Recorded, and thank you all very much for joining the ITM Power call today. You've got Investec hosting it. Thank you to the buy side and the sell side. There'll be an opportunity for everyone to ask questions after Graham and Andy have run through a 10- to 15-minute update on the company. Please look after your mute buttons. The call is recorded, so please be cognizant of that. Without further ado, Graham, over to you. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Luke, for the introduction. Thank you to everybody for joining the call. Just checking that I'm sharing my screen. Luke, if you wouldn't mind just confirming that for me. How am I doing?
It's all good. You're good to go.
I'm good to go. Okay, that's great. Yeah, thanks for coming to the call, everybody. This is a trading update, and it's for the three-month period since we last reported our numbers on September the 13th. It's going to be me, first of all. I'm the CEO, Graham Cooley, talking you through a quick update, and then I'm going to hand over to Andy Allen, our Finance Director, CFO, who's going to talk you through the finances. It's a pretty succinct presentation. We're not going to have death by PowerPoint. We're very keen to take your questions. Highlights then. If I were to summarize this trading update, it would be somewhere along the lines of solid progress.
I think we've converted a significant amount of megawatts from the tender pipeline to the final stages of negotiation, and they've moved now into our backlog. Our backlog now stands at a record of just under half a gigawatt, 499 MW, up from 310 MW three months ago. We've also converted some more contracts from the final stages of negotiation, and we now have work in progress of 62 MW. During the period, we were delighted to announce the Whitelee project, backed by the U.K. government. It's the first 10 MW of an overall 20-MW project with ScottishPower connected to the U.K.'s largest onshore wind farm. We completed the final report for Gigastack, the GEP test rig.
The testing rig for the 5 MW module technology is now up and running. We've entered the operations phase of the REFHYNE project, which involves the 10 MW electrolyzer at the Rheinland Refinery with Shell, and we're seeing very good results from that. We've made some significant additions to our management team, and I'm going to elaborate on that in the next slide. We announced the heads of terms for the purchase of a site for our new gigafactory in the U.K., which represents our expansion from 1 GW per annum to 2.5 GW per annum, and this will be online by the end of 2023.
In terms of team developments, Martin, Helen, and Nadia, who are the new Operations Director, Company Secretary, and Head of Procurement, respectively, have already started and are making important contributions to the company. We have identified our new Projects Director, Chris, who headed the Project Delivery Office at Rolls-Royce. He will become our Projects Director and starts in February. We are also in the process of recruiting a Commercial Director. We are procuring some very strong new skills and experience for the company, as these managers and directors have had very senior experience across British industry. In terms of skill development, the organization is expanding.
We are investing in skills, particularly in the areas of product innovation and service. We've been recruiting engineers and managers, and you can see that we've moved from 250 full-time staff in April 2021 to 350 last October. This is a significant influx of highly skilled engineers and technologists into the company. In terms of the progress of the numbers, you can see this graphically. We have made significant increases at all levels in the pipeline. The total backlog has moved from 310 MW to just under 500 MW. The most significant change, then, is tenders moving into the final stage of negotiation.
In other words, they were tendered, we have been selected, and we are now negotiating terms and conditions. Some of those projects that were under negotiation have already been converted into our contracted backlog. I think there's some solid progress there. A reduction in the tender pipeline as a result of some large-volume contracts moving into the negotiation stage. That's a very positive change. In terms of project sizes and segmenting those projects, same as before, this will be a consistent theme in reporting. We divide up into four project classes: those projects between 0-4 MW, those between 4-20 MW, those projects between 20-80 MW, and those above 80 MW.
You can see a typical project, in the case of 100 MW, at the bottom right-hand side, and a containerized plug-and-play on the top right-hand side. In the tender pipeline then, where is the demand? Who is putting out tenders, and for what types of projects? The fastest-growing and largest cumulative number of megawatts is in projects above 80 MW in size. This is an increased weighting towards larger projects. This is very logical because the entry market for green hydrogen is replacing industrial hydrogen, which is made with natural gas.
