Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call Conference Operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Industrie De Nora Nine-Month 2023 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. Please go ahead, madam.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our nine-month 2023 financial results conference call. I'm Chiara Locati, Head of Investor Relations and ESG at De Nora. With me on the call today, there are Paolo Dellachà, CEO of the group, and Massimiliano Moi, CFO. They will guide you to the main achievements and financial results of these first nine months. 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 hand it over to Paolo. Paolo, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Chiara, and good afternoon, everyone. In the nine months of 2023, particularly in Q3, despite a challenging environment, our business continued to execute well and deliver on our commitments, building a solid foundation to drive our long-term growth and profitability. The solid performances were supported by our robust business model, able to smooth market volatility, thanks to the unparalleled leading position in all our businesses. Strong end market differentiation and high aftermarket sales exposure, which provides enhanced visibility. Revenues grew by 2.1%, or 5.4% at constant exchange rates, underpinned by the resilience of our electrode technology business, the increase of our water technology systems, and even further, the growth of our energy transition business, while the ongoing market normalization has still impacted the pools division.
Our consolidated profitability was robust, with an EBITDA margin of about 19.7%, aligned with our full year 2023 guidance, supported mainly by the electrode technology business. Our energy transition business unit reached the milestone of 1 GW of technologies for green hydrogen, realized since 2022, when we spun off the new division from the electrode technology business. In the nine months of 2023, green hydrogen revenues increased fivefold compared to the same period in 2022, with a positive EBITDA margin of about 11%, witnessing that we are profitably growing, thanks to the excellent execution of our backlog. Our solid balance sheet provides flexibility in the current macro environment, supported by a healthy operating cash flow that in Q3 2023 was equal to about EUR 30 million.
Looking beyond the results of the nine months, we are working to pave the way to our sustainable mid- and long-term growth, enabling sustainable investments to drive development, profitability, and returns, regardless of the short-term market uncertainties. Our energy transition pipeline is concrete and increased to 46 GW, improving our mid and long-term visibility. Concerning our production capacity development plan, we proudly announce that we have completed the extension of our Suzhou plant in China. The new production line tripled the plant electrode manufacturing capacity, which is partially already optioned by projects in the current backlog, while the capacity dedicated to green hydrogen technology will be increased in the Chinese plant to at least 500 MW by the end of the year.
We strongly believe in De Nora ability to grow profitably in the mid and long term, developing all its business segments along a path of sustainable value creation for its stakeholders. This is why today, our board of directors approved the launch of a share buyback plan, which will be dedicated to different scopes, including primarily the engagement of managers and employees in the company's success. Lastly, let me recall that we are working on our ESG strategy and ESG plan, which will be delivered in the following months, and that will be focused on green innovation, circular economy, and climate impact, giving primary importance to our people and to generating value also for the local communities, all well orchestrated by our robust governance, aligned with the best practices.
In this slide, you can appreciate some of the KPIs of our nine months of 2023 performance that Max will comment on later. As I have already commented today, our board of directors has approved the launch of the share buyback plan as per the resolution approved by the ordinary shareholder meeting of the 28th of April this year. This decision has been supported by the well-built confidence the company has in its ability to grow and generate mid and long-term value for all stakeholders. We have demonstrated in 100 years of history to generate high, constant, and continuous value. Thanks to our leading position in the electrode and water technologies, and our innovation D&A, that brought us to develop continuously cutting-edge products and services, anticipating and serving the customer and environmental trend needs.
Thus, we are confident that De Nora will be a champion also in the green hydrogen megatrend, even if this hydrogen revolution is accelerating at a smoother pace than initially expected. The buyback, which starts with the first tranche of EUR 45 million of De Nora share equivalent, will be dedicated to the remuneration policies already adopted by De Nora, and any other plans that might be approved in the future, such as an employee share ownership plan, aimed at strengthening retention and sharing the success of the company with employees. In addition to share purchase, can be used in the context of action related to future industrial and financial projects, consistent with the strategic targets of the company, such as M&A transactions. Coming back to our business unit performances. The electrode technology business recorded a positive third quarter, with revenues exceeding those of the previous two quarters.
