all year. If you think about 2025, specifically, Q1, we did a 1.1 book-to-bill. Q2, we did a 1.2. We reached record revenue in Q3 and still did a 1.4 book-to-bill. We surpassed that revenue record in Q4 and still did a 1.2 book-to-bill. Similar to last year, we see probably the cadence.

of our revenue recognition is probably being somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 in the first half of the year, moving to 55% in the second half of the year. we feel very good about our book of business right now.

Dominic Bardos (CFO)

Thank you, Philip. Appreciate it. Karina, next question, please.

Operator (participant)

Your next question is from the line of Colin Rusch. Sorry, my apologies, Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Brian Lee (Analyst)

Hey, thanks for taking the questions. Maybe just focusing on the top-line guidance here for a moment. there's a lot of moving pieces here. If I back out the kinda $35 million or 6 points of growth you're implying for BESS shipping in 2026, there's still a good 15% growth being implied for the core business. Can you kinda walk us through the pieces, kinda how much is coming from new markets like CC&I, and how much is international, and then how much of this is just pure market share gain, in an environment where I don't think most people are expecting double-digit utility scale volume growth in the U.S. in 2026?

You guys do seem to be out punching your weight here a little bit. If you could walk us through a couple of the pieces beyond the BESS that you already quantified.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Yeah, Brian, great question. Great to hear from , Maybe I'd turn your attention back to think about our Investor Day in 2024. We identified about 30% of the market that we did not think we were attacking at that point. We believe that we have addressed about two-thirds of that piece of the market, and I think that's really evidenced. We had three specific customers where we did less than $1 million with, that now have about $140 million of our backlog and awarded orders.

Again, as I mentioned to Phil's questions, we do think that there is a strong preference for our product, and I do think we have the ability to continue to outpace the general market growth in the solar landscape. We have seen specific to the different business units. We grew our solar business about 11% last year. We did see a record year in our international business, driving 3 projects, about $13 million. I think what is maybe even more exciting than that, we replaced that backlog and reached record backlog and awarded orders in the international space of about $90 million. Our C&I business continues to grow rapidly.

The numbers are gaudy, quite frankly, it's a small piece of the business, but we continue to see really nice growth in our C&I business. In our OEM business last year which is our JBox business, grew 47%. I don't know that we'd anticipate another 47% growth here, but we do expect that business to be very, very strong. I guess net-net, when you look across all of our business units, outside of our battery energy storage business, all are performing quite well, and we expect continued growth in 2026.

Brian Lee (Analyst)

Okay. Maybe just to follow up on the margin question, I might have missed the number, but Dominic, I think you've mentioned something like 3 percentage points, maybe a little over 3 percentage points of tariff impact in 2025 and expecting a similar level in 2026. Obviously, that's fluid, but how much of the tariff impact is related to IEEPA? if the recent sort of changes stay as advertised in the second half of the year, it sounds like you'll be working through the inventory that has the higher costs and paid the tariffs.

Do you get all of that back, or what's sort of the rough net math on kind of what margin recapture you could see if tariffs do relax here as we move through the year? Thanks, guys.

Dominic Bardos (CFO)

Yes. Sure, Brian. The tariff question is a bit complicated for us because there are instances where we very specifically are passing through tariff costs to customers. Any reduction in tariffs would also then reduce what we're passing through. It's just a pass-through impact. There are some components where we are structurally holding onto the tariff cost as part of our cost of goods sold. For that piece, then we would have a benefit if the tariffs are reduced in the back half. For aluminum, we still have Section 232s. There are still some relatively high tariffs on aluminum, but we would get the benefit of a reduced reciprocal tariff environment there. I don't want to get too wrapped up over the timing of when tariffs will play through.