We're seeing a very strong dynamic here, where the cost of green hydrogen has come down, the cost of industrial gray hydrogen has gone up because of the supply issues to do with natural gas, and we're seeing a very interesting dynamic in the industry towards larger projects. Where are they in the world? This pie chart hasn't changed significantly since the last time we showed it. A little bit more in the U.S. The U.S. is really now becoming a significant target market because of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and a very significant strategic emphasis on green hydrogen in the U.S. Still leading is the EMEA region, particularly Europe, but now increasingly projects are being announced in the Middle East and also APAC, particularly Australia.
A very similar spread to what we reported in September. This is my last slide. In terms of the new location for the new factory of 1.5 gigawatts per annum of production, we've identified the site. It's 1.4 miles, a 4-minute drive away from Bessemer Park. It's on the Advanced Manufacturing Park. We're in a very important cluster in the U.K., next to the Nuclear AMRC, the factory of the future, Boeing, Rolls-Royce, and McLaren, all in this technology cluster. We are negotiating the purchase of the land, and looking at it. It's subject to planning consent, and we are making progress on that. We are on target for production from that new facility in Q4 of 2023.
If I can hand over now to Andy Allen, our CFO, Andy's going to talk you through the finances.
Thanks, Graham, and good afternoon, everybody. I'll first talk a bit more about our backlog and pipeline. Graham's already shown you the highlights on the left-hand side, but I want to draw a bit of attention to the table on the right-hand side. This is what we included in the RNS this morning. You can see that work in progress, if you switch to the right-hand side, the number of megawatts, is up 45% in the last three months, and the contracts backlog is up 61% in the last three months. The tender pipeline is down slightly, and that's about conversion into that contracts backlog. If you added the two together, backlog and pipeline, we're up 7% in those three months.
The figure that sticks out for some is perhaps the change in values that accompanies that, particularly around work in progress. Although the megawatts have gone up, the value to ITM has gone down by 6%. There are three drivers here. The first is that we've recognized some revenue in the period. While we've kept the 10 megawatts of REFHYNE in the work in progress, a chunk of the revenue recognized against the REFHYNE projects has been recognized. Your number of megawatts stays high, and the value goes down. Secondly, we've stripped out projects for ITM Motive, which are going to fill the shop floor, but they won't generate revenue for us. They'll generate revenue through fuel sales and not through product sales.
What you see now is a very production-focused work-in-progress line, which is all about units that are going to turn into revenue. The final bit is that we've actually converted from the backlog into work in progress. We've signed contracts of about 20 MW worth, just in excess of 20 MW worth, about GBP 14 million, with an average sales price of just under GBP 700,000 per MW. That is the other dynamic to consider here: not only are our products and our cost reduction curve being met, but we're also seeing a change in product mix to larger projects where the ITM scope is smaller. All of these numbers are just showing the value to ITM, not the total project scope.
In terms of the results for the six months to the end of October, the full income results announcement will come out toward the end of January. Some headlines here: Total revenue of GBP 4.1 million versus GBP 0.2 million for the same period last year. Actually, we did GBP 4.3 million for the full year, so you can see a step change in what's happening in terms of revenue. Adjusted EBITDA loss was GBP 13 million against GBP 10.4 million for the same period last year. In terms of cash at the period end, we had GBP 167 million, and that excludes the GBP 242 million net that we raised in November. Cash burn was GBP 12 million for the first six months against GBP 40 million for the same period a year ago.
We expect cash burn to start increasing, partly with building stock, but also we're starting to invest in that new manufacturing facility that Graham's talked about. Final slide from me: In terms of guidance, it is unchanged from what we said in September. Our completed products will be in the range of 33-50 MW, and our core stack modules, which are setting us up for next year's production, will be in excess of 55 MW. Revenue is going to be heavily weighted to the second half of the year. There are potential risks with revenue recognition. We include these for completeness, but actually, we think these risks are likely diminishing from when we last reported.
Particularly around plug-and-play units, the smaller products that we sell, site access and travel restrictions could have an impact on us completing all of the work on-site. We also have microchips within the small plug-and-play units. We know that there has been a global shortage. We've worked well with Linde to mitigate a lot of those risks. They're included for completeness but perhaps aren't affecting the bigger picture here. I'll hand back to Graham for a summary.
