Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome on behalf of Nordex, to our analyst and investor call today. Our board, our CEO, Jose Luis Blanco, our CFO, Dr. Ilya Hartmann, and our CSO, Patxi Landa, are here with us, guiding through you through our slide deck, which we have prepared for you today. They will share information about the latest developments, financials, and markets. As you approach, the presentation is followed by a Q&A. I would like to ask you to limit yourself up to three questions, please. Now, I would like to hand over to our CEO, Jose 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 mentioned, Patxi Landa and Ilya Hartmann are with me today in the call, guiding you through our presentation and taking your questions later. For today, we have prepared our usual agenda. As usual, let me start with the executive summary of the first half of 2023. Our performance in the second quarter was in line with our expectations, as indicated in our Q1 call in May. We expected continued improvement in our performance in the second half of the year, as volumes should pick up further with better prices of the orders started to flow through our financials. Our order intake continues to remain stable despite generally sluggish markets.
The pricing and margin are stable at good level. In the second quarter, we booked 1.6 gigawatts of orders, reaching 2.6 gigawatts in the first half, with generally stable selling prices. Our revenue increased to EUR 2.8 billion in the first half of 2023, compared to EUR 2.1 billion last year, recording growth of 30%. At the same time, our gross margin also improved sequentially in the second quarter to 12.1%. We expect this to improve further in the second half, as the extra cost of delays and other project issues are slowly starting to recede, with a higher share of revenue coming as well from better quality orders. With that, we managed to break even at the EBITDA level in Q2, as indicated in our call.
This is a huge improvement compared to our EBITDA margin of -9% in Q1. This was mainly possible due to higher volumes and significantly less project issues in Q2. As a result, now we have an EBITDA margin of -4.2% in H1 of this year. We expect continued improvements in our margins in H2 of the year. Our working capital was stable at -9.6%. Our installation increased in Q2 to 1.8 gigawatts, reaching 3.1 gigawatts in H1 of the year. Furthermore, with the latest financial measures, we have strengthened the financial structure further with an improved equity ratio and net cash levels, while also saving EUR 45 million per year in financial interest costs.
Finally, I would like to confirm our guidance for 2023 and our mid-term strategic EBITDA margin of 8%. Now, I would like to hand over to Patxi for discussions about markets, order intake, and customers. Patxi, please.
Thank you very much, José Luis. Looking at the orders, we sold 2.6 gigawatts of new turbine contracts in H1 2023, down 12% compared to the same period last year. All orders came from Europe, with the largest markets being Germany, Lithuania, Greece, and Estonia. ASP stood at EUR 0.89 million per megawatt in Q2, in line with the previous quarter and growing from EUR 0.79 million per megawatt in H1 2022. Service sales grew 35% to EUR 305 million, representing 11% of group sales in H1 2023, with a mid margin of 13.2%. Margin of H1 was lower compared to the same period last year due to inflationary pressures on costs, as well as negative FX impact.
Turbine order backlogs stood at EUR 6.4 billion at the end of the quarter, and service order backlog stood at EUR 3.4 billion, for a total combined order backlog of EUR 9.8 billion at the end of June. With this, I give it back to Ilya.
Thanks, Patxi, and also, welcome from my side. Like always, let me guide you through the financials of the first half of the year, and we're starting, as usual, with the income statement. After a soft Q1, the performance in the second quarter improved largely as expected and in line with our indications in the Q1 call in May. As a result, we booked a total sale of around EUR 2.8 billion, compared to EUR 2.1 billion in Q1 of last year. Year-on-year, this is roughly a 30% increase. Key driver, it was mentioned, was the substantially high installation level in the first half year compared to the same period last year.
Although our gross margins are still impacted by extra costs in some of these, they have further improved on a quarterly basis as expected, raised to the 12.1% at the end of second quarter, compared to 8.9% at the end of Q1. The result is, and of course, we've mentioned at the break-even at an EBITDA level in Q1, to be precise, just shy of EUR 1 million in EBITDA. With that, we would move to the balance sheet. Overall structure, further improved since Q1, essentially on the back of the debt-to-equity swap completed in May. We ended the second quarter with a cash level of around EUR 650 million.
We had a cash visibility of EUR 80 million-EUR 90 million, which brings our overall liquidity to around EUR 730 million-EUR 740 million at the end of second quarter. The swap I just mentioned resulted in a net cash position of EUR 360 million and an equity ratio of just shy of 21%. With this, we would jump to the working capital slide. The working capital ratio at the end of Q2 stood at -9.6, in absolute numbers at -EUR 605 million, end of H1 Q2. Overall, the working capital level remains below our target of -9%, which is our guided target for the full year 2023. That brings us to the cash flow slide.
As we can see, the cash flow from operating activities very much reflect the softer margin levels we have seen in the first half, especially Q1. The negative operating results and cash outflow from interests and tax payments could partially be compensated, we see it here, by a positive impact coming from the working capital management. The cash flow from investing activities stood at minus EUR 63 million. That is comparable to the previous year level and reflects the execution of our investment program in line with the expectations of the teams. Finally, cash flow from financing activities stood at roughly EUR 310 million. These are the inflows from the green convertible bond issued in April. That brings us to the investment slide, and computer CapEx, EUR 50 million.
That's the first half of the year, below the level of the same period last year, but again, in line with the planning of the teams and reflecting the backloaded operations José Luis was alluding to, and explain a bit more in detail in the second half of the call. Therefore, we are expecting a catch-up in the CapEx rate run rate in the second half, because we still stick to our guided number of EUR 200 million CapEx for the full year. That brings me to my last slide, which is the capital structure. On the slide, we see net cash level, as mentioned, increased to EUR 360 million after the shareholder loan was converted.
