Hello, and welcome to the Alfen 2024 Q1 trading update call. My name is Laura, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this call is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only mode. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. Today, we have Marco Roeleveld, the CEO, joined by Michelle Lesh, CCO, as our presenters. I will now hand you over to your host, Marco Roeleveld, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Thank you, Laura. Good morning, and welcome to this webcast regarding the 2024 first quarter trading update of Alfen. We appreciate the fact you have taken the effort to participate. As indicated by the moderator, this webcast, questions that may come forward are handled by the management of Alfen, being Michelle Lesh, CCO, and Marco Roeleveld, CEO. In this webcast, we will start with the highlights of the first quarter of this year, followed by a short review per business line. Next, we will go in more detail regarding the financials and outlook. We continue with slide 3, with the highlights of the first quarter of 2024. In this quarter, we realized EUR 116.8 million in revenue. This represents a growth of 3% compared to the same period last year.
This growth was driven by a growth of 32% of Smart Grid Solutions. The 16% lower EV charging revenue was mainly related due to the fact that in the first quarter of 2023, we benefited from huge order backlog from orders in 2022. Energy storage revenue was 8% lower due to timing aspect of a single project in project execution. The overall gross margin was stable at 32%, compared to 32.1% in the same quarter last year. This gross margin excludes the one-off of EUR 5 million costs related to the Liander Pacto substation moisture issue, and these one-off costs are also excluded from the adjusted EBITDA.
As a percentage of revenue, the Adjusted EBITDA declined from 12.7 in the first quarter of last year to 8.2% in the same quarter this year, as a result of the time shift in revenue recognition in energy storage. In 2024, the revenue will be backloaded to about the second half of 2024, driven by a ramp up of, a ramp up of substations, where we are confident that due to the new building that's now finished and, where the moving of production will start coming weekend and will be finished at, the end of Q2, that in the second half of the year, we will be able to further ramp production of Smart Grid Solutions.
Second reason for revenue to be backloaded is the demand for AFIR-compliant EV chargers, and of course, the timing of energy storage projects towards the second half of the year. Two organizational aspects are relevant. The first one is that we have appointed an interim CFO in the person of Onno Krap. Onno joined Alfen as per today. Furthermore, we have strengthened our management structure by extending our ExCom with Bart Kempen, as COO, and Anne de Nood as CHRO. Regarding the outlook, we reconfirm our 2024 full-year revenue guidance and our EBITDA margin, and we are also sure that we will have a positive free cash flow at the end of the year. We also reconfirm our growth ambition for Smart Grid Solutions and EV storage. EV charging. For energy storage, we...
There will likely be less than 40% revenue growth due to the rapid decline in battery prices. I will go in more detail on the financials later on in this presentation. Our CCO, Michelle Lesh, will now continue this webcast.
Thanks, Marco. Now we'll talk through each of our product lines, starting with EV charging. In EV charging, we saw revenues of EUR 39.3 million, which is down 16% year on year. Q1 2023 is challenging to compare with, as we had significant backlogs carried over from 2022. Q1 2024 does show modest quarter-on-quarter growth compared to Q4 2023. We had 66% of our revenue generated outside the Netherlands, and we still expect to grow EV charging approximately 15% into 2024. This is really driven by new AFIR requirements and recent tender wins, where we're already seeing order intake for our new Twin 5 Plus AFIR-compliant product. As we move to Smart Grid Solutions, we achieved EUR 54.9 million revenue for Q1 2024, which is a year-on-year increase of 32%.
This is primarily driven by the increased grid operator volume. This increase is as expected, and as previously communicated, we continue to see the long-term growth trend for smart grids. Just to note for Liander, we do expect a one-off revenue impact in Q2, but to be clear, there was no revenue impact in Q1 for Liander. The EUR 5 million cost Q1 impact was just for the Liander Pacto stations and was a one-off in SGS. It's also important to note that the production stop was just for Liander. Our other SGS business was not impacted and continued, and will continue into Q2. Finally, in energy storage systems, Q1 saw revenues of EUR 22.6 million, which is down 8% year-on-year. The volatility in Q1, as Marco explained, was driven by a single large project milestone tied to a site delay, which was out of our control.
