Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call Conference Operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Industrie De Nora First Half 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Chiara Locati, Head of Investor Relations and ESG. Please go ahead, madam.
Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our first half 2024 financial results conference call. I'm Chiara Locati, Head of Investor Relations and ESG. With me on the call today, there are Paolo Dellachà, CEO of the group, and Luca Oglialoro, our CFO, at his first conference call in De Nora. They will drive you through the main achievements and financial results of the first half, and then we will open up a Q&A session. I would like to remind you that the slides of this presentation have been made available in the investor relations section of our website. With that, I would like to then hand it over to Paolo. Paolo, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Chiara, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm really excited to update you on our latest developments and take you through the highlights of the first half of 2024. Let me start with some general observations. The election season in Europe and in the U.S., high recurring inflation in certain regions, and few residual effects from the economic boom that followed the COVID era, for example, in the electronic division, are some of the issues that make the macroeconomic and geopolitical scenario complex and challenging. In addition, as already mentioned in the previous calls, the uncertainties on regulatory and funding rules are causing delays in the FIDs of green hydrogen projects. Nevertheless, we were able to report progressively positive performances in the first half of the year, and we especially posted solid growth in the second quarter based on our strong, sustainable, and well-differentiated business model.
As expected, revenue performance recovered in Q2, reporting a 3.8% increase year-on-year, or 6.1% at constant exchange rates, as all our business units grew. The recovery was mainly supported by our electrode technology business, which after an 18% decrease in Q1, grew by 3%, 3.6% year-on-year in the second quarter at constant exchange rates. Water technologies and energy transition businesses reported a 4.9% and a 24.2% increase in Q2, respectively. The quarter's profitability was healthy at 18.8%. Sorry, 18.4%, 18.8% in the semester, leading to a solid EUR 47 million operating cash flow generation. The backlog at the end of June improved by 3% compared to December 2023.
In the first half of the year, we delivered in total 588 megawatts of green hydrogen technologies, which drove our energy transition business to 10.6% year-on-year revenue growth and positive adjusted EBITDA. Water momentum remains positive, as evidenced by double-digit year-on-year order intake, expansion, and revenue growth, especially in Pools, which reported 33% year-on-year growth in the second quarter. During the last three quarters, we upgraded our global manufacturing footprint to support the backlog execution and future growth of our business. We expanded our production capacity in Asia, enhanced our setup in Germany, and launched an innovation center in the U.S., and finally, in June, we celebrated the groundbreaking of our Italian Gigafactory. We remain strongly committed to improving our sustainability profile by implementing our ESG plan, which aims to enhance the positive impact of our technological solutions and operations.
We are focused on developing a stimulating and inclusive work environment. In this sense, I'm particularly proud to announce that we have once again been certified as a great place to work this year in Italy, and that in recent weeks, we have finalized and approved our first diversity, equity, and inclusion policy. Finally, despite the challenging macroeconomic scenario, we continue to build a solid foundation to drive long-term sustainable and profitable growth across all diverse technology portfolio. We expect a progressive revenue recovery across the group's businesses for the second half of the year. This will be especially visible in the last quarter of 2024, driving the full year turnover to low single-digit revenue growth.
With reference to the 2024 to 2026 business plan, communicated in March 2024, we expect to maintain and consolidate our leadership in electrode and water technology businesses, keeping solid profitability and cash-generating capacity. Regarding the energy transition business, the ongoing market uncertainties, as described above, led to further delays in custom and new projects. These delays, already visible in the first quarter, persisted in the following months, making it difficult to make a reliable forecast of the evolution of the business to 2026, which depends on the timing for transforming projects currently in our pipeline into concrete orders. In this context, while maintaining a positive outlook on the growth scenario of the green hydrogen market in the medium term, already visible in the H1 results, we are reviewing growth targets previously communicated in 2024, 2026 business plan....
Those delays will not affect the group medium-term development and prospects. The business plan for 2024-2026 will be updated as planned on the occasion of the full year 2024 results presentation. In this slide, you can appreciate some of the KPIs of our H1 2024 financial performance that Luca will comment on later. Now, let's have a look to the performance of our businesses. As expected, our Electrode Technology business had a positive second quarter, growing by 3.6%, not considering the negative Asian currency impact of approximately EUR 5 million. This performance was driven by the execution of chloralkali projects according to the production schedule agreed with our customers. The electronics division was still in a soft phase. The profitability in the first half remained healthy at 24%, with a slight normalization in Q2 due to a different project mix.
The aftermarket business accounted for 48% of total sales in the first half, confirming its role as an essential growth driver. This was also reflected in the ordering techniques. Indeed, new orders in the first semester amounted to approximately EUR 180 million, mainly driven by chloralkali projects, which accounted for 70%, with Asia being the most represented geography. I would like to remind you that the volatility of the order backlog is physiological in the business and does not undermine growth opportunities, as revenues are usually developed in the same financial year as the orders materialize. As you know, in the first half of the year, we completed the expansion of our Okayama plant in Japan as part of our synergic development plan for the Asian region, particularly China and Japan.
This achievement strengthened the Asian manufacturing base, which is now running at full speed to serve projects already in our portfolio and new market opportunities in line with our business expansion. Overall, our electro technologies business remains solid. Based on the visibility of our backlog, we expect a continued gradual improvement in revenues, particularly in the last quarter, leading to a low single-digit growth for the full year at constant exchange rates. Turning to our water technology business, which continues to benefit from the positive market momentum in both the pools and the so-called WTS, so Water Technology Systems segments. In the first half, the business unit reported a single-digit revenue increase due to solid pools growth and a slowed WTS performance, impacted by one-off effect, which Luca will describe later. Net of these effects, the WTS recurring business is growing.