Thanks, Andy. So, just a very quick summary from me. I think there's been very solid progress in converting from tenders into backlog, and then in negotiation, falling under work in progress. I think we've seen strong market and policy momentum over the period. It's only a three-month period, but I think conversion from the tender pipeline has been the headline. In terms of going forward, you'll see more of that pipeline and sales development, you'll see more strategic recruitment, and you'll see some announcements about partnerships with ITM Motive. That's the summary, really. Short and succinct, so we have time to take your questions. Over to you.
Guys, thank you very much indeed for the presentation, Graham and Andy. Alex Smith first with a question, then Colin Grant. If you want to ask subsequent questions, raise your hand. Cheers.
Hi, guys. Hi, Graham, Andy, team. Thank you very much for the presentation today. It'd be good to kind of get a sense of how operations are running at the plant. I guess you've made a wave of new hires in the past year, and could you kind of identify maybe two or three key new hires that are really making a change in the business and really being a part of that new integration that you're talking about, and kind of how the factory floor is looking as we really begin to ramp up in 2022. Thank you.
Sure. I'd be delighted to do that, Alex. First of all, it's a shame that the team from Investec and some of the investors didn't actually get to visit the factory today, although that was scheduled. The very best way of understanding the activity in the factory is to visit, and you can see all the things that are going on. The shop floor is full now. In terms of key hires, well, first of all, I'm very pleased to report how much of a contribution Martin Clay is making. Martin's the new Operations Director. Martin is managing production. We've got a very strong production team with Grant Siegel, who has been the Production Manager for some time now.
Also joined by a gentleman from McLaren who's also adding some very significant expertise to that team. Martin is working very closely with Nadia. Nadia is a very experienced procurement manager. She was with Alstom before joining us, and she was procurement head at JCB before Alstom, making an important contribution to the procurement activity. We also, not included in the slides, have Sharon Poulter, who has joined us and is heading our MarComms team. Of course, quite recently, Justin joined James' team, making an important contribution with James in the area of IR.
I think in all areas the teams are strengthening, and we are strategically recruiting some important skills into the company. I don't know, Andy, if you've got anything to add in terms of the finance department. A lot of strong hires in technology as well. Andy, anything to add to that?
No, I mean, I think you're right about the people. We've found that Sheffield is a great place to hire people. We've got a good amount of resources in the location. The other part of the question is about what's happening on the shop floor. You do need to come and see it, but it's starting to fill up. We're starting to build product stock as well, and it's getting busier, and it's really exciting to see that happen. Again, the invite is extended.
That's clear. Thank you, gents. Colin, over to you.
Hi, everybody, and thanks for doing the call. Just a question, really. We've seen some very large moves in natural gas prices, and hydrogen is obviously, to an extent, competing against that. I'm just wondering if you could give us any latest thoughts, Graham, on what the economics look like for hydrogen ga-
Yeah. Sorry, you broke up a bit there, Colin. Did you finish your question?
I think-
Colin, any latest thoughts on that?
Okay. Yeah, very, very happy to do that. Colin, the first thing to say is that yesterday morning, the EU announced its Hydrogen and Decarbonised Gas Market Package. You'll have seen the announcement from Frans Timmermans. It used to be called the gas package, and they changed its name which, you know, I think in itself is a significant signal. Gas and energy strategy in Europe is becoming incredibly complex and extremely urgent. As you know, natural gas prices have gone up considerably, due principally to supply from Russia. Fuel security has become a very significant and political issue.
As gas prices go up, of course, you see the price of supplying energy through the gas grid, which needs decarbonizing anyway, increasing the cost of gray hydrogen, industrial hydrogen. You have this dynamic now where green hydrogen, because of the reduction in the cost of renewable power, is coming down. Gray industrial hydrogen, the cost is going up. We have now crossed over all over Europe. All over Europe, you can make green hydrogen. If you get the right electricity price and the right load factor, you can make green hydrogen at a lower cost than industrial hydrogen made from natural gas. There are some questions, right? The first question is this increased price in natural gas, is it a sticky increase in price, or is it short-term volatility, and will it re-normalize?
