Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the annual figures 2022 conference call of Nordex. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touchtone telephone. Please press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Felix Zander. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the introduction, Natalie. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Nordex, I would like to welcome you to today's analyst and conference to our analyst investor call for the full year 2022. Our CEO, José Luis Blanco, our CFO, Dr. Ilya Hartmann, and our CSO, Patxi Landa, will guide you through our presentation, sharing financial, strategy, markets, and the latest developments with you. In the Q&A session, I would like to ask you to limit yourself up to three questions. Now I would like to hand over to you, José Luis. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the introduction, Felix. I would like to welcome you as well on behalf of the entire board. As Felix mentioned, Patxi Landa and Ilya Hartmann with me today in the call, guiding you through our presentation and taking your questions later on. We have enlarged our usual agenda with some additional slides about the plan debt-to-equity swap, markets, sustainability outlook, and our recent initiatives in the hydrogen sector. If we move to the next slide, as usual, I would like to start with the executive summary of the last year, 2022, which was an overall extremely challenging year, as you all know, despite some stabilization that we have seen in the second half of the year.
We had to manage ongoing supply chain disruption, the cybersecurity incident, inflationary pressures, especially for freight and steel costs, and after effects of war in the Ukraine. This meant extra unforeseen costs in the form of higher logistic, higher raw material prices, and liquidated damages that impacted our full year performance. Despite these circumstances, our order intake continued with good momentum, and we continue to see a good order pipeline. We booked 1.9 GW in the fourth quarter, which means a cumulative order intake of 6.3 GW for the full year. Prices and margins in our order book are also improving, as you can also see in our heightened reported ASPs. Our revenue in the fourth quarter increased by more than 20% from EUR 1.5 billion-EUR 1.8 billion, while our EBITDA margin was -2.4%.
Our revenues on a full year basis reach around EUR 5.7 billion, the top end of our revised guidance, with an EBITDA margin of -4.3%. Unfortunately, our margins in Q4 were impacted due to higher LD costs, extra warranty provisions that we booked to address some legacy issues of an old discontinued machine type. As usual, Ilya will cover this in more detail later. Our working capital was strong again, at -10.2%, and does better than our target of below -7% by the end of the year. Regarding our installations, we achieved our normal run rate in the first and even fourth quarter, unfortunately, we were not able to accelerate and catch up as we had hoped. We could only install 5.2 GW for the year, clearly below the previous year.
During the last year, we also launched a new product variant, Nordex N175/6.X, another highly efficient turbine, especially for areas with low and medium wind speeds, namely Germany and Europe. On the financial side, we repay the high-yield bond at the beginning of this year. We are shareholder loan from Acciona, and this also is now being converted into equity, and therefore should substantially improve our equity ratio once done. More on this later in the presentation. On the strategic side, we have taken couple of key initiatives in the green hydrogen space with the signing of two joint venture, which I will explain later in detail. Finally, we see that the market has been stabilizing in patches, while we have been able to successfully increase our prices, leading to a better quality order book going into 2023.
This is also reflected in our improved margin outlook for 2023. In addition, the policy momentum continues to be strong with U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, European Green Deal, and another announcements. Once these tailwinds materialize, then this could provide the great platform to enable us to achieve our mid-term target of 8% EBITDA margin. Nordex positioning in the market. In recent years, we have successfully strengthened our market position. Having doubled the size of our company from a 3 GW company to a 6+ GW company, also driven by our Delta 4000 platform and its strong demand, we could increase our market share globally to 15.3%. In Europe, we reached 22.9%, and in Germany, well above 30%. Geographies that are expected to grow, supported by policy momentum.
With this, I will hand over to Patxi Landa for the markets, customers and orders.
Thank you very much, José Luis. Looking at the orders, we sold 6.3 GW of new turbine contracts in 2022, compared with 7.9 GW last year that also included a large 1 GW order from Acciona in Australia. Majority of the orders came from Europe with 73%. Largest markets being Germany, Finland, Turkey and Poland. 21% of the orders came from Latin America, mainly from Brazil and Colombia, and 6% came from North America. ASP grew to EUR 0.84 million per megawatt in 2022, up from EUR 0.72 million per megawatt last year. ASP in the quarter stood at EUR 0.89 million per megawatt, increasing more than 20% with respect to the same period last year.