I am particularly pleased with the evolution of the new backlog, which at the end of June, had grown by 12% compared to December 2023, both in system segment and pools. Please note that the Water Technology Systems division recorded an order intake of EUR 108 million, higher than revenues for the period. Approximately 53% of the orders are related to projects for the municipal market, of which 39% pertain to drinking water production, and 47% refer to the industrial projects, especially in the energy industry. Growth was mainly driven by the U.S. and the Middle East in terms of geographies. Finally, approximately 40% of orders were related to aftermarket projects. This positive evolution of the backlog paves the way for the growth expected in the water technology business for the following quarters.
It confirms the positive perspective of the market, in line with our midterm targets, driven by investment in municipal and energy industries, especially in water-stressed areas like U.S., China, and the Middle East. The demand for on-site electrochlorination solutions, where we play a leading role as a provider of cutting-edge technologies that are more sustainable, safe, and cost-effective than treatments based on chemicals. Before having a look at the flagship system projects awarded, let me spend a few words about our pools division performance. In the second quarter, as announced during the last conference call, revenues improved by 33% year-on-year, bringing the first half performance to be positive by 6%, in line with our business plan.
Let me recall that our growth drivers in pools are conversion, replacement, and new installations, with a strong aftermarket sales incidence, providing recurring revenues and reliability of our midterm goals. On slide eight, we can see some of the flagship projects secured in the second quarter. Here you can appreciate the high differentiation of our results in terms of geographies and technological solutions. We signed four major contracts for drinking water disinfection in the U.S., China, and Turkey, based on electrochlorination and ozone technologies. Once completed, more than 500,000 cubic meters of drinking water per day, both groundwater and surface water, will be treated and disinfected, contributing to the sustainable management of this critical natural resource, and in the specific case of projects in China, to the full reuse of a wastewater stream with zero discharge concept, thus ensuring a virtuous circularity of the water.
In addition, the country in Turkey is strategic for our business unit. Since winning this project has granted the first sale of a ClorTec system in the country, opening new business opportunity, thanks to the important reference. For the industrial application, the most important new orders demonstrate our competitiveness in different important industrial sectors, from power generation to steel manufacturing. In particular, let me emphasize our contribution to a carbon capture and storage project in the Netherlands, in the Netherlands. The project aims to transport and store, in, in empty gas fields under the North Sea, the CO2 generated by an industrial site in the port of Rotterdam. It is expected to be operational in 2026, and represents a clear step towards the country's climate goals.
De Nora scope in this flagship project is the on-site generation of sodium hypochlorite from seawater, and its injection into the cooling water circuit using a SANILEC system used for disinfection. We are proud on the positive impact of our technologies in water and wastewater treatments. The market positive momentum is solid, and we see additional opportunities driven by new and more stringent environmental regulations, as in the case of PFAS. With reference to the PFAS, we must consider that the market in USA has just started after the last EPA regulation in April. The regulation requires municipalities with higher than allowed PFAS content, 4 PPT, to have specific treatment in place within 5 years.
Until June 2026, the activities will be primarily revolved around the identification of location with PFAS issues, securing funds to pilot and test the ideal solutions, properly sizing the technology, and finally, placing the orders. It must be noted that the pace of funding released from the federal government will determine the speed of each project implementation. De Nora has a solid track record in contaminants treatment. Our SORB solution has more than 25 years of demonstrated effectiveness in treating complex organic and inorganic contaminants, such as arsenic, iron, manganese, and many others, are reliable references also for the PFAS treatment. In addition, our piloting capabilities provide the customer the assurance of choosing the right solution, being a critical strength in this initial phase of the market. Our pipeline of identified opportunities is growing. As of the end of June, we had 52 opportunities identified.
We have five pilot units, of which four deployed in the field and one to be deployed in September of this year. We're very excited about the opportunities in this new market, and we are well equipped to exploit them. On slide ten, you can appreciate the positive progression of our energy transition business. We have produced approximately 600 MW of technology dedicated to green hydrogen generation, an increase of 18% over the first half of 2023, executing our solid backlog. In total, since we started this business in 2022, we have realized and sold about 1.9 GW of green hydrogen technologies, and we still have 1.6 GW of projects in our backlog to be executed. This brings the total project executed or in execution by De Nora to approximately 3.5 GW.
In the first half, energy transition revenues grew 10.6% year-on-year, accelerating to 24.2% in the second quarter, based on scheduled production. EBITDA margin was positive in the single digits, despite costs related to the R&D activities, which amounted to 11% of the revenues, the Gigafactory project in Italy, and the production setup optimization related to capacity scale-up. We expect these elements to continue impacting the energy transition results, even in the second half of the year. We confirm our commitment to developing our leading global position, and we aim to continue to invest in our technologies, even if that could temporarily reduce business profitability. In June, we celebrated the groundbreaking of our Gigafactory in Italy. In research and development, we are investing in developing coating and electrode performances. Finally, we are developing and testing our proprietary small-scale Dragonfly electrolyzer through several projects.
Here is a brief recap of the main projects in our backlog. The Neom project is ongoing, and we expect to complete the delivery in the first quarter of 2025. The H2 Green Steel project entered our backlog in February, and according to the schedule agreed with our partner, we expect to begin the execution and report the first revenues during the fourth quarter of 2024. At the bottom of the slide, you will find some projects that represent about 27% of the hot deals in our pipeline and have been announced by our JV, Thyssenkrupp Nucera. In addition to projects in Finland and the US, in the second quarter of 2024, our JV, Thyssenkrupp Nucera, announced its involvement in two new opportunities, totaling about 600 MW in Australia and in Spain.