We will see a recovery in Q2 and further acceleration of revenue in the second half. In addition, we do see that the battery prices will have a larger impact on future 2024 revenue, as prices have fallen faster than we had forecasted at the end of 2023. Just for reference, Bloomberg NEF estimated about 7% decline in December for battery system, energy system costs, and now that's in excess of 19%. We had planned on a forecasted decrease. However, with the incremental change, we now expect energy storage revenues to be less than 40% growth year-on-year. We do expect this rapid decline in battery prices to be temporary, and that over time, the rate of decline will slow. Due to our agreement with suppliers, we have back-to-back pricing, so the impact is only on revenue and should not affect gross margin.
The positive of the lower battery prices is that we are seeing increased interest in projects and have more qualified projects in our pipeline. I'll now hand it back to Marco to go through the financials.
Thank you, Michelle. On sheet seven, you can see the quarterly revenue overall gross margin, and it's the EBITDA development. The revenue development has just been explained by Michelle. The overall gross margin of 32% was in line with the gross margin in the first quarter of last year. I have to note that the gross margin excludes the one-off cost of EUR 5 million related to Liander Pacto substation moisture issue. As a result, this is also excluded from the adjusted EBITDA. The adjusted EBITDA declined from EUR 12.7 million, being 11.2% of the revenue in Q1 2023, to EUR 9.6 million, being 8.2% of revenue. This is a result of lower than planned revenue in energy storage, causing temporary operational deleverage.
As in the past years, with the Q1 and Q3 trading update, we do not give working capital and cash flow statements. However, we can say that the working capital and cash flow is developing as planned. For example, the inventory for AC is going down as planned, where we indicated last year that we had an overstock of EUR 30 million-EUR 40 million. We are progressing on this, say, on a more evenly basis over the year to bring this down to, at the end of this year, to the expected number. Continue on sheet eight. We decided to fill the CFO position on a temporary basis. This gives us time to carefully manage the selection process for a permanent CFO going forward, and we intend to announce a permanent CFO early 2025.
I'm pleased to announce that Onno Krap will join Alfen as interim CFO as per the 21st of May, being today. Onno brings more than 25 years of broad financial and leadership experience to Alfen, and he's worked in a variety of financial roles in a wide range of industries across multiple public, private, and private equity-owned companies. We are convinced that Onno has a balanced mix of experience as both a chief strategic advisor, as well as a hands-on operational leader with expertise building processes, teams, and capabilities in international manufacturing setting. As the company will continue to grow, and we've decided to extend the executive committee as per January this year with Bart Kempen in the role of COO and Anne de Nood in the role of CHRO.
This extended executive team allows for more dedicated attention on key areas of the business, such as operations and our employees, while it leads to more focus for the existing board members. On the last sheet of the presentation, we would like to elaborate on the outlook for 2024. Across Europe, the transition to carbon-free energy system that is not dependent on fossil fuels is without debate, and therefore we foresee a long-term positive market development for all of our business line. To facilitate our growth, we continue to invest in our organization, production lines, and innovation for the future.
We reconfirm our full-year revenue outlook of EUR 590 million-EUR 660 million, as we also reconfirm our guidance regarding the Adjusted EBITDA of a minimal 11.3% of revenue and the factor to be expect a positive free cash flow. We're now at the end of the webcast. Laura, can you take over again and open the line for questions?
Sure. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on the telephone keypad. Thank you. We'll now take our first question from David Kerstens of Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my question. I've got, I've got two, please. First of all, can you talk a little bit about the gross margin development in the first quarter, which was better than expected, and given a rough indication of the development by segment? Is it correct to assume that the gross margins in EV charging sequentially improved after they weakened towards the end of last year? That's the first question.
It's also a little bit, say, maneuvering, now, the answer is that we, say historically, like with, working capital and, cash flow statements, are not supplying the gross margin statements in the first and the third quarter of the year. But I think in overall, you're more or less right in the assumption that, on the development of our gross margin in the individual business line, we didn't detail them out, say, this quarter fully, but say we are, say, happy with the overall gross margin development, and they are well within the bandwidth as what we indicated previously.
And what would drive the sequential improvement in gross margins and EV charging versus the second half of last year and into Q1? That the mix effect from, from-
It fundamentally-
The mix effect with the home segment coming back.