Service revenues grew 22% in 2022 to reach EUR 574 million, with an EBIT margin of 16.7%. Average availability of the fleet was 97%, with a total fleet of 31 GW on the service. Turbine order backlog grew 6% to EUR 6.5 billion at the end of 2022, and service order backlog grew 7% to EUR 3.3 billion, for a combined order backlog of EUR 9.8 billion. With this, I give it back to Ilya.
Thank you, Patri. Also welcome from my side. I would start not with walking you through the financials of last year, but with a brief update on the contemplated debt-to-equity swap that Jose Luis mentioned, of the shareholder loans we have with our anchor investor, Acciona. As reported on previous calls, Acciona provided to us a shareholder loan of EUR 286 million in the summer of last year, together with the remainder of a shareholder loan that Acciona had given in 2020, and the bulk of which was converted in 2021. Those loans have a total balance of EUR 346 million.
The sole purpose of that second shareholder loan was the repayment of our high-yield bond of EUR 275 million, and that has now happened by the end of January. Thereafter, on February 16th, we invited for an extraordinary general meeting to, among other topics, propose to our shareholders the conversion of those loans into equity. That EGM took place earlier this week, on Monday, to be precise, where shareholders approved the resolution at a 99% rate. The transaction will be completed once the new shares will be registered. Two key highlights maybe from that transaction, once the swap is completed, it does, and José Luis mentioned it, improve our equity ratio on a pro forma basis, which we'll show in a later slide.
It will go up to 26%, and it will save us approximately EUR 46 million per year in interest costs. As a consequence, Acciona's share in Nordex will go up from 41% to 47%. For the price, the conversion will take place at a fair market price, in this case, EUR 14.15. I believe that is another proof of the strong commitment of our anchor shareholder. Now I will come to the full year results, and that is on the next slide. Repeating a few of the facts by José Luis mentioned. Sales grew by around 5% to nearly EUR 5.7 billion at the end of 2022. On that KPI, we ended at the upper range of the guidance. Gross margins stood at around 9% compared to 15% last year.
That was mainly impacted by the ongoing inflationary pressures, the supply chain disruptions, cybersecurity incident, also leading to those LDs project related that were mentioned. To some extent, those effects were offset by certain profits from our project development side. Also, some of those effects are of non-recurring nature and the product of that highly volatile environment, affecting not only us, but other businesses around the globe. Going forward, we would expect these effects to subside and our gross margins to return to normalized levels once the new orders start flowing through our financials. EBITDA landed at minus EUR 244, and if taken as a percentage, at -4.3%, in line with the tightened guidance as we mentioned in our Q3 call.
On the next slide, we would see the income statement for the Q. As expected, also mentioned in the last call, sales increased over the years, oh sorry, over the quarters, landing at around EUR 1.8 billion for the last quarter. That is 20% higher compared to our performance in Q4 the previous year. Our gross margins were impacted as we had to account for those extra costs from the LDs due to installation delays and other project issues. In addition, we also had to take an extra provision to address some legacy issues in the field for an old and discontinued turbine type. To give you a rough idea of our underlying margins, if you adjust for these two effects, then our gross margins would be on a similar level like the year before.
During the last year, we also closed the sale of a 50% stake in our green hydrogen project development company to Acciona. As we do not control this SPV fully anymore, we are accounting for this SPV at a fair value in the books between the two effects, the sale and the revaluation. We booked a net profit of around EUR 133 million in Q4. With that, I would move to the balance sheet. Now, looking at the balance sheet, the overall structure, we would say remained healthy with a liquidity level of north of EUR 710 million at the end of the year. We would break those down into key parts, a cash level of EUR 634 million and a cash facility of around EUR 80 million. Looked a different way.
Net cash position was EUR 244 million. Equity ratio, as mentioned, stood around 19% at the end of the year on a pro forma basis. After the debt-to-equity swap, both KPIs will improve substantially. We'll show this in a few moments, but before that, we go to the working capital slide. Working capital development in the fourth quarter reflects our high activity levels and remains strong with the ratio, it was mentioned, at -10.2%. This is on the same level when compared to the end of 2021. Maybe noteworthy that our working capital ratio remained clearly below our guidance number of below -7% in all quarters of the last year. That brings me to the cash flow slide.