The first project concerned a 260-megawatt plant dedicated to green methanol production, for which the Australian energy company, ABEL, has selected our joint venture as a preferred supplier. The second project concerned Cepsa-led Andalusian Green Hydrogen Valley in southern Spain, one of the largest projects of this kind in Europe. Cepsa plans to develop up to 2 gigawatts of green hydrogen capacity in the long run here. Let's now look at our Dragonfly project before analyzing our energy transition pipeline. We officially started commercializing our Dragonfly system, equipped with our proprietary electrolyzer, a cutting-edge technological solution based on the high performance of the De Nora electrodes. As you already know, this solution is designed for small-scale plants from 1 to 7.5 megawatts.
We offer a containerized plug-and-play system suitable for decarbonization projects and local needs of green hydrogen for light industries and the hydrogen valleys, avoiding the transportation and storage of gray and green hydrogen provided by large plants. We had two projects in our backlog that were awarded in 2024, plus another one that we recently signed, that we cannot disclose the name yet of the final customer. The first is HyTechHeat, a European Horizon project, to demonstrate in a small scale, the decarbonization of a hard-to-abate industry, like the steel manufacturing. Our scope here is to provide one-megawatt electrolyzer, which installation is expected in the next quarters of 2024. So this is going to be already installed this year.
The second project is the Crete Aegean Hydrogen Valley, CRAVE, so-called, funded by the European Commission and aimed at developing a dedicated hydrogen production hub on the island of Crete in Greece. Our scope is that, in that case, is to provide 4-megawatt electrolyzer, and we expect to start installation next year. Finally, in July, De Nora signed an LOI with Duferco, a company that produces, and markets energy in Europe. The goal is to collaborate in developing government-funded green hydrogen projects in Italy and Europe by supplying plants built by Duferco using De Nora technologies. We are really excited about our Dragonfly solution. We have already identified a pipeline of 24 projects and expect further development soon. Now, let's look at our energy transition pipeline using a chart that you already are familiar with.
Our pipeline grew significantly during the last year, from about EUR 42 million in the first half of 2023 to EUR 79 million, and we continue to see strong demand for large-scale electrolyzers. The jump in the actively pushed projects is mainly related to new initiatives in many areas worldwide. We see new projects in the Americas, in Europe, in India, in Africa, and in Australia. On the other hand, the pipeline transformation into concrete orders is going slower than expected due to the different reasons already mentioned. As you can appreciate, our backlog already provides for 2025 revenues, at least in line with 2024.
Regarding the market development, the growth momentum is still strong, even if challenges due to uncertainties on regulations and funding rules, high interest rates, and recurring inflation remain and are causing delays in the project FIDs, slowing down the development of the market at the different stages of the decision-making and project startup processes. We maintain a solid global leading position, along with our JVs and Thyssenkrupp Nucera, and expect our long-term market share to remain robust as the market develops to 2030 and beyond. We closely follow the development of regulations in Western countries, which could be an essential driver for market growth.
However, we believe that there are geographies such as the Middle East, Australia, some Mediterranean countries, I mean, Spain and Portugal, for example, and some belt countries in the U.S., where the overall cost of hydrogen is already competitive due to the availability of renewable energy. It is there that we expect the majority of the market growth. During the last quarters, we enhanced our global manufacturing capacity to serve projects in our backlog and be prepared for future business growth, confirming our strategy aimed at the readiness and flexibility to market trends. We enhanced and developed our distinctive and versatile global manufacturing footprint, carrying innovation and automation. Let me recap the main upgrades we performed.
We tripled the coating and electrode production capacity at the Suzhou plant in China, enhanced the manufacturing capacity of the Okayama plant in Japan, which was inaugurated in April and is already in operation. We upgraded and innovated our production line in Rodenbach, in Germany. In addition, in the U.S., we completed the construction of our energy innovation center at our Mentor plant in Ohio, and expect it to be operational in the next few months, to develop research and development on green hydrogen technologies and support energy transition business, in the country. In this center, we will develop, with our partners, five research and development projects, touching all the hydrogen generation technologies that have been preselected by the Department of Energy in the U.S., and eligible for a total of $28.4 million.
With regards to the other $50 million that the Department of Energy granted us, for which we have been pre-assigned for our joint venture, Nucera, in March, we have sent our final application as a result of the negotiation activities performed in the last few months. We expect an answer from the DOE in the coming months. I remind you that the grant is for a megawatt-scale facility for alkali water electrolysis technologies in the U.S., of course. Last but not least, as already mentioned, in June, we celebrated the groundbreaking of our Gigafactory in Italy, near Milan. We are really excited about our enhanced, innovative, and versatile global capacity footprint, which is a distinctive competitive strength and a key driver of our future development.... even though in 2024, the launch and optimization of these new setups are bringing some temporary additional operating costs.
Finally, to wrap up, we're proud of the revenue recovery we posted in the second quarter. In all our business units, we expect it to continue in the second half of the year, especially in the last quarter. With particular reference to the energy transition business, we expect low single-digit growth versus 2023, including the mixed effects related to the start of H2 Green Steel project in Q4, and some execution delays. These delays are attributable to production setup optimization for the capacity scale-up, and temporary slowdown in the supply chain that occurred in Q2, which, although fully resolved, will impact the third quarter turnover. With that, I leave the floor to Luca for the financial remarks.
Thank you, Paolo. I'm happy to be here today for the first time, and I look forward to engaging with you all soon. I'm on page 16. In the second quarter, revenues, as expected, posted solid recovery, supported by all business lines, reporting a 3.8% year-on-year growth, despite the negative impact of roughly EUR 4.6 million generated by Japanese currency. Net of this effect, the revenue growth was 6.1%. The Electrode Technology business, after a 22% year-on-year decline in Q1, reported a 3.6% growth in Q2, year-on-year at constant exchange rate. The recovery is mainly attributable to the chloralkali division, which accounted for 69% of the business unit revenues, thanks to an acceleration in the project execution, as planned in the production schedule.