It's fundamentally a mix effect, but say, partly what also mentioned was already said, we expect for the second half of the year or that say the AFIR element, where we more or less the transparency on payment is related to say the public and semi-public segment. Therefore, we think that so also that segment will have the capability to show an upward in revenue, and therefore also it will be translated into our results also.
Okay.
In Q1, sometimes we do see a positive mix effect. If the home segment comes back, even if we've got more business and public chargers pre-AFIR, that would also help support a positive mix effect in Q1.
Okay, understood. And maybe moving to the next question on the impact from the moisture issues in Smart Grids. How will that impact revenue and operational leverage in the second quarter? Will there still be operational deleverage again in Smart Grids next quarter?
So fundamentally, what will happen in the second quarter, that we had in April, temporary stop down of production. That means that at this moment, we have resumed production of our Liander substations, but we have kept reducing the number of substations of the remaining customers. Therefore, there will be a slight impact on revenue in the second quarter, but also indicated, due to the fact that we are now fundamentally, we have resolved the elements of that stopping us from production in April. We will be able to compensate those number in the second half year. And all the costs are incorporated in the EUR 5 million.
Those are the costs that we have incurred, more or less up to now, but also the costs that we expect to occur in the remaining part of the year related to this subject, because we still have some repairs to be done. But they are all incorporated in the EUR 5 million. So the deleverage is in, if you talk about those terms, in our operating growth margin, will not be fundamentally there. There will be slight impact on our revenue in second quarter, but that will be compensated by revenue in the third and the fourth quarter.
Okay, understood. Thank you very much.
Thank you, and we'll now move on to our next question from Jeremy Kincaid of Van Lanschot Kempen. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Marco and Michelle. My first question is just on the energy storage business. Obviously, you called out there was a timing effect impacting revenue there, but obviously, it's seems to be quite large. Does that suggest that you're working on more large-scale projects this year, rather than lots of smaller ones?
Yes, it does. I think what we've seen is the project sizes have continued to increase over time. I think we've shared previously, for example, you know, Ellevio was one customer where we had started with, you know, 10-MWh projects and moved up to 20+-MWh projects. So yes, over time, we are seeing larger projects in our pipeline, larger projects that we're executing, which makes the milestones larger.
Okay, sure. And so would it then be fair to assume that the margins could be lower compared to last year since you're working on larger projects?
We do have larger projects, but we still have the smaller projects, where you don't have the same dilutive effect from the battery pull-through. So I don't think it's fair to say that you'll see a decline, because we still do have a mix. As we grow, we have more larger, but also more of the small and medium-sized projects.
Okay, sure. Second question, just on the cost side of things. There was a sequential increase up to around EUR 28 million on the OpEx line for the quarter, up from around EUR 24 million last quarter. Could you talk to what some of the moving parts were there?
If you talk to our operational costs, they are more fundamentally related to personnel and housing. So those are more or less linear type of costs, where we try to plan them as secure as possible, and they are also quite close to the number we planned for. The fundamental impact on this quarter is more related to the relevance, the percentage-wise towards revenue. If the timing of this single project had been as planned, then we would have been able to recognize revenue. That percentage-wise, the cost would have been also more in line with what everybody was expecting, because in absolute number, the costs are there.
But as a percentage, of course, they are related to the revenue we can accommodate, and we cannot more or less delay the recognition of costs in the same way we can relate more or less the revenue. So we have to present costs as they are, and revenue is more or less related to the fundamental milestones of the projects that are related to.
Okay, that's clear. And then one final question. Could you help me understand the interim CFO decision, and why the decision to hire Onno is only on a temporary basis or interim basis, and then you're looking to hire someone in 2025. Is that because you're looking to find someone else or more that Onno is on a trial period?
Maybe to put it a little bit in perspective, we did a thorough process or we tried to do a thorough process in the second half of last year when we knew that Jeroen would be stepping down from his role as CFO. And to have a candidate with the same nice overlapping period to transfer knowledge about, say, the company in the role. And, say, at the end of the first quarter, we more or less together with Boudewijn Tans, we had envisioned to be the next CFO, we came to the conclusion from both sides that the fit was not fully there.