Cash flow from operating activities stood at minus EUR 340 million roughly for the end of the year. That was mainly driven by the negative operating results we mentioned and explained. Cash flow from investing activities was slightly above the level of previous years and mainly reflects the execution of our ongoing CapEx program with a slight timing effect I'll comment in a moment. Finally, our cash flow from financing activities stood at EUR 335 million, that reflects the cash flows from the capital increases last year. Now we do see the investment slide. We did invest around EUR 205 million in the last year, moderately higher compared to our guidance of EUR 180 million. That is partly due to a catch-up of the slow CapEx run rate we had in 2021.
A slipping effect, and of course, also inflation played a role and brought CapEx numbers up. Focus of the investments largely remained the same. Main investments were again in the blade production facilities in India, Spain, and Mexico, as well as in the transport tooling equipment covering our higher installation levels, especially of newer turbine models. This is almost the last slide for the financial block. Here we do see the capital structure. Mentioned before a few times, net cash EUR 244 million, equity ratio 18.5%. When you do a pro forma calculation, those numbers jump both, one in the net cash to EUR 577 million and in the equity ratio to 26%. Now I go to my next block, which is our sustainability part. Brief update.
This plays an important role also now in the reporting and in the doing of the company. Basically, the whole business model of this company and our competitors is based on that. In 2021 and 2022, we adopted a so-called Sustainability Strategy 2025. Basically, we have put some ambitious targets for the whole organization. Here to highlight two of the ones we achieved. We keep decreasing the carbon footprint of our turbines as our new turbine models are even more efficient and have an even lower specific carbon footprint compared to previous models. Second, we have also, and we are very glad about that, achieved the goal of significantly reducing the LTIF frequency compared to the previous year, which is in 2022, 1.5, versus 2022, 3.2.
There remains quite a substantial scope of work, but we will put more and more focus and resources on those topics when it comes to sustainability. Then to cap this off, a few numbers on the taxonomy. As most of us know, the European Green Deal captures ambitious goals of achieving CO2 neutrality by 2050 in Europe. To succeed a unified classification system, all those sustainable business activities has been put together, the EU taxonomy. Nordex reported already in compliance with those new obligations for the first time in 2021, disclosing the eligibility of our business activities. Now in 2022, also disclosing reporting for the first time on the extent to which our business activities are aligned with the EU taxonomy.
As we can see on the slide, and probably as we expected for our kind of business, to a very large extent, we are eligible and aligned with these activities. With that, I will give it back to you, José Luis.
Thank you, Ilya. Talking about operational performance in 2022, as you can see on the slide, our installation run rate in the first half was much slower, impacted by the effects of the Ukraine war and shortages and the cyber incident. Our running rate improved in the second half to normal levels, but not enough to cover for the delays in the first half. Unfortunately, this led to some extra costs in our Q4 results and is still impacting Q1 this year. In summary, we erected 1,129 turbines in 19 countries with around 5.2 GW, again, with a majority of 75% in Europe.
Production, we assembled 1,502 turbines, slightly higher than the previous year, but due to the higher nameplate capacity, we increased the output from 6.7 GW by the nearly 12% to 7.5 GW. Similarly, we produced 4,774 blades, 6% higher than previous year. 20% were produced in-house compared to 37% year before. This trend of outsourcing of blades will stay probably in the future. Finally, I would like to highlight that the share of blades and nacelles from our production facilities in Asia, and especially in India, will continue to improve in the future, helping us lowering our production cost. Moving to the next slide.
As I mentioned earlier, we had confirmed via our press release with the preliminary figures released on March 9, we confirmed that our performance has generally been in line with the revised guidance. Moving to long term. Long term, I would say the macroeconomic environment and the increased political focus are providing the perfect platform for a strong growth of the renewables over the medium term. As you might see on the slide, there is a huge gap between the targets and the actual forecast. The whole policy setup is driven by two factors. First, to achieve Net-Zero emissions target by 2050, and second, energy security concerns. Furthermore, it is getting clear to the policymakers that we cannot get to the Net-Zero targets without getting hydrogen from clear sources.
The effects of these two factors are already visible in a variety of forms, maturing PPA markets, repowering, Inflation Reduction Act, support from for green hydrogen, European Green Deal, and so on. Even if these ambitions are only partially reached, we should expect significant demand growth for the wind sector, at least as it is one of the cheapest sources of energy in the market today. While long-term prospects remain exciting, we also see some positive developments in the short term. As you can see, turbine prices have been steadily improving over the last year, along with a healthy order intake momentum for Nordex in the market. We have also been improving our risk sharing in the sale of contracts. As a result, we enter 2023 with a better quality order book.