This performance was mainly supported by volume growth in the chlor-alkali segment, which more than offset the softer trend in the electronics and despite the Forex headwinds. Indeed, at the constant exchange rate, the business unit grew by 4.6%. The expansion of the electrode technology business is underpinned by technological upgrade projects, aimed at improving the efficiency and environmental sustainability of our customer plants. In May, we included in our backlog a new project awarded from OxyChem in the United States, for a technological upgrade of its chlor-alkali plant in Texas. In this week, our joint venture, thyssenkrupp nucera, announced a new secured order, awarded from Unipar, that aims to modernize, with more sustainable and efficient technology, its chlor-alkali plant in Brazil.
We are confident that this trend of enhancing the efficiency and carbon footprint of plants, switching towards more advanced technologies, such as those offered by De Nora, will continue supporting the stable growth of our electrode technologies business, even in a challenging macroeconomic scenario. Another critical pillar of growth for us is represented by our aftermarket revenues, which include several circular services provided to our customers, leveraging on a growing global install base, which in the nine months of 2023 accounted for 42% of the business unit revenues, versus 40.8% in the nine months of 2022. The profitability of the electrode technology business in nine months 2023 was robust, with an EBITDA margin of 25%, in line with our industrial plan, reflecting the strength of our business model and our unparalleled leading position.
We are proud of the results of the electrode technology business, which provides 56% of the consolidated revenues, and is characterized by sound cash generation. We expect a stable evolution of the business, even in Q4 2023. In the nine months of 2023, the Water Technology Systems product line reported a double-digit performance, with a revenue increase of about 23% year-on-year. In Q3, as expected, the positive evolution of the business continued at the same pace as in Q2. The Water Technology Systems include all our sustainable solutions dedicated to water and wastewater disinfection and filtration, excluding the pools segment, based on a wide range of technologies.
Looking at the main projects in our backlog, De Nora is supplying two very large ozone generation systems for two huge wastewater plants in the Middle East, at the Tubli Sewage Treatment Plant in Bahrain, and at another integrated industrial wastewater treatment works in Qatar. Both installations will be used for water reuse purposes, to help address water scarcity issues, with the installation at Tubli increasing the site treatment capacity by 100%, making it one of the largest wastewater treatment plants in the Kingdom of Bahrain, and one of the largest air-fed ozone systems in the world. In addition, following the successful award of our optimized package of three proprietary technologies for the second phase at the Al Jubail desalination plant in Saudi Arabia, which is the largest desalination operation in the world, De Nora has won the same package for another important desalination plant in Algeria.
This reinforces the company's strategy to leverage the complete and diversified De Nora, De Nora technological portfolio for desalination applications. We see a positive and growing trend in the Water Technology system business, and we're very strongly equipped to exploit it. Finally, concerning our pool division, the softer performances continued in Q3, still impacted by the ongoing market destocking by our customers. We expect the market to approach a normalized level in 2024. However, it is only from 2024 onwards, that we expect the segment to recover. Nevertheless, the pool product line remains a very attractive segment, led by electrochlorination and automation of existing pools. Our strong positioning in the market and world-class technological offering make us confident about our mid and long-term strategy.
Our energy transition business continues a strong development path, which started in the last quarters of 2022, supported by a solid backlog and positive profitability since the beginning of the journey. Since we launched our energy transition business in 2022 as a spin-off of the electrode technology business, revenues grew, reaching, at the end of September, a cumulative value of EUR 100+ million. Our EBITDA margin has been positive since the end of 2022, improving from 6%-11% in the first nine months of 2023, more than repaying the expenses in the research and development activities, which accounted for about 14% of the cumulative revenues. We are excited to announce that at the end of September, we reached the milestone of 1 GW of technologies dedicated to green hydrogen, realized and delivered.
This is only the beginning of our energy transition business development. As you can see in the slide, our backlog, also considering the secure order by our JV, thyssenkrupp nucera, with H2 Green Steel in Sweden, is equal to 2.2 GW, offering visibility to revenues growth in the following years. We have a robust production capacity, and we are fruitfully working on expanding it, considering the speed of the green hydrogen market growth. We have a unique profile in the global green hydrogen space. First, we have a unique position in the value chain, as we are the global leading provider of the core technologies in the electrolysis projects, the electrodes.
Second, we have on our shoulders 100 years of know-how in producing electrodes and cells for the chlor-alkali industry, and in developing our technology through a fruitful research and development activity aimed at improving the sustainability and performances of our solutions, which today are already the best-in-class in terms of current density, production efficiency, and energy efficiency. That said, we are very well equipped to play a champion role in the green hydrogen revolution, even if the market is growing at a slower pace than expected. Okay, in this slide, we have reported the main contracts that we have in our backlog and some of the key projects we have in our pipeline. We are working on the largest worldwide green hydrogen project, NEOM, in Saudi Arabia, and executing our backlog in line with scheduling agreed and constantly updated with customers.