The electronic segment, on the other hand, maintained a weak performance. We expect a recovery in the upcoming quarters, particularly in Q4, leading to the business unit revenues growth in the low single digit for the full year at constant exchange rate. The positive momentums of the water technology business continues. The business unit reported overall revenues growth of 4.9% year-on-year, mainly led by pool revenues that grew by 33% to EUR 26.5 million. WTS segment revenues were EUR 47 million, down 6% compared to the second quarter of 2023, primarily due to one-off effects totaling EUR 3 million, which were related to the disposal of the marine business and to a sales reversal associated with the settlement of a project from a previous year. Excluding this effect, revenues would have been in line with the previous year.
Based on the order intake since the first half of the year, we expect the water technology business to grow at low single-digit rate for the full year, driven by the pool segment. Finally, the energy transition business reported a 24.2% revenues growth due to increased production volume and a better mix. On the other hand, it should be noted that during the quarter, there were some slowdowns in productive scheduling, both related to the optimization of production setup and some supply chain slowdowns. The latter, although already resolved, will affect production also in the third quarter. We expect a progressive revenues growth in the coming quarters, particularly in Q4, driving energy transition revenues to a low single digit year-on-year increase. Moving on to page 17.
Before commenting on the operating profitability, I would like to underline that starting from H1 2024, De Nora modified its EBITDA presentation. The modification aligns with the best practices in the industry. In the previous reports and presentations, accrual, utilization, and release of provisions for risk and charges were classified below the EBITDA. From H1 2024, these items will be included in the EBITDA and allocated to the corresponding line of the P&L, thus better representing the group's operational profitability. For consistency and comparability purposes, all quarterly figures for 2023 and 2024 have been restated accordingly. Please see slide 36 for more information. Going back to the Q2 results, profitability was healthy at 18.4%, in line with the same quarter of 2023 and lower compared to Q1 2024.
In any case, let me remind you that the quarterly profitability can vary significantly from quarter to quarter due to the effect of product mix and cost saving. Therefore, the EBITDA margin is more representative at the half year and yearly levels. Going through the different business units, the Electrode Technology business recorded a decreasing EBITDA margin compared to the last quarters, mainly due to a different production mix in terms of segments, products, and geographies, and also due to some costs related to production setup optimization following the capacity scale-up. We expect this effect to continue also into the second half of the year. The water technology business profitability improved by 4.8 percentage points compared to Q2 2023, due to pools volume growth and WTS initiatives on profitability and organization. We expect this positive trend to continue in the coming quarters.
Finally, the energy transition business EBITDA was positive, even after the R&D cost, which accounted for 10% of revenues, and after costs related to the Italian Gigafactory project, which are anticipated to have a more significant impact in the upcoming quarters, driving the business unit's EBITDA to a break even for the full year. Let's look at slide 18 to review the half year results. Consolidated revenues slightly declined by 2.3% year-on-year, excluding EUR 10 million negative impact of the Japanese currency. Revenues evolution reflects the decline in the electrotechnology segment, expected to be fully recovered in the second half of the year, almost entirely offset by the growth in the water technologies and energy transition businesses. Regarding the geographic breakdown, revenues are well distributed across the three areas, with a higher incidence of Europe, Middle East, India, and Africa.
In the electro technologies, aftermarket maintained a high incidence on total revenues at 48%, up from about 40% in H1 2023. Within the water technology business, the 6.2% growth in the pools division led to a positive performance, more than offsetting the evolution of WTS. That, as explained before, was impacted by about EUR 3 million one-offs. Net of this effect, and at cost and exchange rates, the WTS division would have grown by 2.9%. Finally, the energy transition business reported 10.6% revenues growth, supported by the execution of projects in the portfolio and despite the previously mentioned slowdowns of the supply chain. On page 19, you can appreciate our backlog at the end of June 2024, that Paolo has already commented on. Let's now have a look at our operating costs on slide 20.
COGS in H1 2024 were down in absolute value due to the volume slowdowns, while the incidence on the revenues increased due to the different revenues mix and optimization production setup that has already been discussed. G&A costs grew, mainly due to the corporate structure enhancement to support the business development and some inflationary effect. Finally, R&D costs were about EUR 8 million, out of which approximately 70% were dedicated to energy transition, demonstrating our firm commitment to playing a leading role in the green hydrogen revolution. The vitality index of our products in the first six months of 2024 was 21%, mainly thanks to the energy transition business growth, confirming the effectiveness of our R&D activities. Moving on to page 21. During the first half of 2024, the consolidated EBITDA margin was 18.8%.
The change compared to the first half of 2023 incorporates the dynamics of the different business units that we already mentioned before. Additionally, I want to highlight the remarkable 25% improvement in the water technology business EBITDA. On page 22, we see that the EBIT changes mainly reflect EBITDA performance, with a slight increase in amortizations and depreciation, driven by capital expenditure. Net financial costs amounted to EUR 2.2 million, down from EUR 4.5 million in the first half of 2023. This improvement is primarily due to the optimization of our debt structure, following the voluntary partial repayment of our senior facility last year. The share of our joint venture thus contributed negatively by EUR 1.9 million, compared to a profit of EUR 1.15 million in 2023.