And then you can debate what to do, and at that time, both Boudewijn and we concluded that it was better to stop the cooperation. But because of the timing of this decision, it was not anticipated by us and not anticipated by Boudewijn, that we would come into that situation. And after more or less this being executed, we sat together with the supervisory board what to do next, and we concluded that was in our company's benefit to have to not start up a fundamental new process to finding a CFO, because that would normally such a process would take or something like six months. And we said, we need a quicker solution.
And we said, "Okay, if we want a quicker solution, then although we have done a thorough process, we didn't want to run the risk to have a final nomination and a final decision, and then come to the conclusion that on timing, we had other discussions again." So we concluded that we would start this process with the basic starting point, that we would have an interim solution. And if the interim solution works out fine, maybe we could consider to have that as also as a final solution.
But fundamentally, we've done our best to find an optimal candidate, but also do it in such a way that we have some maneuvering room to, for both, in this situation, Onno, but also for Alfen as a company, to have some maneuvering room to be able to come to the best solution.
Great. That's, that's helpful color. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Ruben Devos of KBC Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thanks for letting me on. I had a question on energy storage. I think you mentioned that there was a single energy storage project that has caused sort of the miss versus expectations. I'm assuming, you know, if you look at the numbers, sort of the miss was about EUR 24 million. I'm assuming that single storage project is, does not entirely bridge the EUR 24 million. So could you just help us thinking about maybe other causes of what, you know, what disappointed potentially or what was a bit softer in Q1? You know, thinking about market volatility, lower battery prices, and then the single energy storage project you referenced.
Yeah, you're correct in that the single project was not the full miss. I think it Q1 was really driven by project timing. So whether it was other smaller milestones tied to projects or the large project, Q1 was really around project timing. For the future, you will see the battery prices come more into play as we execute and finalize those projects. But Q1 was really driven by project milestone misses, with the largest portion being the single project that just... The site wasn't ready, and we can't deliver components to site if the site's not ready. And that was out of our control.
Okay. And then, we don't have a balance sheet or a cash flow statement for Q1, but could you discuss maybe inventory levels, especially for energy storage, with 20% lower battery prices roughly? Is there somewhat of a pricing risk or is it mitigated by your contract structures and purchase agreements, basically?
Yeah, it's essentially mitigated by contract structure and purchase agreements. So all the batteries we have are tied to projects that have been closed, so the pricing is locked. And then what we do for new projects is that is tied to new purchase orders, new pricing, and everything is back-to-back. So there's no inventory risk from energy storage, because all of the batteries we have are allocated to projects that have been signed.
Okay. The lead times, they're still about 12 months these days, or have they come down?
Well, so for overall projects, from when we first start working it to final close, it can be, it can be approximately 12+ months. But we've got a lot of projects at various points in time, and then we've got our agreement with our suppliers that allow us to get the batteries we need to support those projects in a much shorter timeframe.
Okay. And then just a final question on EV charging. Regarding the Twin 5 Plus, your new public EV charger compliant with AFIR regulations. You expect that to drive demand in the second half. Could you maybe explain why this is expected to drive incremental demand? I mean, obviously, your, your, your clients want to be compliant with regulation, but I can imagine that your competitors will also need to launch such compliant chargers. So what is maybe somewhat of a, you know, incremental driver here?
Yeah. So for us, we've got two products that really tie to AFIR. One is our Eve Double, which has a screen, and then the Twin 5 Plus with our old Twin, where we had to add a screen. Most of our customers, if you've got the Eve Double, it's backward compatible, you upgrade the software. On the Twin 5 Plus, new screen that started shipping in April, so we've got the order intake in Q1, but the revenue will start happening Q2, Q3, Q4. I think what makes our solution unique, comparable to some of the others out there, is dynamic QR codes. So on the screen, what we do is the QR code that is displayed is dynamic.
And the reason that's important is there's been some recent, some customers, not necessarily of ours, but are using other stations, are simply putting a QR sticker on the charger. And the problem with that is then anyone can go put a QR sticker on the charger, and that QR code can lead you to, you know, a site that is not the one that is for the CPO. So from a cybersecurity perspective, from a just fraud perspective, static QR codes are not the preferable solution. So our ability to serve up dynamic QR codes on the screen is a value add for our customers that want to protect their customers who are initiating charging sessions from fraud.