Regarding the main projects in our pipeline in the recent weeks, our JV, thyssenkrupp nucera, announced a capacity reservation for a 120 MW project in Finland by Neste. The project aims to reduce the carbon footprint of Neste Refinery in Porvoo to transform the plant into the most sustainable refinery in Europe by 2030. We maintain a robust market leading position worldwide in the green hydrogen space, along with our joint venture, thyssenkrupp nucera. Here, we see the pipeline of our energy transition business, which, as of September 30th, improved to 46 GW, increasing by 4 GW compared to the last data provided at the end of July. The number of projects in the pipeline is increasing, while the average size is at 360 MW today.
Our pipeline is rich, diversified, and concrete, and it's broken down into different layers: 3.2 GW of hot deals, 8.8 GW of actively pursued projects, and 34 GW of identified projects in the pipeline. As you can appreciate, about 50% of our hot deals, which are the project with a high probability of award in the short term, correspond to an already secure order by H2 Green Steel in Sweden, by our joint venture. One Memorandum of Understanding relating to the extension of the Unigel project to 240 MW in Brazil, and two capacity reservations, including the high multi-hundred green hydrogen projects in U.S., and the new project already described by Neste in Finland. We still see a significant growth opportunity in the green hydrogen market.
We firmly believe that as part of the energy transition, green hydrogen production is expected to play a crucial role globally in the decarbonization of the hard-to-abate and mobility industries, and also continues to be an essential growth driver for De Nora. On the other hand, the evolution of the green hydrogen market globally, although growing, is accelerating at a slower pace than initially foreseen. This is mainly due to the moderate progress of regulation in the different geographies, the complexity of renewable energy market, and the current macroeconomic condition, coupled with high interest rates in the major economies. In addition, the highly innovative profile of the new value chain requires a learning curve for the off-takers in the execution and management of the project, which tends to outline a more balanced growth of the sector in the short term. That said, we expect the market to continue its growth.
We will keep our production capacity expansion aligned with the speed of the market. We are pursuing investments worldwide in brown and green fields to exploit the market growth opportunities. We are, we are improving our versatile manufacturing capacity for green hydrogen technologies and other electrode technology businesses. We are particularly proud to announce the expansion of our Chinese site in Suzhou, which guarantees a considerable increase in production capacity serving the entire group. The new production line tripled the existing electrode coating capacity of the site. It is complemented by the mechanical plant for titanium and nickel machining, and electrolyzer maintenance, and an additional new cell assembly line to better meet customer requirements in terms of both capacity and product specifications. The additional production capacity will be used to fulfill orders and projects already in our backlog, and to meet the expected growing demand for electrodes.
The site offers electrodes for new installations, for maintenance, and technology upgrade services to major Chinese and Asian customers. With the new line, built with a high energy efficiency and productivity criteria, De Nora aims to strengthen its competitive position in the Chinese chlor-alkali market, which today accounts for 45% of the global market. In the sectors of copper foil production for the manufacture of lithium batteries, for electrical cars and other electronic devices, for which demand is expected to grow. In the Suzhou plant, we are also working to expand to 0.5 GW, meaning 500 MW, equivalent of energy transition capacity. We expect activities will be completed by the end of 2023, bringing our global energy transition capacity to 2.5 GW.
We are also carrying out the other expansion manufacturing capacity projects worldwide, already announced, such as, for instance, Japan, Germany, and in Italy, the realization of our new gigafactory. Also, in the U.S., we are finalizing the first expansion project. But with specific reference to the timing, we are committed to keeping our production capacity expansion aligned with the speed of the green hydrogen market. This means that in the business plan that we are updating and will present to the market in March 2024, the installed capacity target of 6 GW equivalent could be moved forward by one year, from 2025, originally foreseen, to 2026. So to wrap up, we are proud of our nine months 2023 business results, and confident to pursue our sustainable growth path, generating value by providing sustainable technologies.
Our electrode technology business is resilient, even in a challenging macroeconomic scenario, with robust profitability and cash flow generation. In the water technology business, the strong performances of water technology systems are still offset by pools market normalization, but we expect this fade in 2024. In the energy transition business, we are firmly positioned to make a difference in the green hydrogen market, and we are already strongly growing profitably, even if in the short term, the market could increase lower than expected. With that, I leave the floor to Max, for the financial results. Max?