Net income for the semester was EUR 40 million, with a 10% margin on revenues. Before diving into our guidance for 2024, I'd like to briefly address our net financial position. As of the end of June, it stood at a positive EUR 14.2 million. During the first quarter, the cash absorption was mainly driven by the increase in net working capital due to the seasonality effect in trade payables, receivables, and inventories. At the end of June, our net cash position slightly improved compared to the end of March. Indeed, in the second quarter, the operating cash flow was about EUR 47 million and more than paid EUR 11 million CapEx, the EUR 24 million dividends distributed in April, and about EUR 3.5 million in buyback program, which is now over. The group...
group's strong financial structure and robust cash generation put us in an excellent position to explore both internal and external development opportunities, accelerating the company's strategy. Finally, regarding the business development of the second half of the year, taking into account market trends, the evolution of our backlog, and the results from the first half, we anticipate a progressive increase in revenues across the group's various businesses, with the most noticeable growth expected in the final quarter. For 2024, we expect revenues to grow at a low single digits. We expect Electrode Technology business to be in line with 2023, while energy transition and water technologies will grow at low single-digit pace, the latter supported by the pools division. The adjusted EBITDA margin at the group level for 2024 is expected to be at about 17%, including Gigafactory costs.
With that, I leave the floor to Chiara for a quick update on our ESG journey.
Thank you, Luca. Before leaving the floor to Paolo for the closing remark, I will give you a quick update on our ESG journey. We are working to execute our sustainability plan to 2030, approved in December by our board of directors, with several initiatives and targets to be reached already in 2024. In this slide, you can find the highlights for the first semester. Regarding the green innovation pillar, we are updating the first release of circular design guidance, including new principles that are focused on four major areas: energy efficiency, environmental footprint reduction, detoxification, longevity, and end-of-life value. The additional criteria will be integrated into the sustainability product scorecard.
In fact, the framework of the scorecard, which is one of our flagship projects, has been defined and includes environmental biodiversity benefits, contribution to SDGs, adherence to the circular, circularity principles mentioned, LCA-based quantification, and social impact linking to the main policies of the group in the state. Regarding to climate action and circular economy, starting in March 2024, all the photovoltaic panels installed for a total renewable energy capacity of 3.11 gigawatt hour have been connected. They are producing energy at our sites in Germany, Italy, and Brazil. At full speed, these plants could cover about 25% of the cumulated energy needs of the sites where they are installed. Another crucial initiative started in this semester is the development of the decarbonization plan.
The objective for this year is to focus on the main plants that account for about 90% of the De Nora's emissions, and complete the first draft of the comprehensive decarbonization plan. Finally, to confirm our commitment in climate action, we are finalizing the submission for our targets to SBTi. The targets included in the submission are 50% scope one and scope two emission reduction, 52% scope three emission intensity reduction, 100% renewable energy, all of them by 2030. Concerning people and local communities, we have completed the diversity, equity, and inclusion policy that has just been approved in these days, reaching one of the goals set for 2024. We are also working to boost health and safety.
In particular, in 2024, Gemba walk calendar for our chief regional offices is almost completed, and safety day have been organized at our plants. Finally, we have launched the Italian pilot for inclusive leadership program, done a training to Italian management on recruitment of people with diverse abilities, and other initiatives will follow in the second part of the year. We are proud of our ESG journey, in which the company and all of De Nora's people are engaged, thanks to the type of governance adopted that sees all the group functions and sites involved and empowered. I now leave the floor to Paolo for the final, final remarks.
Thank you, Chiara. So, basically, to wrap up our final remarks on H1 2024 results, we wanted to summarize as follows: Revenues recovered in Q2 2024, enhancing the H1 results, underpinned by a solid and differentiated backlog and a healthy 18.6% EBITDA margin. Positive momentum in water technology business continues with growth in revenues and other and order intake, both in systems and pools. Energy transition five hundred and eighty-eight MW delivered revenues grew with positive profitability. Production setup optimizing is ongoing. Solid EUR 47 million operating cash generation in Q2, more than covered CapEx and dividends. Sustainable by DNA, we are progressively delivering our ESG plan. Full year 2024 guidance, revenues, low single-digit growth, coupled with healthy profitability. Now we can open up for the Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Michele Della Vigna, Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, and congratulations on the good delivery, despite a challenging market, especially for green hydrogen. I wanted to ask two questions specifically on that. First of all, I wanted to understand, if you win no new contracts on green hydrogen, and you just execute on your current backlog, could you confirm that effectively you would expect flat revenues in energy transition in 2025 versus this year? And I was wondering, when you talk to your customers, what do you think is the key roadblock for all of these new projects to actually materialize into backlog? I'm wondering, is it mostly a clarification on the IRA in the U.S.? Is it financing? Is it connections to the grid? I'd love to hear your views on that.
Final question on H2 Green Steel, I was wondering what is the sensitivity of your 2024 guidance on the timeline for the deliveries in the second half? Thank you.
... Thank you, Michele. I can answer this, Paolo speaking. Yes, the first question is confirmed. So if we don't get orders, from now till year end or whatever, our 2025 is gonna be covered by the remaining part of Neom and H2 Green Steel, so it's gonna be more or less, flat or comparable to 2024 numbers. Talking to customers, we have a multiple kind of, of reactions. For sure, you know, if we are talking about United States, there is still, some pending, clarifications from the Inflation Reduction Act, in particular, the 45V chapter, which is supposed to, specify or to disclose, the real amount of per kilo contribution, that the government is gonna fund. So every area, every country has different kind of drivers.
So there's not a unique answer from our customers. There are multiple kind of reactions. Of course, there are many areas where there are already in place incentives, interesting programs like Japan, like Australia, but of course, these are projects that require quite a long gestation time. Our customers are average beginners in this field. They start from feasibility studies, then they go to pre-engineering, then they go to detail engineering, and then finally, hopefully, they go into FID. And then, of course, last but not least, let's not forget that, when there is a good off-taking agreement, typically the project runs faster than the other. So the ones that are only counting on incentives are the slowest ones.