So, that is one reason we feel we've got a solid solution, Q2, Q3, Q4, with our AFIR compliant twin, as well as with the Eve Double. That is software, it's on the screen, it's dynamic, it'll protect against fraud, and not all of our competitors are offering the same AFIR compliance solution.
Okay, that's very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Nikita Lal of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Marco. Good morning, Michelle. Thank you for taking my questions. I have just one question left, regarding the inventory level. I understood that you don't give any numbers on, Q1, but regarding your Liander issue, will we see any negative impact on inventories, in H1, and then which will weigh on, cash generation?
What we've seen or know now is that there will be no inventory impact on the H1 figures based on the Liander aspect. Because we stopped production, but also we stopped the production at our suppliers, so the incoming of our goods, we more or less have directly related to the production as we have planned. Maybe to integrate also what is said in the webcast, where we said in the inventory, we see the decline of inventory of EV charging components. That's in the process, and it's not that will the--it will not have a depletion of our surplus stock in the first quarter or in the first half year.
It will be step by step over the whole year, that we will more step by step ramp down our EV charging revenue number based to a normalized level. And as indicated last year, that will be having a positive effect on our overall 2024 inventory level between 13 and 14 million EUR.
We will now move on to our next question from Thijs Berkelder of ABN AMRO ODDO BHF. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, all. First question on your outlook on revenues. Why do you think you still can make the high end of your guidance range, given that you already lowered the guidance for energy storage revenues? And, maybe partly related to that, is it possible to give a bit more flavor on Q2? You're indicating you will see a strong recovery in energy storage, normally in Q2 versus Q1. You will have slightly lower revenues on, on the substation business, I heard you say. So, on EV charging, can we expect, decent growth in Q2 versus Q1?
So I think, Thijs, what you mentioned is, yes, we will see a Q2 recovery for energy storage. SGS will have some impact, and then what we had talked about last year is some small sequential growth quarter on quarter for EV charging. We're still expecting that. So we said AFIR will come into play. Some of that will happen Q2, some of that will happen Q3, Q4. So that's, that's what we're expecting as we head into the rest of the year. And then in terms of the overall guidance range, what we see is energy storage, especially with the larger projects, can have large impact in both directions. We're working on some large projects where we've got verbal agreements, and if those get closed, then we'll see milestones that will support revenue recognition that are significant.
If they don't get closed, then that will also have equal downsides. So we are still within our bandwidth, but energy storage is really the primary driver of whether we're up or down against the midpoint.
If that's up or down from the midpoints. So, and more or less energy storage by itself has a, let's say, a delta of something like EUR 17 million in terms of revenues for this year, still?
... That's probably a bit on the high side, but it does have the largest impact on our ability to hit the high end.
Yeah. Okay. Then another question on EV charging and AFIR regulation. You're saying your, let's say, new public chargers have a screen, and this can show the dynamic QR codes. But in terms of installed base of your public chargers, most of them do not have a screen.
Yeah.
What do you see there? Or, what are you expecting there to happen in that installed base? Do you already see, let's say, customers, maybe accelerating, the move from, old public chargers to newer public chargers?
Well, for example, when we won the City of Amsterdam tender last year, that is an example. Those chargers have been installed for 10+ years, so we're already into that replacement cycle. You know, for units that are younger than that, we've not seen an acceleration yet. I mean, fortunately for our customers, AFIR only applies to newly installed chargers after mid-April. So the older public chargers do not have to be compliant. But depending on how dynamic QR codes are utilized and the fraud risk potential, it is possible that that could accelerate some refurbishment of installed base units. But we'll have to see how that, that plays out. We're not seeing that trend yet, instead, other than what we saw with City of Amsterdam, where they are in a replacement cycle, and we won those tenders.
But it's logical that these fraud stickers also can be placed on your chargers, of course. Can you maybe-
On the older ones, yes.
Shortly-
Sorry, I said, so that could drive faster replacement, but we haven't seen that happen yet.
Okay, then, last week, you, I think, officially opened your order book for your DC chargers. Is there already some kind of an expectation on, on, on the traction there?