Thank you, Paolo. Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for attending our call. Let's start, of course, from revenues, where the performance in the first nine months was overall positive in a challenging macroeconomic scenario. The growth registered is 2.1% versus the first nine months of 2022, but at constant exchange rate, this growth would be 5.4%. Looking at the segments in electrode technologies, the growth has been driven by the chlor-alkali business, which more than offset the low performance in the electronics. And in electrodes, at constant exchange rate, the revenue growth would be +4.6%, with a significant market sales incidence of.
With a significant incidence of the aftermarket, with more than 40%, which, by the way, is also protecting our business from economic cycle swings. In water technologies, the growth has been in water technology systems 22.8%, with a solid aftermarket share of 38%, while on the pools, we still suffer the impact of the market trend, which is expected to approach the normalized level by 2024. In energy transition, we are growing faster, five times the first nine months of 2022, supported by our backlog execution, which is in line with the scheduling agreed with our customers. We have realized in the first nine months 0.7 GW versus.
The 0.3 GW of the entire 2022, and the expectation is to reach 1 GW in the full year 2023. Going to the backlog, we see that we have, at the 30th of September, a backlog standing at EUR 669 million, which is 4% above the September figure. This is driven by energy transition, where the backlog has more than doubled versus September 2022. And in energy transition, if we consider the secured orders by our JV nucera for the H2 Green Steel project in North Europe, the backlog of the energy transition would jump above the record level reported in December 2022, enhancing also the visibility on our 2024 and 2025 revenues.
In electrode technologies, the new order are expected also to be awarded in the coming months in chlor-alkali, alkali specifically. In water technology, the backlog level reflects the fast-paced execution of WTS systems and still soft performance in the pool business. Moving to the operating cost, we see a COGS that has increased, and this is mainly a consequence of a different product mix in the water technology, with lower incidence of the pool market. G&A costs reported an increase, mainly due to corporate structure enhancement to support our business development. In R&D, you see that we are up at EUR 10 million out of which 70% are dedicated to energy transition.
Keeping in mind that our R&D activity in the electrode business is 100-year-old, we have 5 R&D centers worldwide, with more than 100 researchers that are engaged in developing our technological leadership, enhancing the efficiency and the sustainability of our products. In terms of Vitality Index, our products in nine months, 2023, was equal to 19%, up from the 15% in the full year 2022, mainly driven by energy transition. Coming to the EBITDA adjusted, we see that we have a robust profitability in line with our full year 2023 guidance, which is mainly supported by our electrode technologies and with the positive contribution also of the energy transition. EBITDA adjusted was equal to EUR 124 million, and which represent 19.7% on revenues.
Electrode division reported the usual solid 25% EBITDA margin, which is aligned with our historical trends. Concerning water technology, the year-on-year performance is mainly attributable to a lower incidence of the pools, which is penalizing the overall division. While our energy transition reported a positive 11% EBITDA margin, that includes a 10% R&D incidence on revenue. So regardless the high investment in R&D, we are still reporting a good 11% EBITDA in energy transition. Looking at the bridge from our EBITDA to the net results, you see that the EBIT evolution mainly is reflecting our EBITDA performance, which I just commented.
We have net results at EUR 198 million, driven by the 133 million of extraordinary component from the tk nucera IPO. Without that component, the result would be 66 million, that in any case, is higher than the 2022 first nine months. In terms of net working capital, we see that we are at EUR 315 million, with 36.5% incidence on revenues. We are improving compared to September 2022, mainly reflecting a lower inventory level. The main dynamics underlying the net working capital in the third quarter, compared with the end of June, were an increase in trade receivable, driven by high revenues realized in the month of September, then an increase in our working progress, mainly due to our product mix.
And finally, there was also an improvement in the inventory ratio, which now is at 33% and moving toward our year-end target of 30%. Going on the net financial position, in for the first nine months, we see that we have a positive net financial position at the end of September for EUR 41.8 million. It's an improvement of EUR 33 million compared to the end of June, but this includes 26 million of the green shoe related to the IPO of thyssenkrupp nucera. But even without considering that, we have an improvement of the net financial position of EUR 7 million.