It's a question that is difficult to answer. The second question to answer is this: where will Europe and the U.K. be? Because we are linked, we import half of all our natural gas. Most of it comes from Norway, and the Norwegians are under pressure to supply other parts of Europe, not just the U.K. It does affect us, particularly Germany. The question is, how long will it last? Number one. Number two, if you're going to develop a policy for fuel security, how do you do that? Do you put in more natural gas infrastructure, or do you develop green hydrogen, given that we're in an energy transition? You've got price crossover, energy security, and the third very important point is price volatility.
You know, if you connect an electrolyzer via a PPA to renewable power, you get an absolutely solid price for a long period of time—in fact, for the duration of the PPA. You're increasing fuel security, decreasing fuel volatility, and also the absolute price has converged. The gas package that was announced, what that gas package is doing is, I think, two important things. It's setting the legislation for what is termed clean hydrogen, as a first, and looking at blending infrastructure, methane emissions to kilograms of hydrogen that's made from fossil. That's the first thing. The second thing is it's looking at the way that green hydrogen or low-carbon hydrogen will be introduced into the gas grid.
Now, introducing hydrogen into the gas grid is a pretty significant activity because on the planet it is the largest energy vector. I think that announcement and that policy document are really worth drilling down on. Does that answer-
Thanks, Graham.
your question?
It does, yeah. Graham, just as a follow-on, in terms of your discussions with utilities, are you actually seeing any near-term change? Are they trying to accelerate any plans? 'Cause some of them are switching from gas to oil, 'cause the oil price in some cases is maybe cheaper now on a BTU basis. Are any of them accelerating plans in terms of switching to hydrogen or doing anything on that front?
Yeah, I mean, the way that we report activity is our tender pipeline. I'm not avoiding your question. I will get back to it, Colin, so please forgive me for going at it from a different angle. I think we're the only electrolyzer manufacturer that reports a tender pipeline. We give you an accurate measure of the activity in the market. The proof of the pudding of what we're saying, rather than me being anecdotal about it, is whether you see more activity in the tender pipeline. The wider pipeline, and there's a much wider pipeline. There are 200 gigawatts of electrolyzer projects identified by the Aurora Energy Research report. We see increasing amounts of activity in the market, and some of it is driven by gas prices. This is correct.
One other anecdotal point is that CF Fertilisers has two plants in the U.K., and they were temporarily closed down because of the cost of industrial hydrogen. They actually had to be supported as a matter of emergency by the U.K. government. The reason they had to be supported was that the U.K. ran out of CO2, which is a by-product needed for food processing.
Thank you, everybody. Will, on to you.
Thanks, buddy.
Thanks very much. I had two questions, please. Firstly, I just wondered if you can give us any help on the phasing of the contract backlog as it is, that £200 million. Secondly, just linked to Colin's question, I guess. I just wondered, you know, looking as well at CO2 pricing, carbon pricing, obviously that's been moving up quite steeply as well. Just wondering if that's driving conversations forward as well. Thanks.
It is a very good point, and that's the other dynamic. Your first question, I'll hand over to Andy about the phasing of revenue, but let me answer your second question first. Carbon pricing is increasing, particularly the European carbon price. I don't know what it is today, and I'm sure someone's looking at their screen and can probably tell us, but it's somewhere between EUR 71-EUR 75. That is an amazing place to get to. Reports are telling us that it's going to get to EUR 100 by year-end. Now, whether that will happen or not, I don't know.
The dynamic you have is the increasing carbon price and increasing natural gas price, which is driving up the cost of industrial hydrogen and reducing the cost of green hydrogen. It's a pretty strong dynamic, Will, and I think all the arrows are pointing in a good direction for green hydrogen. Andy, do you want to talk about phasing?
Yeah, thanks. Sure. I guess the bit that we're most certain of is the 62 MW that's work in progress. We'll address that first. Really, we might expect 30%-40% of that happening in FY 2022, a similar amount in FY 2023, and the balance being in FY 2024. Now, that is not the capacity of the factory, and you can expect, particularly for FY 2023, FY 2024, that we're adding on top of that as we convert what's in negotiation into work in progress. I'm not going to commit to a number for what's in negotiation, but suffice it to say that we could accept far more and put it through the shop floor.