In summary, we can state that the shorter outlook for the core operations is improving step by step with a better quality of the order intake and thus order backlog. However, as you know, the risk from the macro environment in terms of higher interest rates, geopolitical uncertainty, and inflationary pressures, especially in Europe and supply chain disruption, still remain. Within this context, moving to the next slide, within this context is where we want to share with you guidance for 2023. We see 2023 as a stabilizing year with our performance improving materially in the second half. As usual, we expect a soft start of the year. We expect our revenues to be between EUR 5.6 billion and EUR 6.1 billion on a small growth from last year.
We expect our EBITDA margin to improve to be in the range of -2% to +3%. Given our past outperformance in managing working capital, we have decided to improve our working capital guidance to below -9%, and we also slightly increased our CapEx guidance to approx EUR 200 million to reflect the larger size of the operations and inflationary effects as well for CapEx. With this, I would like to repeat our mid-term target, the EBITDA margin of 8%, which we maintain again. The last two years have been highly volatile, impacted by COVID after effects, war, and other macro headwinds. We believe that the macro environment now is slowly stabilizing. Turbine prices have improved while inflation is still perceived in Europe. It is also slowing down in Asia.
The issues with the supply chain still continue, but is getting better than last year. Looking forward, once mid-term political tailwinds materialize in volume, and we also continue to build a healthy order book within the overall normal market conditions and a stable supply chain, this could pave the way for the 8% margin in the mid-term. Long term, our initiatives in the hydrogen sector could as well provide an extra layer of support and safety in a low-risk way. Let me explain that in the next slides. As I mentioned before, we have decided to take a couple of strategic initiatives in the hydrogen sector as we see a lot of potential in that sector, driven by the policy momentum and its potential to help governments to reach net zero targets.
As you can see, the global hydrogen demand will likely increase multifold, and most of those needs to be green hydrogen, which will mean more renewables. Right now, this is not factored in any market forecast in any material respect. If this demand fructifies, then this will mean doubling up the cumulative wind capacity in the world and multifold capacity build-up of electrolyzers in a short period of time. To benefit from these macro trends while also leveraging our expertise in the project development side and scaling up industrial manufacturing and global services, we have decided to develop electrolyzers in-house, adapted for off-grid operation, and also initiate development of green hydrogen projects.
We also entered into two joint ventures to boost our progress in order to secure a safe and low-risk presence in key parts of the hydrogen value chain, including key equipment, technology, project development, and O&M. Let me briefly talk about both joint ventures in the next 2 slides. First, the JV with Acciona. As you will have seen from our press release today morning, we have entered into a JV with Acciona in December 2022 by selling 50% stake in our project development venture for EUR 67.7 million. This payment should broadly cover our CapEx commitments over the next four years in the joint venture. Through this JV, we can now progress much faster with a strong partner who also has extensive expertise in large infrastructure projects.
We already have many project sites under development in this JV today that could stretch to a total capacity of up to 50 GW. The JV aims to get the first project to a ready-to-build stage by 2027. Current target is to reach an annual capacity of half a million tons of green hydrogen production per annum within the next 10 years. As said, not material, EBITDA or cash impact in the next four years and substantial potential future upside with the profits from this initiative, as well as additional turbine sales volume. Talking about electrolysis, as I mentioned, we have been developing on a small electrolyzer prototype that is already working in-house, and we have now decided to partner with Sodena to take this development further.
We will continue to have 85% stake while Sodena will own 15% in the joint venture with equal CapEx commitments over the next five years period. The remaining CapEx will be funded by government grant. Again, this will boost our efforts by collaborating with somebody who has a lot of experience in supporting early-stage startups. Again, as said, no substantial CapEx, no material CapEx or EBITDA impact for the next three to five years and the potential to create a substantial future business. With this, handing over to Felix for opening Q&A.
Thank you very much for the detailed presentation. May now, please, open the floor for the Q&A. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. Our first question is from the line of Vivek Midha from Citi.
Thank you very much, everyone. Good afternoon. I have two questions, please. Firstly, could you maybe quantify the magnitude of the warranty provisions and delays in the fourth quarter? I'm just keen to understand the clean EBITDA margin in Q4, taking out both the project development income and the extra costs. Thank you.
That was one question I have. Thanks, Vivek.