It's going to be something that as we get more information, as we get guidance, I will be able to share more information in the coming weeks and quarters. I think right now, we don't know if we're going to get a windfall repayment of tariffs. That would clearly be a lift. I wouldn't bet the bank on that one, but it's certainly an option for this year. Brandon, would you.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Yeah, maybe just to provide some more color on tariffs. As Dominic said, it's fluid environment, to say the least. IEEPA tariffs are no longer to be collected, I believe, as of today. There has been no decision on refunds, and I agree with Dominic that we have not baked refunds into our plan, and that's probably prudent not to do that. The new Section 122 tariffs are expected to begin being collected and are assessed at 15%. It's notable that those tariffs effectively are in addition to the 232 tariffs.

Just so everybody understands, we would pay the 232 tariff on the metals content, aluminum specifically, and then the 122 tariffs would be assessed on top of the aluminum components. while the change does not benefit our current inventory as those tariffs have been capitalized, it does provide some positive opportunity for future imports. Assuming there are no changes to what we know as of 7:43 Central Time today. , we're going to continue to be as nimble as we can in this tariff environment and focus on delivering as much value as we can to our customers.

Dominic Bardos (CFO)

Thanks, Brian. Karina, next question, please.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Strouse with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Mark Strouse (Analyst)

Good morning, guys. Thank you very much for taking our questions. I wanted to go back to the ON.energy partnership, just to confirm. Is there anything embedded in the guide from that partnership this year? Do you have firm orders yet? Just kind of a reasonable time frame of when you might expect to see orders and associated revenue. I know kind of the conversion of that backlog to revenue is a bit up in the air, but anything you can provide would be great. Thank you.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Sure. we've alluded to excitement over the course of the last year around, um, around, uh, this opportunity in the battery energy storage space. Um, there, there is, uh, there, there is a portion of our, of our backlog and awarded orders that is attributed to, uh, to On Energy, and we are very excited about, uh, that potential, uh, partnership with them. I mean, they are, uh, a, a leader in building and operating hyperscale systems that specifically is serving the, the, the AI data center landscape and other mission-critical facilities. Um, and I think what we offer in this space to them and other customers is, is, is scale and, and really bankability.

We have built a production line, that is positioned to drive ample capacity in the coming years, and we're very excited about that. As it relates to the order patterns, again, like other customers, it will continue to be lumpy. Like all of our customers, whether it be in the solar space or battery energy storage, we've got delivery schedules, when we take the purchase orders, and we adhere to those delivery schedules. Once we get production started, again, as it relates to ON.energy or other customers here in the coming weeks on our new line, you will see more consistent revenue recognition, on into the year.

Mark Strouse (Analyst)

Okay, great. Then just, Dominic, a real quick follow-up just to clarify what you said earlier about still operating multiple buildings. When is that complete? When do you fully move into the new building?

Dominic Bardos (CFO)

Our current projections are for the end of Q2. We're fully in this building operationally. We are manufacturing already in the building. Our Big Lead Assembly lines are all being produced here in our new 1,500 Shoals Way facility. Right now on the floor, our harness lines are going in, but they're not operational yet. Our new best lines getting the final touches on for its grand opening here in the next few weeks. So by the middle of this year, we will be in. As we've talked about, we still have a redundant facility that would be rendered redundant this year in Plant Four. That lease does not expire until 2027, but we will start realizing operational savings and synergies in the back half of this year.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Thanks, Mark.

Mark Strouse (Analyst)

Thank you.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Karina?

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Praneeth Satish with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Praneeth Satish (Senior Equity Analyst)

Good morning. Thank you.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Good morning.

Praneeth Satish (Senior Equity Analyst)

Maybe switching gears a little bit here. , you've talked, you're seeing good success on the BESS side. Maybe on the data center BLA product that you're working on, I guess kind of moving from prototype, beta testing, and I think the latest is kind of waiting on UL certification. Yeah, maybe just if we could get an update on that. Are you still on track to potentially launch a commercial product this year? Is the expectation to get some meaningful sales in 2027? And just any remaining technical or customer gating items to note.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Praneeth, thanks for the question. We still are on track with our data center product. Again, we've talked about revenue recognition coming probably more so in 2027 than 2026. Still getting very strong voice of customer feedback for that particular product. Working towards certification. I would say the product is tracking quite well, but again, it will not materially impact our financials in 2026.