The ones that have already a demand generated by the industry or the, the community that is they have to serve, of course, they are running faster. The last question, H2, H2 Green Steel has been already fixed in terms of production scheduling with our JV. It took quite a while to receive the final notice to proceed, that it was finally received back in May, if I remember well. So now H2 Green Steel is gonna be produced in the last part of 2024 and in 2025.
The next question is from Matteo Bonizzoni, Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good afternoon. I have three question, but quick ones, I would say. The first one is relating to your new guidance for the EBITDA margin, which is 17%, but this is now including the, let's call it, startup costs for the Gigafactory, which previously were excluded, now because previously you were saying 18%-19%, but excluding this cost. So my question is, can you quantify this cost for this year and maybe also for next years? Why you are not able to capitalize? I was wondering, because maybe, maybe, there was, the reason to put at least in the extraordinary charges outside the EBITDA, but instead you are putting inside, just to know.
and so what is the profitability of the division, which is included, which is energy transition, including and excluding the startup cost? The second question is the margin fluctuation, which we are seeing on a quarterly basis for the core business, for the electro technologies. Like Q1 was very strong, close to 27%. Q2 has been a little bit weaker, below 22%, if I'm correct. can you elaborate on mix factors or other factors which can generate this swing, just to know? And the third and last question is: What is your current exposure to PFAS, which is a fast-growing business inside Water Tech, and what are your expectations? Can you provide a little bit more color on the expectation for growth for this PFAS leg of your Water Tech business? Thanks.
Okay. Thank you, Matteo. We take the first two questions. So the first one is, how we build the guidance for 2024. It is 17%, as we said. It's the sum of the, let's say, low range of the guidance that we provided, that was 18%-19% without a Gigafactory cost. And then, we said that the Gigafactory cost would have hit the P&L by roughly 1.2 points. So that is how we calculate more or less the guidance, which is 17%. In reality, the cost of the Gigafactory that are not CapEx, these are inefficiencies.
So these are costs related to the ramp-up of the production of the Gigafactory costs. So these are not CapEx, these are costs, will amount in 2024 to approximately EUR 5-6 million. And this is what we normally give as a number for 2024, so limited in the year. So the second question was related to-
Electrode Technology.
Ah, the Electrode Technology segment. The profitability in the first half was higher than the second half, due to the fact that that will be, in the second half will be, flat. Due to the fact that in the second half, we will have more Gigafactory cost than the first half and more cost of the scale-up of the production. So, the total profitability of the ETR is an average of the half year profitability and the second year, second half profitability, that would be flat.
... ET, in Electrode Technology, the reduction of profitability in the second half is a matter of mix in terms of market segment, geographies, and production setup that will affect more the second half than the first half. Paolo?
Yes, good afternoon, Matteo. You, your voice is quite far away. So you mentioned PFAS, but I didn't get fully your, your question. Can you repeat it again, please?
Yeah, the question is simply, given that it is a fast-growing business inside Water Tech, and there is a lot of focus also by investor, can you a little bit provide color on the current exposure, the market opportunities which you see in different geographies, and figure maybe revenues this year, and maybe in three years, what are your ambitions? Thanks.
On the PFAS specifically? Okay, if, if I understood correctly, because your voice is quite disturbed and far away, but on PFAS, it's a market that is just starting. Regulatory is helping a lot. As you know, the EPA has issued the first guidelines, where they identified, in the U.S., 70 million people living in areas where PFAS is already above the limits. So there is a process in place to qualify, to identify the locations where to test and to pilot these technologies, and to then implement huge investments to capture and reduce these quantities in the water. Of course, this is not only an American issue, is moving ahead. Europe is starting moving, including Italy, by the way.
There's not yet a regulation in Europe that is supporting, but we are receiving a lot of inquiries. To the point that, in a very short period of time, our pipeline is made by 52 opportunities. We have already five piloting going on. Actually, four going on, and one to be deployed in September. And we do have a lot of know-how that will be used to serve this new demand. Now, in terms of numbers, it's still a little bit early to say, right? We believe that we will start having revenues from 2025, and it will grow. It could be tens of millions EUR, but very difficult for the time being to start.
It's foreseen to be a multi-billion business, but of course, I mean, we are not going to be the only one playing a role over there. So, we will work on the next business plan to try to figure out what could be the evolution of our revenues in this new field.
Thank you.
The next question is from Isacco Brambilla, Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, everybody. A couple of questions on my side. The first one is on CapEx. Last March, you provided a guidance with accumulated plan of close to EUR 300 million by 2026. Considering ramp up of demand in energy transition is quite slower than originally expected, how should we think about this timing of this CapEx plan? Fair to assume this may be deployed over a longer time period, I don't know, 1-3, a couple of years more? Second question is more on the short term. You mentioned third quarter revenues for energy transition will be impacted by supply chain issues in the second quarter.
Are you in the position to give a sort of a revenue guidance for next quarter for energy transition, maybe something similar to the level seen in the second quarter, or below that, what should we expect?
Hi, Isacco. I answer the first one. CapEx, you know, we need to look at one by one, because as you remember, we already adjusted our capacity targets by 2026 to a lower amount already when we announced the new, the new business plan back in March 2024. To be honest with you, some of the CapEx that we have already done are for such a versatile capacity, production capacity, that have been already fully utilized for other segments. You know, the, the new plant expansion in Okayama, that we celebrated in April, if you look at it in June, July, is already full of work, and is executing the backlog in chloralkali.
So it's been fully, fully, utilized, as well as, this, impressive increase of capacity in China. That, of course, is also in the direction of hydrogen, but, for the time being, is already fully utilized by the growth we are enjoying in chloralkali maintenance programs, in China. Of course, it's a different, discussion when we talk about Gigafactory. The Gigafactory in Italy has to respect a timetable independently from the evolution of the market, because there is a contribution from the PNRR, and from the European Commission program.