One of the things we're doing is building to stock so that we can reduce lead times and recognize in the same year that we get those contracts signed.
Lovely. Thanks very much.
Thank you very much indeed. Bruce, over to you.
Thanks very much. It's a question on ITM Motive. Can you say a bit about that in terms of the key objectives or milestones for it over the next year? And have you given any thought to spinning it out as a sort of separate business with a sort of like an in-specie distribution amongst existing ITM shareholders? The reason I ask that is I think the investment demands for it going forward are obviously going to increase. It's a different sort of business to your main core business. I just wondered whether on that basis it would be better spun out with you retaining a major shareholding.
Yeah. Bruce, those are a great set of questions. Just for everyone's understanding, ITM Motive is the wholly owned subsidiary of ITM Power, which has been separated out as a wholly owned subsidiary. The assets are transferred to that company, and it owns all of our hydrogen refueling stations. The hydrogen refueling business, ITM Motive, has a different business model from ITM Power. ITM Power is a manufacturer of electrolysis equipment, and we sell equipment that is deployed by Linde. Whereas ITM Motive is a build, own, and operate organization that is looking at building hydrogen refueling stations for buses, trucks, and trains.
We allocated GBP 30 million to the development of ITM Motive, and I think I said in my last slide, the summary slide under the outlook section, that we would likely be announcing ITM Motive partnerships. Where are we now with ITM Motive? Our Birmingham Refueling Station and our bus refueling station in Birmingham are servicing buses from National Express. We have their reference plant. We are looking at developing partnerships with vehicle OEMs and fleet operators to build further and roll out more large-scale megawatt-level refueling stations in the UK. ITM PLC will be delivering the electrolysis equipment, and ITM Motive will be building, owning, and operating that equipment. That's the business model.
That's appreciated. I hope that's a good enough answer. Bruce, I appreciate it. Adam, you're on the line. The floor is yours. Just need you to come off mute, Adam, and then you're in business.
Sorry, I think I was trying to use my phone. I hope you can hear me. Two questions have been made. Firstly, can you give us an update on the average cost of production and just how that might develop as Bessemer Park fills out? Secondly, I noticed that with the existing business, it's going through either yourself as an integrator or ILE. I wonder, are you seeing any business interest from third-party integrators? Thanks.
Yeah. No, that's fine. If I take the second question first, then Andy, if you want to take the cost question. Adam, thanks for the two questions. In terms of integration, the bit that we integrate is plug-and-play units, and we concentrate most on a 2-megawatt, what's called a three MEP product. If somebody wants 0 to 4 megawatts, we've got one or two of those containers on the ground. From 4 up to about 10 or 20 megawatts, you might implement plug-and-play units, or it might be integrated by ILE. That's the table segmenting product size that you saw in the presentation. We actually have no desire to develop a relationship with any other integrator.
Working very closely with Linde Engineering and EPC, we are doing incredibly well at developing that relationship, reducing the cost of the balance of plant, and it is a genuinely productive relationship. Why we would want to start another integration partnership and do all that work again, I don't see the logic in that. You know, we formed a joint venture with Linde called ITM Linde Electrolysis, and it's a very productive JV, so we're very happy with our integration partner. For smaller stuff, we may well use plug-and-play units. Hope that's okay as an answer for you, Adam. Andy-
Yep. Nice and clear. Thank you.
Okay, on the cost question, Andy.
Yeah, sure. I suppose there are a number of ways of looking at this, but if we start by looking at what's a work in progress, right now we've got an average of GBP 550,000 per megawatt. If you look at the pipeline, which is the products that are coming next, we're at about GBP 400,000. There are two dynamics there. One is product mix, and the other one is the cost reduction curve. I know this is a cost reduction question. The first part of that cost reduction curve is technology-led. Then the second part of the curve, as we go, you know, into sort of the mid-2020s, was volume-led. We're not currently at a position in Bessemer Park where we're seeing price reduction through volume.