In particular, the cash flow from operations, based on our sound EBITDA, and also to the well-managed net working capital, was positive by EUR 33.6 million, which more than covered the CapEx, our financial cost, and tax. So net-net, we have a robust operating cash flow generation, and a strong balance sheet that provide us financial flexibility in the current macro activities, and allows us to finance our growth, both organic and in case of opportunity, also, via M&A. Moving to the 2023 guidance, we are confirming the guidance in terms of profitability, in terms of adjusted EBITDA margin. These both at consolidated level and also for energy transition.
While, regarding revenues for the full year 2023, we provide a new guidance, at EUR 850 million-EUR 870 million, which is below the range previously announced, mainly due to a negative impact of, Forex exchange, that is impacting, for EUR 32 million on our revenue performance, and also on the, revenue gap in pools that is impacting for EUR 34 million versus our budget. Regarding the energy transition, we realized, as I anticipated, in 2023, the, 1 GW production, and, we reach the EUR 100 million, despite, lower than expected green hydrogen market growth. And, with this, I would, give it back to Paolo for our final, remark, and then the Q&A.
Thank you, Max. So finally, to wrap up, our growth path continues despite the challenging environment, with revenues improving by 5.4% at constant exchange rates, solid profitability, and strong cash flow generation. While the average market is growing at a slower pace than expected, our energy transition business is growing rapidly, 4.9 times versus the nine months of 2022, with positive double-digit profitability, and we are strongly positioned to be the champions in the green hydrogen revolution. Electrode technology business grows at a stable pace, with a robust EBITDA margin of 25%, and water technology business unit performances were supported by the solid positive trend of water technology systems. Now we are ready for the Q&A session.
Thank you. This is the conference call 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 Matteo Bonizzoni with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good evening. We have two questions. The first one is related to the guidance for 2023. Maybe I was misled by the press release, because in the press release, you say profitability confirmed. Now, it is clear that percentage-wise is confirmed, 18-19%, but the new EBITDA guidance range is EUR 153 million-EUR 165 million, if I done the correct calculation. So can you confirm that? I think it's confirmed now from the slides of the call. The second question is, as regard. So in the press release, you are anticipating that previous targets for 2025 related to energy transition are now challenging to be met. You have written that in the press release.
My question is, can you elaborate on the key reasons, the reasons, yes, why compared to, let's say, 12 or 18 months ago, the pipeline in green hydrogen, despite there are a lot of projects, so the effect of coming to a final investment decision, and so our backlog is proving more difficult than anticipated. Thanks.
Yeah. First of all, the guidelines. The numbers are the following: so we confirm the margin performance as for previous guidelines. Of course, in terms of absolute number, with a gap in the top line, we have a proportional gap in the absolute term of EBITDA that you can easily calculate. What is relevant, I think, is that the resilience of our business model allow us, even in a scenario that is penalizing us for foreign exchange rate and slower than expected market evolution, we are capable of maintaining the profitability level in terms of incidence on our sales. So I think that this is the way of reading the new guideline. With regard to the pipeline, the pipeline is growing, so it's just a matter of time. Hydrogen is a marathon.
It will take longer than anybody was expecting, but we have a growing pipeline. We have longer execution time of our projects. We have longer time for granting subsidies from governments and legislators. We have longer time of conversion of announced projects into FID. We have longer time of gestations of these projects, even when they enter in FID. We have longer than expected timing for the permitting of renewable energies that of course drive the evolution of green hydrogen. And these are the reason why, on the one side, we are witnessing more and more growing pipeline. On the other, we see that the timing is expanding.
Yeah. Thank you.
The next question is from Isacco Brambilla with Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three, one for each business unit. Starting from Electrotechnologies. During 2022, the segment top line growth benefited significantly from price increases on top of volume growth. Which kind of pricing dynamics are you seeing so far this year now that inflation is easing on many raw materials? Second question is on Water Technologies. Some of the main players in the pools industry gave confident messages about the upcoming end of the stocking cycle. You anticipated in the press release a return to growth as well in 2024.
On a qualitative basis, is it fair to assume that the growth trajectory next year may be linear, or should we expect this to be somehow back-ended loaded in the second half of the year? Last question is on energy transition. I appreciate timing for translating capacity reservation achievements into orders and deliveries is not under your control. But given current visibilities, it's fair to assume that orders collected from H2 Green Steel, North American projects and Porvoo may start to contribute to energy transition results already next year. Thanks.