So in that case, we have slowed down, mainly because of permissions from the authorities, but now that we have the full green light, to start the construction phase after the groundbreaking ceremony, we are going to go at full speed, because we need to complete that factory by 2025. And by the way, we are collecting orders for the Dragonfly that need to be executed in that factory, so we need to rush on that. So again, to sum up, the CapEx might diminish to in some specific cases, but overall, we are running at the speed that is allowing us to execute what we know we have to execute.
To be prepared for the additional demand, because, as I always say, we need to be ready 1.5 year minimum in advance, before the orders come. Because we need to build capacity, we need to hire people, we need to train these people and to have them ready to work on 3 shifts, potentially. So that's our journey and relevant timetable.
With regard to the energy transition, you know that the first half closed with a 10% increase compared to last year. At the end of the year, we plan to close our energy transition in terms of revenues in line with 2023, a low digit CAGR higher. This is due to the supply chain slowdown that we mentioned during the call. Without this effect, we would have closed with an amount higher than last year. So, in any case, we maintain a positive barrier towards last year.
Okay, many thanks, Paolo and Luca.
You're welcome.
The next question is from Gian Marco Gadini, Banca Akros. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. I was wondering, regarding your electrode division,
Can you speak loudly, please? We cannot hear you very well.
Okay. Can you hear me now?
Yes, better.
Okay, thanks. I was wondering, as regards to your electrode technology divisions, if you are seeing any structural shift in demand for new installation, particularly, in the chloralkali segment from a geographical point of view or in industrial sectors, and such like? Thanks.
I'm not sure to have understood. You asked if we have observed shifting of installations?
Yep, particularly on a geographic,
Okay.
From a geographic standpoint.
Well, as you know, we serve many geographies in many segments. So if we talk about chloralkali, we are observing quite a substantial growth in Asia, in particular in China. And that's really coming from the fact that China is keeping investing in chloralkali on one end, in new capacity, but at the same time, the impressive installed capacity that they built over the last years now is coming due for maintenance. So we have really a lot of work to be done over there with many customers. On the other hand, we are also observing the dynamic, totally different dynamic, but still very interesting in the United States, where there are big conversion projects that are going on.
As you know, we won the first one, which is Occidental Chemical, that we started executing in June this year, and we are going to finish the end of next year. But there is already, Oxy, Oxy two, that is under negotiation right now. And then because of the banning of the asbestos, because still some diaphragm technology, instead of being converted, they wanted to still resist, for a while before conversion, but they are obliged to change, the separator. And De Nora has this, very famous De Nora PMX, which is an asbestos-free separator, that now we are really seeing an increase of, volumes expected from next year. So these are the two macro areas that are really giving us more satisfaction of, of the chloralkali standpoint.
On electronics, as we already mentioned, being mainly an Asian business, with only some reshoring kind of activities in Europe and in North America. But in general, last year was a de-stocking year. As everybody knows, this year was expected to have a growth that is happening, but a little bit more moderate than what everybody was expecting.
Many thanks. And if I may, again, on the chloralkali, is Europe flat, is growing in line with GDP, or is slowing down? Just broadly-
Europe, Europe is for sure the area where the chemical industry is suffering the most. The utilization rate, it's lower than the best years, which, on the other hand, when the utilization rate of these plants is not at the maximum peak, it stimulate the customers in running maintenance programs. So, we're actually doing a lot of maintenance projects in Europe. Also, thanks to the fact that the industry is not at the maximum speed of utilization, which you can imagine is the worst moment for this kind of industry to initiate a maintenance program because they are quite disruptive. That's what we see.
I mean, we're dealing with all the chemical industry in Europe, for sure is not the best moment for them compared to the Americas and Asia. But nevertheless, our business is still very, very solid also in Europe.
Clear. Many thanks.
The next question is from Chris Leonard, UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe three from me or two quick ones. But firstly, to hit the group guidance for 17% EBIT margin in 2024, I think guidance for the electrode business will be profitability to stay weak in the second half of the year, I assume averaging around 22%. Firstly, is that correct? And secondly,
... does, you know, what's changed from Q1 results, where you spoke about margins being flat year-over-year at sort of 24%-25% EBITDA margins? That's the first question. And the second question, just on the hydrogen supply chain, it'd be really helpful if you could dig in and explain what's caused the delays. Where were the issues? Was it maybe on iridium and precious group metals? Any color there would be really helpful. And last question, you've helpfully given a split of some of your hot deals. So, we maybe of the 3 gigawatts still have about 2.2 gigawatts that are outstanding, that may be unaccounted for. Is there any color you can offer as to any customers here that won't be involved with Thyssenkrupp Nucera within this 2.2 gigawatts?
Could you maybe provide those electrodes into other players globally in the electrolyzer space, or should we be focusing on new flow coming out of Thyssenkrupp Nucera? Thank you.
Okay, Chris, thank you very much for the question. So we start with the electrodes. Yes, in the second part of the year, the profitability of the electrodes will be weaker than the first part of the year. It's not a matter of price. We are not giving price to the market. The price are stable, so it's not a matter of price, it's just a matter of mix. As we explained, it's a matter of mix because we have more turnover in certain geographies, like Asia, where we have products with lower features. And so it's a matter of segments and geographies in terms of mix, and a matter of also of production setup, but the combination of this effect will bring down the profitability.
Not a matter of price. We are not giving price to the market.