We're doing that through technology and R&D. We do expect to start to see that happening in the next two or three years from volume as well.
Great. Thanks very much. Really helpful.
Erwan, over to you. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks. Hi there.
Line's-
Can you hear me?
Linde's. Yeah, go for it.
Okay. Okay, perfect. Okay, cool. Yeah, follow-up question for Andy. Still on the value per megawatt on the revenue side of things. The trend is down, and you mentioned one of the drivers is obviously the size of the contracts that's going up. I was wondering to what extent, if you could give a percentage, the reselling of stack replacement upgrades and changes to stacks that are already in place is in the mix and basically puts the value per megawatt down. Thank you.
I guess what we're doing, trying to do is present a very clean work in progress, so that is purely of our products. There are other revenues that are sort of very early stage in terms of after-sales packages that we're looking to sell and enhanced support that we can sell beyond that. When you're looking at what was in the announcement today, that's purely products, so you compare like to like.
Got it. Perfect.
Thank you very much indeed. Christopher, over to you. Thank you.
Sorry, struggled to unmute my line there.
That's okay.
Could I just follow up on a point from Graham about PPAs and looking at renewable power and trying to get the security of off-take there? I'm just wondering what your views are as we see that develop. Do you think green hydrogen can be powered with PPAs attached? You know, we note that in your Gigastack study, you're looking to source 20% grid power. I just wonder, you know, is that where you think the market goes in terms of PPAs being utilized for green hydrogen production? That's the first question. Then the second is really to Andy, please, and I think following on from the point from the last question, just about how much are we looking at here in terms of percentage share for Linde on the system price?
Because clearly the work in progress has reduced. You commented that large orders are coming through and you guys naturally will get a smaller share. It'd just be useful if there's any sort of yardstick you can give us as the analyst community to tell us where we're sitting as an average system price, what percentage is coming through to you. Thanks.
Okay, I'll start with the PPA question. That's a good observation, having you obviously look to the Gigastack before accessing 20% grid power. It is a pretty amazing place to have gotten to. Christopher, if you look at that 80% load factor coming from offshore wind, it's telling you quite an interesting thing there. What it says is this: if you couple a very large offshore wind generator that has a 55% load factor with a load that's 100 MW, you do actually get somewhere around an 80% load factor on the electrolyzer, which we were celebrating as very good news.
What you'd be doing there is combining a PPA with wind, combined with power that comes through the grid, which could also be a PPA, but for wind that you're not directly coupled to, which is the argument that Ørsted uses about PPAs being a portfolio thing. The other issue is for RED II compliant hydrogen, you need to be direct to renewable power. The debate that's going on at the moment is whether you should be able to be qualified as being green hydrogen via a PPA or renewable energy contract, where some of the power also comes through the grid. This is the live debate that's in Europe at the moment.
PPA, where you are directly coupling to an offshore wind farm like Hornsea, which is 1.4 GW, and making 100 MW of green hydrogen gives you a load factor of 80%, and that is pretty significantly green hydrogen. If you buy the other 20% using a renewable energy contract, then you've got a very low carbon footprint, green hydrogen. The question is, can you define it as being green hydrogen? That is the debate.
Following up on that, do you believe the debate will shift? Do you believe that for nations—maybe the EU is going to be different—but do we think, "Hey, if there is a PPA in that nation that you can procure, and you can then say, 'Okay, I have X megawatts of power each year coming through this PPA, and I will then, as a result (unlike you guys doing 20% from the grid), I might do 50%, or I might do 80%, or I might even do 90% from the grid'"? Do you think that could ever happen?
Yeah. Look, renewable energy contracts, if you go back to renewable energy contracts offered by retailers when they were first introduced, the whole principle is if the retail end buys renewable energy contracts, you increase the amount of investment in renewable energy, and therefore, at the generation end, you end up with more renewables deployed. Exactly the same is the case with electrolysis. You know, the electricity network, because of intermittent power, needs energy storage and grid balancing. If you do it via the PPA route, and you're connected directly to the high-voltage network, then you've got a bank of electrolyzers which you can use for energy storage and grid balancing, and you can generate anywhere in the network. The point is there are more flexible loads on the network.