Praneeth Satish (Senior Equity Analyst)

Gotcha. Then, I think you mentioned the new BESS production line is going to be online shortly. I guess when this is up and running, how much manufacturing headroom do you have today to kind of support growth beyond the $67 million of orders and that you've booked already? Do you see the need for additional kind of investments in the coming years on the BESS side, or this kind of gets you set for the balance of the next few years?

Then as a follow-up to that, can you help us understand whether you'd need to spend incremental capital to support the data center BLA product, as we get into 2027, and how we should think about CapEx in 2027 at a high level?

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Sure. As far as the BESS line goes, nothing would give me more pleasure than to invest more capital to build a second production line for that particular product. We probably do not need to do that in the near term. We've commented in the past that production line is capable of producing hundreds of millions of dollars of product. , and it is set up for scale. We do have room, when you see our new facility, to put a second production line in effectively next to that line. , which can produce the same product or variation of a similar product. We have contemplated that in the design of our new building.

As it relates to the CapEx around the data center product, that product can be run, and it effectively leverages our BLA patent portfolio. You would think of the production setup as being similar to BLA as that product ramps, might we need to invest some capital to add additional BLA production lines? Potentially so. That is not an overly significant investment, should we have to do that. We're pretty comfortable with us being able to scale that business in the future. As it relates to overall capital spend we look at our CapEx spending to decline somewhat this year. I think the midpoint of our CapEx guidance was about $25 million.

We spent over $30 last year. We are still putting the finishing touches on this particular plant. As we've mentioned, before, there's some additional investment in IT and systems architecture for 2026 and probably into 2027. We will continue to normalize our CapEx spend in the coming years.

Matt Tractenberg (VP, Finance and Investor Relations)

Thank you, Praneeth. Karina, next question, please.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Colin Rusch (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks so much, guys. can you talk a little bit about project timing and design related to FEOC provisions? , they're still a little bit fuzzy, but wanted to get a sense of any sort of product delays that you're seeing given uncertainty around some of the supply sourcing that folks may be managing right now.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Thanks, Colin. I would not say that we're seeing a tremendous amount of volatility in projects related to FEOC. There are some late point changes maybe in modules, which require us to do some redesigns and slow down releases of the projects to our manufacturing floor. That happens. I wouldn't say it's overly predominant.

As it relates to FEOC, specific to our product set, as , the FEOC guidance that came out was fairly limited and still is pointing everything back to the best content tables, which eBOS is not a part of at this point in time, and we continue to try to make it a part of those tables, but have not seen success in getting that completed at this point in time. Not a tremendous amount of volatility there related to FEOC.

Colin Rusch (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

That's super helpful. Just on the energy storage product as we start to see some evolution around some of the configurations and voltage considerations for folks I'm curious about how quickly you guys can adjust to some of those, some of those adjustments and how much of that's built into this on contract. , as you look at the evolution of the market moving towards 800 volt, it seems like there's going to be a significant number of new opportunities, and wanted just to get a sense of the dexterity of the product to meet some of those needs.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

We have standardized our recombiner line around specific amperages to handle the configurations that we see in the marketplace today. We've got a 1,200 amp recombiner product, 2,000 and 4,000 amp. That 4,000 amp recombiner is probably the preferred product in larger AI data centers. We engineer those products specific to our customer base, and those products are capable and are handling effectively 800 volts of power at 4,000 amps and are doing somewhere probably north of 3.3 megawatts. I think we've got the right product at the right time for these particular solutions that are going into larger data centers.

Dominic Bardos (CFO)

Thank you, Colin. Karina?