Okay. So the first question was on electrodes. Yeah, the price effect on the electrode business this year is, has been slightly more moderate because there has been a quite flattish, slightly lower cost of raw materials. So basically, what we have been enjoying so far has been purely volume increase effect.
In fact, here, going back to the numbers, the impact is foreign exchange on electrodes. This is because, the foreign exchange impact is basically on yen and renminbi. So it's our Asian operation, and therefore, if you consider it, if you look at electrode performance, the growth in volume is 4.6%. So positive volume evolution, stable in terms of pricing, but negatively impacted by effects. Then on pools for 2024, the, all that we hear from our customers, the larger players in the market, is a recovery trend in 2024. They declare that, the destocking with the end of 2023 is substantially over.
So, following what they say, we expect a moderate upside already visible in the first half of the year with the pool season in summertime.
Pick up. Yeah, sorry, to complete on the pool side, the really only effect that has contributed to this normalization has been destocking. So all the other fundamentals are absolutely there. So we are the market leaders with an impressive market share. There is a continuous growing business in this salt pools with this automatic chlorination. There is a very good ratio of conversion. There are new geographies that are picking up compared to the traditional ones. So inevitably, once the destocking is finished, and considering that it's been announced in August 2022, we are beyond more than one year of the destocking process by our customers. By the end of it, of course, the market will go back again to the growth trajectory that we originally foresaw in our business plan.
And the third part, regarding energy transition and the timing, H2 Green Steel timing transformation from secured order to backlog should not take much longer. thyssenkrupp nucera and we, together with them, are working on a daily basis to transform that also into an order for De Nora. For the American, North American, Texas project, it's going to take a little bit longer, but also there, we're not far away from hopefully seeing it into our backlog. Again, I want to stress that this is not, you know, a sprint, it's a marathon. So the pipeline is there, the backlog, the secured orders and the pipeline is there, strong and growing.
We and everybody have to take the proper time to transform that into orders and revenues.
All clear, many thanks.
The next question is from Michele Della Vigna with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and, and congratulations on what is an ongoing strong delivery on margins. I, I wanted to delve a little bit more on, the, revenue outlook for the energy transition businesses. So first of all, if, if I look back to the expectations one year ago of the market, there was, a lot of enthusiasm about the potential for large projects to move forward in the U.S., given how generous the IRA incentives are. But since then, because of the delays in the implementation and clarifications, we've seen those projects being pushed back. They will probably still happen, but as you were saying before, they, they will take longer.
If we think that about a third of the expected electrolyzer orders maybe were coming from the U.S. at the time, and that we could be in a situation where very little of that materializes before 2026, would it be fair to assume that we could perhaps curtail about 25-30% of the previous guidance in 2025, given the shifts and the delays from the U.S. orders? Then the second part of my question is related to the orders that don't come from nucera in your green hydrogen business, and I was wondering, what shall we assume there? Would something around 20% be fair for the next couple of years? Thank you.
Okay. For the outlook to 2025, for us, it's a little bit too soon to say what could be the number. We really have to understand this lower acceleration of the market how it would impact. But, for sure, for 2024, we see another relevant growth that is already partially secured in our backlog, for which we have a clear deadline, for which we have capacity, and therefore, this is under our control. We will execute, and you will see in 2024 a strong growth on top of the EUR 100 million that we do this year. For 25 and 26, we are starting now working on our business plan.
What we can tell is that we intend to continue developing our capacity, and that for the time being, the 6 GW of capacity that were originally planned for 2025, we are thinking to reach them one year later, in 2026. This does not mean that this would be the pace of the market. We want to stay ahead of the market and make sure that when big projects comes in, we are ready and we have the capacity. But this at least is an indication that you can work on. For the market evolution and how 2025 and 2026 target, we'll get back at the beginning of next year with our new business plan.
Yeah, we have a total alignment with our JV in terms of scheduling. As you know, we are a very specific part of the supply chain of each of these projects. So we expect a significant growth in 2024, basically, almost already secured.
Yeah.
We expect also another significant growth in 2025, based on the current backlog and the evolution of the projects that we have in finalization. Of course, as Max said, it's a bit too early to think about what is going to be the end result by 2025 or 2026, but we will work on that in the next months, and we'll of course we'll share it with the market.