The argument is that doing it via the PPA allows you to accelerate the deployment of flexible loads, such as electrolysis equipment.
And-
That's the argument. It's very similar to the argument we went through with retail when we developed green electricity contracts. You know, the origin of all those green electricity suppliers, whatever it was a decade ago now, same rationale really.
Yeah. Sorry to continue on this point, but I think it's pretty pertinent.
Yeah.
If it turns out that PPAs, as you say, are net positive for us getting to net zero quicker, I shouldn't have said "net" twice there. If it incentivizes further renewables, if it causes people to expand that, and we could see that happening, which electrolyzer system is best suited there? Is it the one that is highly responsive, or is it the one that's most efficient?
The whole reason for doing it is to incentivize rapid response loads on the demand side so that you can respond when you need frequency regulation. Actually, the whole proposition of using hydrogen to allow more renewable power on the network has to do with being able to absorb intermittency and for energy storage.
Sure. Thanks. Sorry to Andy, maybe on the pricing, if you could. Thanks.
Yeah, sure. Linde has done a couple of webinars this year, which have been very helpful. They did one around the tenth of June, which basically said, "Look, we're looking at about EUR 750 per megawatt, seven hundred thousand euros per megawatt split into thirds. Stacks is one-third, balance of plant is one-third, and the bit in the middle is sort of supporting the system." That could be done by either ITM or Linde. The percentages flex depending on what the sale is. What we're also finding is there isn't a standard sale yet when it comes to the turnkey solution. There are often ancillary products bolted on by Linde.
Actually, we've got a very competitive offering, but it's quite hard on a pure numbers basis to say this is the number for a system.
Yeah, that's absolutely right. If I might add to that, Christopher, by saying that, as the systems get larger, they get more complex. It's not just a straight electrolyzer with a balance of plant; it can be compression, liquefaction, an ammonia plant, a Fischer-Tropsch plant as well, and the possibility of making sustainable aviation fuel, methanol, all those sorts of things. When you get to that point, it becomes pretty nonsensical to say what the overall contract is because you'd have to go into great detail about what was included in the overall project. We just talk about the amounts of money for the part that is ITM's part of the system.
That's brilliant. Thank you, everyone. Cognizant of the time here, I'm just hoping we can have a quick question from Adam Collins and a succinct answer, and we'll try and get through our last remaining people. Over to you, Adam. Adam Collins, are you off mute there? If not, last chance. Celine, Adam, got it? Adam Collins? No. Edward, over to you. You're on mute, Edward.
Good afternoon, Graham.
Hi.
My question was just on progress with the potential 100 MW electrolyzer at the Wesseling plant for Shell. I think there was an announcement or a press release last year. I can't remember who did it, whether it was Sasol or Linde that was talking about a potential 200 MW electrolyzer at Sasol for sustainable aviation fuel.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah. Thank you, Edward. Two important projects, of course. The first one, the Rheinland Refinery, 100 MW. As you can see, that project was selected as the first 100 MW PEM electrolyzer by the EU, and that was an important milestone for the project. There is a more detailed FEED study required at the front end so that we can very accurately cost that plant, and that is the process that we're in right now. It will get to financial close. I think we've announced the timeline for it. That's important because, of course, it's now being tracked by the EU.
You know, the first plant, the 10 MW, we're doing great work with Shell on-site right now, and we're going into operations with that unit. In parallel with that, we are having discussions with Shell and Linde about finalizing the engineering. You know, what you do when you begin a project is you all get together to do pricing, and then when you go through a FEED study, you more accurately drill down on the prices. Actually, you have to do that because when you're signing a contract for a large-scale EPC, you have to have accuracy and firm pricing, and that's the process being gone through at the moment. The 200-megawatt is also a sustainable aviation fuel project.
Your reference to it comes from a Linde webinar. There is an article written about that plant. It's a Sasol, Linde Gas project. It has been announced. I have no update I can make on that, Edward, right now. I think there are some exciting projects appearing in the 100-megawatt class, as you can see from our breakdown in the tender pipeline. Yeah.