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Dendrinos with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Chris Dendrinos (Clean Energy Analyst)

Thank you. I just wanted to ask about the backlog and the composition of it. I think you mentioned $67 million related to BESS, but what is the composition of maybe the CC&I products and that Long Tail BLA solution? I'm just trying to get a sense for how much that's kind of evolved and changed over the past year or so. Thanks.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

The CC&I product. That particular market you almost think of as book-and-turn. Very little of our backlog and awarded orders would be related to the C&I business. It is a very small number. As it relates to long-tail BLA, probably more so than the CC&I business, I don't know an exact number. We would have to look at project to project. The adoption of that particular product has been strong in the marketplace and is driving some of the new customers that we've got in our backlog and awarded orders that prefer that solution. I don't know the exact number of that off the top of my head.

Dominic Bardos (CFO)

Yeah, I don't, I don't either. Of the $140 million of the customers, the new customer BLAO, I don't know how much of that was long tail, but I do know that some customers have a very strong preference for that solution to centralize their load break disconnect. We haven't broken down our domestic utility-scale solar BLAO beyond that.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

About just to give some maybe additional context. , a lot of focus on new products, whether it is Long Tail BLA, our Super Harness, SuperJumper products, mini BLA. About 6% of our 2025 revenue was related to new products, in the solar core business, not related to BESS. We expect that number to continue to grow, as we're partnering with our customers.

Chris Dendrinos (Clean Energy Analyst)

Got it. Thank you. That's it for me.

Dominic Bardos (CFO)

Thanks, Chris.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Thanks, Chris. Karina, last question?

Operator (participant)

Your last question comes from the line of David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

David Arcaro (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

David, thank you so much. Good morning.

You mentioned a couple of discrete margin factors as we look into 2026, but I was wondering if you could just maybe comment on the competitive environment and what you're seeing there more broadly. , is there kind of increased pressure from a pricing perspective or new entrants, or are you seeing more products pop up to the market that you're competing against here?

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Tom, do you want to take the margin piece, and then I'll take the competitive landscape?

Dominic Bardos (CFO)

Sure. Some of the margin items that we called out and are going to continue in our guide for this year are a little bit more transitory in nature. I think from a competitive pricing standpoint, we have already recognized revenue in 2025 to win new customers over. The pricing incentives that we offered for folks to change to Shoals is not really considered an ongoing item for us. That's pretty much behind us at this point. From a competitive product set standpoint, our Big Lead Assembly product does face competition and has faced competition from Voltage. As about the findings from the administrative law judge, we have to be patient and work through that.

The IPC market, which other competitors have been competing with and will fight for scraps over that share of the business. We believe developers are more and more inclined to avoid IPCs, that's still playing out in the marketplace. I think from a margin standpoint, and the pricing pressures, every job that we do is a negotiation. Every opportunity that we have to look at the competitive set and the quality of Shoals products, we will take advantage of that and emphasize our product quality and delivery.

The last thing I would say on the margin side is as we build back some of the margins and have the opportunity to convert people to Big Lead Assembly away from home run solutions or other types of harness solutions, I think what that does for us is it gives us a chance to push people to a better value-driving product for themselves and also gives us a better margin. We need the flexibility in margins to do what we need to do to drive operating profit, and that's really where we're focusing, driving cash flow, taking business. If we have capacity, is there a reason I shouldn't take a 30% margin job? Absolutely not. I should take it. It's the right thing for the shareholders.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

It’s important to reiterate, I still believe there is a strong preference for our solutions and our quality product, and that's evidenced in the increase in our book of business and our growth relative to the overall solar market. I think the commercial team is performing quite well, and the new solutions that our product team is bringing to market are being adopted by our customers. We are very confident in our book of business and continue to be confident to grow that book of business.

Dominic Bardos (CFO)

Great. Thank you, guys. To our audience, that's all the time that we have for questions today. I want to note that we have a very active IR calendar through March. Those events are listed on the investor relations section of our website, so if you're attending any conferences, you'd like to meet with us, please let us know. If we can help you further, please reach out to [email protected] with any questions. Thanks for joining us today. Have a great day, everyone.

Brandon Moss (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

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