Thank you. Any comment on the percentage of revenues in energy transition that would come from other customers than nucera?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. As you might remember, in 2022, there was already a 30% of the revenues in energy transition coming from others. Then, 2023, the percentage from nucera would be much higher because, to be honest, they secured the most of the projects in the awards that enter into FID, so it would be much, much higher. And, the expectation of having fuel cells, electrolyzers, and other kind of revenue streams in the energy transition is absolutely still there in terms of diversification, but we still expect nucera to be the major component of our revenues in the next years, thanks to the fact that they won most of the projects in the market.
Thank you.
The next question is from Yoann Charenton with Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. I would like to come back onto the point just made earlier on the energy transition business. You have a unique position in the value chain, as you explained. Is it possible to provide a bit more color on the green hydrogen market outlook globally? Where is the disappointing acceleration in growth coming from? Would you say that you are more surprised by the extent of the weakness in your joint venture, nucera, or is that basically more outside of the joint venture that you have seen the slower growth? So that would be the first question. The second question will be related to the capacity expansion plan. You have just explained that you are now targeting six gigawatts for 2026, as things stand.
Is it possible to explain whether this is essentially related to a slowdown in the pace of the ramp-up at the Italian gigafactory?
No, let me answer the second one, and then Marc can go back to the first one, that somehow you already touched earlier. The growth of our capacity, production capacity, inevitably will follow and will adapt to the market pace. Considering anyway and keeping in mind that, when you deal with the production capacity factories, you always have to play in advance. You need to be earlier, at least 1.5-2 years, to the real demand coming, because you need to build your factory, to qualify the products, to test, and qualify the whole supply chain around you.
So this pace that we are keeping will adapt slightly to the evolution of the demand, but we are still convinced that we need to play in advance, and that's why we are foreseeing right now 6 GW by 2026. This is a combination of multiple factory capacity, starting from Germany, going to China, to Japan, to United States, and of course, including the Gigafactory that is under process in Italy. So that is not only related to that, absolutely not. It's a combination, is the sum up of individual capacity that we are building around the world to be able to be interchangeable, one to the other, which is giving us an additional flexibility, and to be able to serve the demand where there will be the highest concentration of this demand worldwide.
The gigafactory, in particular, which is the first and only greenfield expansion we are having right now, it's started. We have completed the demolition of all the industrial facilities that we acquired, and now we are down to ground zero, meaning that we have the greenfield ready for the build-up and the construction of the new facility, which is in the middle now of all the bureaucratic permitting and the documentation. So we are supposed to start the new construction pretty soon, within the end of the year.
Yeah. And with regard to hydrogen and our positioning, key numbers. We have developed, in two years, a new company within the company that makes EUR 100 million.
It's profitable already. We have double-digit EBITDA. We have realized 1.3 gigawatt. We have the technology. We are investing 10%, of, revenues, in R&D. We have the best go-to-market partnership with tk nucera. This is the reason why we believe, that we can be one of the world champions in the, green hydrogen marathon. Then, the timing will be driven by the speed of, the incentives coming from, governments and regulators, from, the speed of, permitting with regard to the, renewable energy necessary for green hydrogen, to the, speed of, the, startup that each project represents. This is a, newborn industry, so, we have a two-year-old, baby. If we ask ourselves every quarter, does he or she has the driver license?
Not yet, but it's walking, it's starting to learn to run. It will arrive also at the driver's license, but it's gonna take time. Regardless of that, regardless of the timing, we are already, we are already one of the big worldwide company there, and we are enjoying growing and profit for all the foreseeable future, irrespective of the market speed. We are ready in case to accelerate our production capacity build. It will stay above the demand, and this is a strategic decision for us. But in any case, and regardless of that, whatever growth you will see in hydrogen is going to be profitable, is going to be sustainable, is going to be long term.
Thank you very much.
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Hi, just a quick follow-up from my side on the capital allocation strategy. You mentioned a couple of times during the presentation, possibility to pursue M&A. Just wondering if you can give us a bit more color on strategic priorities in this sense, by segment, division, or geography?
No, there are not specific priorities, meaning that, we are always looking continuously and constantly into the old segment that we serve in terms of M&A. As you know, we already completed one M&A transaction this year in Germany, and we have, I would say, an interesting pipeline of opportunities that we are pursuing, we are looking at, and hopefully, we will be able to announce something in the, in the next months. So for the time being, we cannot reveal anything more, but we are looking at opportunities in the electrode business, in the water business, and in the hydrogen space.
Okay, thanks.
You're welcome.
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Thank you very much.
Thanks, everybody.
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