Okay. Is that okay?
Okay. Thank you. Yep, that's perfect.
That's fine.
Thank you.
I've got the Adam Collins question there. It's in the chat. It's basically saying, "International trade projects, Chile, North Africa, Australia, et cetera, how well-placed are you to secure those? Do you see some tendering next year? Can Australia and Chile be supplied from the U.K., please?"
Chile and Australia can be supplied from the UK. I'll take that one first. Second, do we see tendering activity next year? Very definitely, yes. You know, a very strong emphasis on doing that. Are the territories that you identified ones that are key for the green hydrogen industry as well as being key for ITM? Yes, they are. When would we consider not supplying from the UK but manufacturing locally? That would be demand-driven.
That's fantastic. Thank you. One last question here. Jean-Marc, over to you.
Hi, Graham. Yeah, thanks for making time to take my questions. Just a bit on the bottom-up, really. Firstly, what are your production yields on stacks looking like these days as you're ramping up volumes?
Sorry, what do you mean by production yield?
What percentage of the stacks that come off the production line are fully sealed and operable the first time? What proportion have to be reworked?
I can't remember seeing a rework in terms of stacks. I mean, it's very high, you know, almost 100%. I mean, that
Wow.
That's what we do the testing for. What do you mean? I'm not entirely understanding your question. Do you want to just state it again?
Well-
I mean, we have a production line.
Well, you're currently ramping up production, you know, increasing the volumes and moving, you know, from manual to semi-automated to fully automated. I mean, no manufacturing process is 100%. You know, people strive to get five sigma, six sigma, whatever it is. I'm just wondering where you guys are at right now with your core manufacturing.
If we move and change anything in the process, we test the lines first of all. We do a lot of testing. In the testing process, you have some failures, of course. When you go into production, you're very confident about the output that you achieve. Are you asking us for publicly stated Six Sigma data? We wouldn't be in a position to disclose that on a call like this.
Okay. Understood. In terms of the actual products, I mean, obviously you've had a few warranty recalls over the last few years. Where are you at in terms of the average stack life in the field? Have you done any more testing in terms of degradation? Do you have any current degradation rates you can guide us to that support the lifetimes you're providing?
Yeah. Maybe I'll take the last one first, and then Andy, you can talk about warranty provisions. We've been testing lifetime for years and years. We have loads of small stacks, and we make modifications to the components, and we look at how it affects their lifetime. You know, the way that we work with lifetime in the field is that we charge our customers for after-sales support, and we work with them, and any issues that we might see in the field will be fully covered under that after-sales support contract. The stacks and the electrolysis equipment are very reliable, and we do more and more testing and increasing lifetimes all of the time.
I mean, you can use an electrolyzer badly if you wanted to. If you wanted to do that, you'd put dirty water in it, and you'd turn it on and off rapidly every day with dirty water in it. We look after our electrolyzers so that they perform well. Andy, do you want to talk about warranty provision?
Well, I think you said a lot. I think where there has been a higher provision, it's typically been around treatment of the stacks, but we have systems that look after them. We've learned a lot of lessons. We've deployed first-of-a-kind plants out there, and we have supported it, so all of our customers are incredibly happy. What we're seeing now is an incredibly low rate of warranty requirements.
I think we'll leave it there on questions if that's okay, everybody. If anyone has a big urge to ask a question, you can talk over me now and hop on. I'm assuming we've gone through all the questions that people have asked here that I can see. Graham, over to you for a conclusion, if you can wrap it up, please. Thank you.
Yeah, sure. I think the summary at the end is probably the same as the one I gave at the beginning, which is that we've made solid progress. We've converted from the tender pipeline to the backlog and from backlog to work in progress. We're very focused now on delivery, on building our top line and recognized revenue, building and manufacturing to inventory so that we can reduce lead times. And you know, it's all about doing that solid work now and this fantastic market coming through in the numbers. Thanks very much for your time and your interest in ITM.
Thank you to everyone here on the call, to the company, to the buy side, to the sell side, and to you and yours, festive cheer, and thank you for your time. Cheers.