Okay, the second question, sorry, I actually forgot to answer the same question in the previous, in the previous, Banca Akros. Yeah, we had some delays from the supply chain. We're not talking about noble metals here. We're talking about a supplier that has had difficulties in keeping sort of pace that at the end fully recovered by the end of June. But of course, these delays have created some issues with us and some effects, especially in the month of July. So it was mainly related to one with one supplier that struggled a little bit to keep the pace of this growth that we were pushing for.
The last question is related to the hot deals. Yeah, the hot deals are a number of projects that we already mentioned. The reason why the value has grown is because the probability has been growing, considering that some of them are really in the very, very... Well, one has been already signed. It's a matter of notice to proceed, which is next in Finland. The other one in the United States is potentially very close to finalization, depending on the IRA. And then the other, for example, Cepsa, in Spain, is really moving pretty fast. So, we are pretty confident that those hot deals could become, could turn into projects, into contracts, in a relatively short time.
That's the reason why the value has been growing.
Sorry, I also meant on-
Probability grow.
Sorry, yeah, I also meant on the, on the hot deals, were there any customers or, that are outside of Thyssenkrupp Nucera within that hot deals of 3 gigawatts? Could you be providing projects to other global electrolyzer manufacturers, or is the 3 gigawatts solely going to, potentially-
Very much related to De Nora, yeah.
Okay, thanks.
The next question is from Constantin Hesse, Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, there. Thank you for taking my question. I actually have one, sorry, I joined the call a bit late. Not sure if this has been asked, but just on the hydrogen segment, I mean, it goes without saying that skepticism continues to go, you know, increase quite significantly, and we continue to see, you know, big slowdown in the industry, and things don't seem to be really moving well on the regulatory front. And so I want, I want to understand, because you're obviously, you know, investing quite a bit of money into this Gigafactory, are there any contingencies in place, or are there any plans to potentially restructure, I don't know, potentially on the cost side? Because the demand clearly doesn't seem to be there.
I mean, obviously, you have these hot deals, you have the pipeline, which, you know, a lot of the other companies also have, but they simply are not being turned into effective orders. You know, it could come, it could not come. The question rather is, you know, if this factory stays at a very low level of utilization, what kind of a margin headwind could that cause for you? Thanks.
Well, probably, yeah. I think I answered already this question earlier, but it's a pleasure to answer again. We need to be quite distinguishing the different CapEx. Some of the CapEx we are running or we've been running were related to capacity increase that is very versatile. So actually, what we did in China by the end of 2023, and what we have done in Japan in 2024, has been already fully utilized by the other segments that we serve without really any issue in terms of saturation or under absorption on things like that. On the Gigafactory in Italy. The Gigafactory, it will be made by multiple kind of products, but the main focus is going to be on our electrolyzers.
And considering that, we already have three orders, we just started launching this product. We have a number of projects that we might finalize in the next weeks, and we have as a total of 24 projects in pipeline. We believe that, well, that factory is going to be dedicated a lot to those electrolyzers. So we actually desperately need that factory to produce every single job related to the business. So we don't think that we have to slow down or to cut anything over there, but we simply have to saturate it in the most effective and fastest way. That's it. Basically, these are the main CapEx we're talking about.
Germany, sorry, Germany has been going through, not only an increase of capacity, but also an upgrade of some technologies like robotized laser welding, that we moved from one technology to a more modern one, fiber laser kind. So this is an upgrade, which has been already implemented and by the way, fully utilized, because Germany is still the hub that is producing and delivering most of the backlog we have right now. So, that's somehow the picture.
I understand all. I mean, on the electrode side, I completely understand, and that's fair enough. That is... That's obviously a product that you can shift into a different segment, but electrolyzers are simply very much focused on the hydrogen industry adoption taking off, and right now, it simply isn't. Now, you already have 24 orders, you know, some initial orders coming in. That's pretty great. I'm just wondering about the sustainability of that really continuing and the risk of that factory post this initial uptick in orders simply not being utilized at a high level. So the question is: What kind of a margin headwind could this factory cost to you? And what is the risk of, or how big of a write-down risk is there, should the adoption simply continue to be a drag over the short term?
Well, let me try to be more specific here. When we talk about electrolyzers, we need to distinguish two macro families, right? So we produce cells for our partners. So the cell manufacturing in Germany, in China, and Japan is exactly like the electrodes, able to switch from chloralkali to hydrogen and from hydrogen to chloralkali in a matter of hours. So that is versatile enough not to have not to generate any issue to us. If we talk about the Gigafactory in Italy, well, we are observing that while in this moment, the large projects have some delays in entering into FID, actually, the decentralized small projects that are addressed by our Dragonfly, we're talking about electrolyzer between 1 MW and 7.5. We're not talking about multi-hundred or gigawatt scale mega projects.
That is absolutely in a counter trend. So we are seeing a quite impressive demand. Now that the market knows that De Nora is launching his own small electrolyzer, we have received really requests and demands, even of partnership, not only of delivery of projects, from Japan to Europe. Of course, Italy has been the main focus at the beginning of the launch. So we are confident that we will be able to feed that factory.
That doesn't mean that the factory is going to be saturated, but the factory, you know, once you build the factory, right, and you equip it with the equipment to install and to assemble this kind of electrolyzers, the numerosity of the employees that are supposed to be hired in that factory is a variable number that can be run over a number of years. So, we can manage the under absorption accordingly. And let's not forget that Gigafactory is under the IPCEI program. So again, this is not in our power so much to modify the schedule, otherwise we will not get the funds. So we need to respect the timetable, which is delivering the factory by the first month of 2026. But in reality, we wanted to have it finished by the end of 2025.
First, to be able to complete our jobs, that we are already signing. On the other hand, to respect the timetable that is going to give us EUR 63 million of contribution.
Understood. Thank you.
You're welcome.
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We are available for any kind of question as I ask him, and looking forward to speak to you early. Bye-bye.
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