So we do already have orders. So we had been working with some of our Netherlands and Belgium customers to make sure that things were as expected. We, you know, publicly opened our order book. We do have orders. We've always communicated that that is not going to be a material contributor to revenue growth. So we're not expecting it to drive things, you know, up or down this year. But we are starting to see traction and are happy that we're able to get the DC charger out into the market, publicly.
Okay, then, then there was also a client question on your number of charging stations reduced already in Q1 while not having opened the new factory yet. Can you maybe explain how you produce such a high number of charging stations already, and what kind of production levels you could reach post-opening of the factory?
In our factory, we have been more or less squeezing all the square meters that we could in order to be able to support the ramp of production. As indicated also last year, you know, that we bought the building at the Damsluisweg to accommodate the growth of battery storage. In order to facilitate the growth of Smart Grid, we decided to first more or less ramp up our production and use the existing facility at the Damsluisweg to more or less already pre-ramp up before the new building was ready, so that we more or less used the square meters we have bought extra to prioritize the growth of Smart Grid Solutions. We now have started moving equipment towards the new building.
Let's say, the offices are now, say, for 90%, taken into uses. We started moving office personnel the mid of mid-April to now, and I think for offices, we're now fully equipped. We have started more or less the first production elements in the new building to make sure that all production lines and all, say, data communication, all transporting facilities are operational. Say, from coming weekend on, we will start moving warehouse equipment so that we step by step will move production to the new building. At the end of this quarter, we will have moved all our Smart Grid solutions production towards the new building, that it will not have that, that will directly can translate that to high output.
It will be step by step, because it's not only about, say, square meters, but also of step-by-step having experienced personnel. And we think that during the third and fourth quarter, every week, we will step by step increase our production in order to first to accommodate more or less the requirements of our grid operators to be able to execute on their orders.
Yeah. Okay, thank you.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Tijn Hollestelle of ING. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks, Laura. Morning, everybody. Yeah, I've got a question. Are you having, let's say, internal discussions, to improve the overall disclosure, so to improve the reporting, for instance, that you do provide? A net debt or a trade working capital position in the first and the third quarter, maybe, growth margins per division. Is that something that is being internally debated?
Up to this moment, we have more or less included figures on the full year and half year to have a full set of figures, including growth margins and including also cash flow and those type of elements. Starting last year, we have more or less said that we will do that on a half year basis, and not in the quarterly updates. The quarterly updates are more oriented in the first and the third quarter on revenue and on EBITDA level.
So it's, at this moment, we are trying to, on one hand, try to extend our set of information that we supply to the market, but also in a practical manner, so that we can also follow that ourselves in relation to our financial structure and our financial departments. If there would be fundamental deviations from what we have seen, then we would have indicated so. At this moment, whether it is gross margin or working capital or inventory or cash flow development, we don't see fundamental deviations from what we have said as guidance and, like communicated earlier, we more or less use the half year and year figures to have a full financial set of information to reflect on our performance.
Okay. I mean, I also noticed from the questions from the other brokers that, let's say, there's a big ask for, let's say, kind of a directional heads up per division. Because, yeah, the shares are down, what is it, 80% now? Because, yeah, there's big disappointment compared to the expectations. Expectations, the mother of all disappointment on the stock market. So I think that with your, yeah, kind of production, kind of divisions, like smart grid and EV charging, yeah, you-- it's mid-May now, you have a pretty good overview of what's going to happen. So I'm not asking for, let's say, specific numbers or dingen, but the kind of a directional heads up is quite common, and I think it would help reducing share price volatility.
But that's maybe not something that you're having discussions about within Alfen.
No, I think we do regularly have discussions around what is the appropriate amount of disclosure within kind of the parameters that Marco just explained. So it certainly is a discussion. You know, how do we consistently provide information that helps support, you know, the direction that the company is headed? And I think what we did share is in energy storage, we expect Q2 to have a recovery. The milestone missed from Q1 will carry over to Q2, so we'll see that convert. So Q2 will be stronger. Overall, it will be back half loaded, but Q2 will be stronger. In SGS, we'll have minor revenue impact in Q2, but we'll expect a full recovery for the second half. And in EV charging, we still expect sequential quarter-on-quarter growth.