Yeah, between those two effects, both on the delay of projects and the extra provision we booked for the discontinued technology, I'd say if you picture this as more or less balancing out with what we have been booking as upside on extraordinary profit out from the hydrogen business to the tune of EUR 130-EUR 145, that gives you, I think, the range for the underlying margins. I'd be shy on an open call to go into more details on each of those pockets, since especially the project ones, are still under discussions and negotiations with our customers where we ultimate land. To calibrate it for you, that would be the number.
That's very helpful. Thank you very much. My second question is on the longer term and the hydrogen story. You're now in the early stages of building out your electrolyzer offering. There are already existing players in this market, already starting to ramp up. How are you going to go about catching up on the product development side? Thank you.
Thank you. Very good question. I think our vision and where we focus our project development for green hydrogen projects is very remote areas with very high resource conditions, with the vision to develop technology adapted to these off-grid operations, integrated with our wind turbine technology, to be able to deliver the best landed cost hydrogen or hydrogen derivative to the consumption in Europe, in Japan, or from the U.S. to the U.S. I think there are a lot of synergies in the technology, in the way this project needs to be engineered and configured and the approach from the design phase is slightly different than what you can find in the marketplace, which we think is core for making these off-grid projects viable.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from the line of Constantin Hesse from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yep. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Actually one of them was already answered. One that I had was really around the 8% medium-term EBITDA margin top guidance that you have. I mean, last time we spoke, I think it was Luis, you mentioned that back in November last year, the cost base of the company had stabilized at that point, meaning that, you know, 18 months down the line, we could potentially already see you at least getting close to your 8% EBITDA margin.
I'm just wondering, you know, with the delivery of your higher quality backlog from Q3 and assuming supply chains improve, I mean, how realistic is it that we could already see something like that start or something around the 8%, it doesn't even have to be eight, but something relatively close to be achieved already from Q2 2024 or even Q3 2024, and probably be some to a level close to that for the full year 2024. That's why.
I mean, with the information we have today, on what is slightly different from this November last call, is that we were suffering a little bit more than expected in Q4, trying to catch up in winter as well as in this quarter. This quarter is gonna be very, is gonna be low in activity and in profitability. The margin profile of the year, without getting into details, points into the right direction. You know, without being too specific, the way you phrase it, the margin plan for Q4 points to be close to that.
Okay, that's great. Then maybe just one more on this, if I can just drill a little bit further into this. I mean, you just mentioned that Q1 is gonna be low. Just to be clear, the liquidated damages and the provision, that was a one-off in Q4 or will we see continued liquidated damages in Q1 as well? Maybe, José Luis, if you can maybe just elaborate a little bit on, I mean, where is it so bad in terms of the supply chains? We are obviously hearing from a lot of industrial companies that supply chains are improving, and you clearly are not benefiting from it. I'm just wondering where exactly is the issue-
Mm-hmm.
What is the process that is currently ongoing to fix that from a macro view? Thanks.
Thank you very much. I think Q1 is not going to be easy, let's put it that way. I think where are the supply chain? I mean, many, unfortunately, many European business partners are suffering big time. We see companies going out of business, filing for insolvencies, quite unfortunate. This, you know, cost you money, either to keep the operations running or to try to prevent from that situation. That is one point. Second point, although things have substantially improved, we are still have some headaches here and there with missing parts from, you know, from an electronic board to a communication board to a small cabinet.
It's not, you know, big things, but are small things that are still impacting our, our ability to deliver and that we are still paying Liquidated Damages for late connection of wind turbines to the grid. Situation is improving. I will say that as we speak, this situation should be almost normalized. The two effects are creating extra costs for the company. Instability and difficulties in the supply chain, because as we are not making money, we don't have much money to share with our suppliers to support them. They have inflationary pressure, liquidity issues, and some of them go out of business, and this is impacting us.
Okay. That is great. Thank you. Maybe just one more third one on cash. Having converted the shared loan of course helps you. First half looks like it's going to be really tough in terms of margins, so I'm just wondering how comfortable you are with your current cash position. Thanks.
Oh, thanks for calling in. That's a valid question. I guess in the answer, I would reference back to or refer back to what I said during the presentation that now going into the year with a liquidity level of north of EUR 710 million, and even with some headwinds in Q1, Q2, I feel comfortable on that end.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much.