It'll be modest, but we do still expect sequential growth, especially compared to last year, where Q2 was not our strongest quarter in 2023 for EV charging. We'll see some of that recover as well. So I think that, that gives some flavor. And then the overall percentages, as we shared, approximately 15% for EV charging, approximately 20% for SGS, and then below the 40% for, for energy storage, is what we have right now.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, and we'll now take our next question from Paul de Froment of Bryan, Garnier & Co. The line is open, please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Good morning, two questions for me. The first regarding EV charging, could you give us an update on grid connection delays for CPOs in Europe right now?
So some of the grid connection delays tend to be tied to fast charging infrastructure. I know we've communicated in the past with SGS that sometimes those grid connection delays could impact the SGS stations to support fast charging connections. Right now, we're not seeing any grid connection delays in regard to our EV charging business, as we're primarily destination charging. So charging plazas at businesses, the home segments, the public segments, so less impacted by grid connection delays.
What about fast charging? Do you have any inputs? Because, of course, it could impact your SGS segment as well.
Yeah, no. So we're still seeing that business with strong growth. So that's from an SGS perspective, our projects business primarily supports that fast charging infrastructure business.
Okay, and my second question is, at the group level, do you have any exposure to copper prices regarding batteries or EV charging or substation transformers?
And we've seen the copper prices going up, say, but in related to, say, those price developments, you have to bear in mind that, say, we can fairly well predict, say, our required volume in copper, for a whole year. That's also the reason within our purchasing department, we are having price programs that we would not only have secure of supply, but also secure of, say, stable pricing. On other hand, you have to bear in mind that, say, copper has been going up and down already in the past years. That say for a lot of, say, elements that can be used, can be designed in copper, you see also that there are alternatives in, aluminum. And for example, in transformers, we have seen already that for some years-...
The windings of that are within the transformers are not more related to copper, but are mainly related to aluminum to have less dependence on, say, the pricing of copper. So yes, there is, of course, a relationship to some components in our products, but the majority of our components are not directly related to copper pricing, and there is a very so low percentage of copper in our products in overall related to our revenue.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you. And we'll now take our next question from Joren van Aken of Degroof Petercam. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everyone. Still a couple of questions from my side on the energy storage business. Because first, you basically say that the 40% revenue growth will no longer be reached, but could you basically give us any hint where it then should go instead? Are we looking at 20% growth, 30% growth? Any direction, I think, would be very helpful, for us. And then you mentioned larger projects or larger contracts there in the business. Could you give us an idea how long it typically takes between signing and finalizing those projects or getting milestones for those projects? And then finally, if I look at peers who are more involved in those larger projects in energy storage, I see that their profitability is quite weak, I would say.
So if your move to larger projects would be structural going forward, would this then also impact your long-term EBITDA margin targets for the whole group? Thanks.
Yeah. So let me just talk to the larger contracts and the timing from a signing and milestone. So, fortunately, and I think we shared a visual in our Capital Markets Day last year, we set the projects up to be cash flow neutral. So at point of signing, we usually have a down payment milestone. And then we have other major milestones, you know, when we order materials, and sometimes that can be within weeks or a month after signing, depending on the actual execution timeline. Getting components to site is another major milestone. Again, that can happen fairly rapidly if we've already been planning and have ordered the materials to support a project. Sometimes we, you know, anticipate and give a heads up to suppliers. We don't place the order until we actually have a signed contract with our customer.
But, for example, there was a project last summer we shared previously, where from signing to execution was less than six months. So it is possible for us to realize revenues on, you know, medium-sized projects fairly rapidly. And while we do see the market trending towards larger projects, I think if we think about where Alfen has a lot of value add for energy storage, is with the, I'd say, the medium-sized projects, where we're working with independent developers and those that, you know, maybe don't have the in-house capability to do the engineered equipment package. We really are able to serve our customers best with those projects and those customers.
And so while we will do larger projects, and the market is moving that direction, I think many of our competitors are very focused on only doing the large projects, whereas we've got a healthy mix in our pipeline and in our execution backlog of projects that are both small, medium, and what we would consider mega projects that we're looking to do.