Our next question is from the line of Benjamin Heelan from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes, morning, afternoon, actually. Thank you all for taking my question. I wanted to talk a little bit about the pricing environment. Obviously, you've seen a, you know, broad stabilization of ASPs in Q4 versus Q3. How are you seeing pricing in Q1 and as we head into 2023? Then from a contractual perspective, you've talked about the new orders that is coming through, a better margin, and you're waiting for that, you know, a legacy backlog to roll over. Has there been any material changes in the contracting terms of the new contracts and new orders that you're signing that is better protecting you from, you know, the inflationary shocks that we've seen? Thank you.
Thank you very much. Patxi, can you take this, please?
Yes. Thank you, Ben. We see we are closing actually today the quarter, and we will see ASP coming at or very close to 8.90 million EUR per megawatt. We see stabilization with respect to last quarter. The outlook for the year, we also see stability in pricing. Passing through inflation, but some sort of stabilization and not the kind of increases that we saw over the last 12 months. With respect to risk, yes, we definitely increased significantly the risk profile of the contracts with which we have taken many of the orders this year.
I would say, given the time lag between signing a contract and actually executing and going through P&L, that is around 15 to 18 months, that we will see already the effect of this particular topic, 15 or 18 months down the line, so hence hitting 2024.
Okay. That's very clear. Thank you.
Being slightly more specific, we try to de-risk as much as we can, so doing back-to-back, back-to-back logistic, back-to-back steel tower sourcing, and limiting as much as we can the exposure to the commodities for certain blade materials and certain nacelle materials. The rest, we want to de-risk that, so not having upsides, not having downsides, not fully hedged of course, but a big portion of our cost base is covered by back-to-back contracts.
Okay, that's great. That's great. Thank you.
Our next question is from a line of Ajay Patel from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, thank you for taking questions. Congratulations on the presentation. Couple of questions, if I might, may. Firstly, I just wanted to understand ASP a little bit more. When I compare you and your peers, in this case, Siemens Energy and Vestas, and just look at how the average selling price in the order intake has evolved over this last, say, six quarters, it seems that your order intake has increased far less than theirs has. An absolute basis is lower. Now, I understand for the absolute price may not be easy because of geography and scope, but more just wanting to understand the order of magnitude, why the order intake evolution is lower here than maybe your two peers. Is it because of the offering changing in some way?
Any clarity you can give here just to get us a better understanding would be helpful. Clearly, you know, we've had good legislative changes over the last 12 months, in particular the U.S. IRA. I'm looking at the in-house blade production, and I'm just thinking, is there any almost changing of profile in where you produce? Would you look to maybe add capacity in the U.S., for example, to take advantage of what's happening there? Are you happy with the lay of your capacity at the moment?
Let me take the. Then I hand over to you, Patxi, for the ASP. Regarding U.S. IRA, we are evaluating what needs to be done to participate in that market. We have a multiple facility in West Branch, Iowa, that we are finalizing the plans to start up again and ramp up that facility. That facility, of course, qualifies for IRA. Combined with the four more facility that we have in Matamoros, Mexico is as well a facility that can be used very efficiently for delivering to the U.S. We are gonna have an offering for the U.S.
The question is when to launch the CapEx and the activity, which by the way is not going to be that material, 'cause that plan is a good plan that was working. We will wait for the demand to come, and once the demand is there and materializing, we will take the decision to go ahead. Regarding ASP, I will better ask Patxi to.
Yes.
To comment.
I can provide some color there. Basically two factors affecting the difference. One is the scope and the other one is product mix. Generator size. We are in contrast to some of our peers that seem to be lately enlarging scope, I have been saying some more EPC appetite on their side. We do have some of our large customers that require reduced scope, so scope may play a role there. More importantly is product mix. To give you some color, for a relatively similar margin, and without providing too much details of course here publicly, but our largest turbines can be selling between EUR 0.75 million-EUR 0.8 million ASP. Smaller, our smaller generator size turbines might be selling at EUR 1.2 million-EUR 1.3 million.
It's a very significant ASP difference for a similar contribution margin as sold. That is very, very relevant to understand. What happens to Nordex is that we are so-called penalized from ASP comparison perspective because our product mix is so much going forward to the 6.X and 5.X. We are selling larger generators on average that our peers. Some of our peers are still selling significant amounts of 4 MW and smaller turbines, whilst the majority of our sales are going to the 5X and 6Xs. That is explaining the difference.
May I just add one more question, if you don't mind? The other thing I was thinking is you've laid out that there's this period of stability for 2023 and 2024 for the business before growth can kind of kick in before 2025 onwards. And I'm assuming that implies that over those two years, we're negative cash flow. I'm just wondering, before, we'd highlighted that, well, I think we done an equity issuance to prove credit metrics to tap more of the U.S. client base, in particular. I'm just wondering, is the balance sheet adequate enough to ensure that you can still tackle these same clients, or do you need to improve your credit metrics to tap these clients?
I think from a financial perspective, again, the strengthening here that comes from the conversion, of course, will be substantial. I wouldn't go as far as you, Ajay, already kind of for 2024 and you assuming, again, a negative free cash flow. I think that's too much in the future. Of course, we will have some deterioration during the year because of the free cash flow this year. I would believe from a standing perspective, what we see as of late, the slowdown in the U.S. market for us and others is not because we're not competing on that standing. We're not GE, I would refer to Patxi.
I haven't seen a deal by a customer in the U.S. being said to us, With a balance sheet player like you are right now is not what we're doing business with, but correct me if I'm wrong, Patxi.
No, that is correct statement.
Okay, that's really clear. Thanks.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Our next question is from line of Dan Togo Jensen from Carnegie Investment Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Thank you. Just a couple left here. Maybe some color on your considerations, entering now the electrolyzer scene. Why choose the alkaline technology? Why not PEM? Why not partnering up with one of the already established providers of electrolyzers? That would be the first question. The other question would be on your long-term EBITDA margin, target of 8%. When do you expect to reach that? Thanks.
Thank you. I think the, starting with the second question, the conditions for the, for the EBITDA is that, you know, as we speak, we are selling orders with that profitability target in mind. So, for that profitability target to materialize once executed, we need basically three prerequisites. The first prerequisite is that the market doesn't collapse, that we keep selling certain volume, stable, stable volume. With this stable volume, if there is no substantial deterioration in the supply chain, so stability in the supply chain, and we mentioned before inflation in Europe, problems here and there, easing, but still uncertain, then we should be able to deliver this profitability, this profitability target.
As I mentioned before, the margin profile of the year points into the right direction, but I cannot be more specific than that. I think the evolution is pointing into that direction. We keep selling. We keep selling a sustainable profitability margins other than the deteriorations that we mentioned in Q1, driven by suppliers missing parts and some and some issues. We don't see that going forward, so we see the things more stable. With all caveats, I think we should be able to be there. Regarding the electrolyzers, we think, we might be right or wrong, that green hydrogen and green hydrogen derivatives is gonna be the new oil or the new gas.
It's gonna be a new commodity and to play in a new commodity, the gainer is the one that has the lowest cost of that product. In order to get the lowest cost of that product, you need the right sites with the right technology adapted to those sites. We think that our combination of adapting our wind turbines to off grid farming capabilities combined with the alkaline technology can give a lower cost of green hydrogen produced compared to other available technologies. I think the lowest cost of hydrogen produced is gonna be the key factor to be more competitive and to be the first project to land in the marketplace.
Maybe can you shed some color in which region in particular do you expect to offer this product? I mean,
Yeah.
For instance, in the U.S., the IRA is very favorable towards green hydrogen.
Yes.
Is it.
Yes, yes, we can. We are, we are developing a portfolio in U.S., because we started this development activities before U.S. IRA, and we were developing in the U.S. activity that we are now accelerating, but as well we were developing in Chile, Brazil, Latin America and North Africa to supply to Europe.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We have a follow-up question from Constantin Hesse from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Mr. Hesse, you're on mute.
Sorry. I said, yeah. I think I was muted. Sorry. Just one more from my side, very quick. It's more of a fundamental question, medium term. I mean, the Delta4000 has been around now since, I think 2018. I think, I mean, this question does come up sometimes, but I'm just wondering if there have been any developments with regards to what a new platform could look like, how long can you actually still work with the Delta4000 and what that would mean for CapEx. Cheers.
Okay. No, thank you very much, Constantin. I think and lastly, I'm very glad to hear that my competitors and colleagues from the from other companies said that we need to rationalize the product portfolio, that the existing products are quite good in terms of cost, that we don't need to go farther in developing more technology. The technology is crazy competitive. We just need a decent price for the technology we have. Of course, the decision to develop new products or not is not just based on the competitiveness of the technology, but based on supply and demand. If other competitors do so, you are forced to do that.