Maybe in relationship to, say, the element of gross margin, is the reason why we last year with the capital market, they decided to start sharing more or less gross margin per business line in order to have also not a detailed discussion that what is the impact of, say, revenue of a Smart Grid, compared to EV charging, compared to battery storage. So that we can more or less value the three business lines and also their contribution to the overall gross margin, and also what we explained that, say, in leveraging our fixed cost base, which is, say, battery storage, we are also quite well capable of leveraging our fixed cost base when we are growing the revenue.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, and we'll now take a follow-up question from Thijs Berkelder of ABN AMRO. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for that. Looking at your guidance for energy storage, less than 40%. So, that more or less hints at something like EUR 220-225 million revenues for the full year, versus only, what was it? EUR 22 million in Q1. Can you roughly indicate what is already in the backlog for the full year of the EUR 225 million you guide for the full year? Is... Are we already at EUR 150 million, EUR 170 million, or just to get some grip on your visibility for that full year guidance? That's a lot of questions I get from customers there. Then maybe you've appointed a new COO and a new CHRO.
Can you maybe explain what their focus will be or what, will they focus upon in terms of improvement points? And relates to that, that gives you, Marco, extra time for something, maybe for M&A? And finally, maybe a short update on Finland.
So with the energy storage. So we did give backlog last year because what we saw was, we had such a fundamental shift in growth with energy storage last year, that we needed to provide that information. You know, we're not currently sharing it, but something to remember with energy storage is we do have the two businesses. We have our mobile business and our utility scale business. And in the mobile business, that one doesn't run with backlog. So there is a portion of our energy storage revenues that'll be tied to incoming orders for the rest of this year, primarily with mobile. And then there is a portion for projects that are verbally awarded, but are not in our backlog yet.
So we've gotten the verbal indication, we're finalizing terms and conditions, but until that project is signed, it won't go into our backlog. We do have visibility on that, but it's not shown in a backlog number. Fortunately, we do have a healthy mix of pipeline, small, medium, large projects, where those small and medium projects, especially with customers that we've worked with previously, we already have terms and conditions. We already know how to work with them. We're able to close those projects and execute, especially first, through some of the first milestones, in a fairly short amount of time. While we do have strong backlog for the year, there is still a portion that'll be tied to mobiles.
There's a portion that'll be tied to verbally awarded projects that are not in backlog yet, and then some other smaller, medium-sized projects with existing customers that we'll be able to convert and recognize revenue on in the second half of this year. So it's a mix. So not everything is in backlog today, but we do have line of sight to what we need to close to achieve the targets that we've put out.
In relation to your organizational elements, of course, for the CEO in growing the company, we see also that we are growing our production facilities, not only physically, but also in the processes, how to control and steer a production. Like, for example, what we're now doing also, where we, to the charging station, we created department on, say, production engineering. We're now leveraging those capabilities also to our different production facilities for energy storage and for smart grid solutions. So we now step-by-step, trying to professionalize, say, all the different elements within our production and product execution area.
And related to CHRO, it is clear that, say, in our overall approach, the human being is the, also the more or less, the most, capital, worthwhile element within our overall company. So to emphasize that we, in growing our company, we also need to be able to operate, to improve our processes, is to grow our people. And, in relation to me, it's not intention for me to do nothing, to be sit in the sun, but there will be, there are still a lot of elements where, say, my own attention will go to, as indicated on, say, growth. It will be mainly driven by, say, organic growth.
We do not exclude M&A, but I think that's not our primary focus, and that there will still be a lot of focus on development and new development of products in order to be able to benefit from the growing market area with elements in our products, where we can differentiate ourselves through the competitive landscape.
Finland?
Oh, Finland, I forgot this one. Sorry, Thijs. Finland is progressing. What do I mean by that is that, say, some time ago, we said, "Okay, we are not only, we're not interfering the type of products they have, but we are more or less helping them also to steer towards, say, the renewable market area, whether that's related to solar or wind, but also to fast charging equipment." We have now, we have there a stable organization with a focus on, say, the same type of business as on smart grid solutions that we have here in the Netherlands. And we also, of course, leveraging their capabilities in order to secure, say, the project execution on battery storage in both Finland and Sweden.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions in queue. I will now hand it back to Marco Roeleveld for closing remarks.
Hey, I would like to thank everybody for participating in this webcast, and hope we'll speak again in a short time. Thank you.
Thank you all. This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.