We said always that we don't plan to do so. We plan to be reactive, be prepared if others do. We don't plan to do. I don't see others will do, because at least what they are announcing is in the opposite direction, to stabilize existing products, to ramp up existing products, to secure quality and to sell existing products for longer period of time. I think with the new rotor that we are developing on existing platform N175, we should be good for several years. I don't know how many, definitely six to ten should be doable. Going to even bigger machines is gonna pose a lot of logistic challenges in Europe. It's gonna require huge modularity, which I don't think is gonna pay off.
I don't think it's gonna be needed short term in the market. I'm quite optimistic that the existing platform will last, you know, substantial number of years, let's put it that way.
That is helpful. Thank you very much. Maybe just one more sorry, guys, because I just need to really get a better sense for this. When you speak to your suppliers, what is it they are saying? What are they saying? Are they saying, is it not improving at all from their side, or are they at least seeing some improvement which later will be fed to you?
I would say our suppliers are suffering like us. I mean, the there is an imbalance between... Of course, there is way more money into the system. That's a fact. This money so far was not evenly distributed. Hopefully we will aim for higher prices to get a better share on the distribution of that money into the system. Hopefully we will be in a position as well to share part of that with our suppliers, because we need healthy suppliers as well. You know, some of our suppliers are having hard times, so we need to be mindful. The big factor here is Constantin, is the volume.
I think if the volume materializes because we, the whole sector in the middle of an energy crisis with crazy high prices for electricity, the sector is contracting less. This is not driven by economics, it's driven by permits. There is no permits in the market to build new projects. The customers are really excited to go with more investments. I think that IRA and the new European Renewable Energy Act will improve the situation in the medium term, substantially. Same we see in Germany that the country is aiming to triple the amount of installations. Is gonna happen this year? No. Next year, slightly improvement. The year after, quite optimistic that yes, that will be the case.
With more volume, means more pricing power, means better utilization for us, means better utilization of factories for our suppliers, means a slightly less difficult life for all of us.
Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Thank you very much.
The next question is on line of Anis Zgaya from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have three questions, if I may. The first one is, follow-up on guidance and just to understand, what would you allow, what would allow you to achieve 3% margin, and the opposite, what would make you reach the bottom of the guidance in 2023?
Now.
The second question is, on CapEx. Did your CapEx include... Yeah. Sorry.
Go ahead.
The second one is, in, on CapEx. Did your CapEx include, the CapEx needed for the restart of the U.S. capacity? The third one is on the new, the European plan, to, industrial plan. What is your take, from this European, plan to boost, European, industry?
The first question is basically selling around 7 GW with certain gross margin per unit similar to the one we are selling and not deteriorating in the execution for macro effect. Those are the three prerequisites. That the volume doesn't deteriorate, that the margin, the gross margin of the order intake doesn't deteriorate, and that we don't deteriorate in the execution. Those are very much the three prerequisites. Regarding the CapEx, yes, it's all included. Regarding installations in Europe, we saw that the European Union is working on the Industry Act. I think finally, it's a good signal that wind onshore has been considered and categorized as strategic for Europe.
There are targets there of 40% of European demand being produced in Europe. We are one of the market participants with more presence in Europe. From that point of view, we are very happy to see that. We still need to see how this is gonna be concrete in actions. What are the measures to support.
Yeah.
The financial measures, the state aid measures, the support that the state is gonna put for the industry to deliver to these targets.
Thank you. Just one follow-up. In Europe, it's already the case, the 40%, on onshore market. I mean, it's already more than 40%, I think, coming from Europe.
According to our data, it's not. I think the majority of the blades are imported, the majority of the castings are imported, majority of the forgings are imported. The aim is to protect the remaining supply chain that is in Europe and eventually enlarge that.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Okay. I think there we have answered all the questions up to now. I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for all the questions and the discussions. I would just say goodbye, and I give over to José Luis for the final words. Have a good afternoon.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Finally, as always, let me outline my key takeaways from this year. First, the policy momentum, with clear focus on energy security and independent energy production will support demand of onshore wind industry being one of the cheapest sources of renewable energy. Some shorter challenges remain due to some supply chain disruption and geopolitical uncertainties. Third, the quality of our order intake and those backlog are improving while we make ongoing progress with our risk reduction measures. We have taken some first steps in the green hydrogen very early, initiating two partnership with a favorable risk profile. Last but not least, increase in electricity prices, connected with potential demand growth could support our pass-through successfully. Higher costs to support the way to our mid-term margin of 8%.
Thank you very much for your participation in our call. I wish you a nice afternoon, a happy Easter next week. Goodbye.
Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded and you may disconnect. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.