Likewise, the equity ratio climbed up to 20.7% at the end of the second quarter. This would be it for the financials. Before going back to José Luis, maybe a bit of summary. Margins from operating business have started to improve as costs environment has stabilized and some extra costs on past issues have receded. Let me also note that the operational risks remain for us and in the industry, which could impact our margin development if not managed properly, and that I mentioned it before, the financial structure has substantially improved after the repayment of the high-yield bond and the conversion of the shareholder loans. However, now our focus must be and is on improving our operating cash flows. With that, I would give it back to you, José Luis.
Thank you, Ilya. Moving to the operational performance of the company in the first half, let me share with you. As we commented in previous call, our installations suffered last year due to several reasons, like the consequences of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the consequences of the cybersecurity incident, and our target was and still is to catch up. While we reach our run rate of 1.3 gigawatts in the first quarter this year, we could increase the installation in the second quarter further to 1.8 gigawatts, achieving 3.1 gigawatts in the first half of the year. This is a substantial increase compared to the previous year, still not the level that we expected and that we want.
In total, we have erected, 632 turbines in 22 countries, with approximately 3.1 gigawatts, again, with a majority of 60% in Europe, followed by 25% Latin America, 8% North America, and remaining 7% rest of the world. In terms of production, our nacelle production, we assembled 557 turbines compared to 604 in the same period of the year, earlier before. Due to higher nameplate, we reached 2.9 gigawatts, being more or less on the same level, with a substantial growth expected in the second half. Overall, the number of blades produced increased slightly to 2,224, compared to 2,152 the year before.
Therefore, we produce 506 in-house compared to 573 the previous year. This level of high outsourcing of blades is likely to remain in the future, as we want to keep our flexibility, but as well, we want to keep know-how in-house. With this, moving to the next slide, I would like to come to our guidance for the year, which we confirm. Our overall performance has been so far in line with our expectations. In particular, we were able to increase our revenue by 30% in the first half. We achieved EBITDA break-even in the second quarter after an expected weak first quarter. The working capital ratio remains in the target corridor. CapEx spending is likely to catch up in the second half.
At the same time, let me also highlight that the operating environment is not yet fully stable. We are facing very high activity level in the second half of the year, and we expect another back-end loaded year with the respective risk. We confirm our strategic mid-term EBITDA margin of 8% in line with a stable macroeconomic environment. With this, I hand over to Felix to open the Q&A.
Thank you very much for guiding us through the presentation. Operator, the floor is yours. Please open for Q&A. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on the touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. In the interest of time, please limit yourselves to two questions only. If you are using a speaker equipment today, please lift the handsets before making your selections. Anyone with a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from Vivek Midha from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, everyone. Good afternoon. My first question is relating to the TPI Composites announcement yesterday. What's your latest information regarding this and any link to yourselves? They highlight a single warranty campaign, for example. Is that relating to your turbines? Thank you.
Thank you for the question. You know, we usually do not comment on others market communication. To us came a little bit of a surprise. We have regular issues with suppliers, including TPI, but to the best of our knowledge, the issues we have with them are included into the figures that we are guiding. We will try to gather more information because to us was a little bit of a surprise.
That's helpful. Thank you very much. My second question is on the service margins, which have been down year-over-year. Do you have any comment on when this is likely to improve? How does cost pass-through typically work within your service contracts? Thank you.
Let's do it together here.
Let me take the first part of this.
Yeah
question. I'm basically saying in which point in time. When we will see the full year numbers, Q3, but especially the full year numbers, we are expecting that those numbers will have clearly improved again.
This is I would say temporary adjustments because the way the contracts were structured and protected, again, inflation, there is timing effects of when the revenue kicks in and when the cost kicks in. There are as well adjustment in the cost base, because there are certain cost factors that were more affected by inflation. It will take time to adjust to the new contracts. Structurally and long term, we expect in the future normalized margin levels in the service activity.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Kim Jong from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi. Afternoon, everybody. It's actually John. Two questions on the order intake. Can you talk us through what you're seeing right now, H2 versus H1 levels? In particular, I'd love to hear a little bit of color or context on your positioning in the US. The reason I ask is you've seen a number of larger OEMs announce builds or capacity expansion in the US and Asia-Pac in support of offshore. How does that color temporary review towards those markets? Thanks.
Yeah. Patxi, you can elaborate, and I can complement.
Yes. H2, we are not navigating as always, order intake. I can comment that we have a strong pipeline ahead of us, and we expect that the activity in the second half of the year will be stronger than in the first half. We see solid order pipeline towards the end of the year. With respect to the US, with the whole situation of IRA, we have had a number of quarters, Nordex speaking, specifically speaking to Nordex, relatively sluggish in the US market. We are picking up activity, commercial activity. With the cycles that generally we have for the orders to close, we expect a normalization on the US, order activity coming back also for us towards the end of the year, beginning of next year.
We have, we plan?... restart the facility in West France. We are waiting for more visibility from customers and orders before creating capacity and putting pressure on overcapacity and then putting pressure on price. It's true that our competitors are announcing orders. We don't see that our pipeline or the pipeline of our customers are as mature to shorter being in a position to decide to restart the facility. Definitely our plan is to restart the facility as soon as we have a little bit more visibility in the pipeline.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Constantin Hesse from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for taking my questions. My two questions are gonna be based on margins and then free cash flow. On margins, José Luis Blanco, every time you guys were talking about improving trend, you were emphasizing operational risks are still very much there. I know that you're, you know, you're confirming the 8% of the EBITDA margin, but I'm really trying to get a feeling because it seems like your tone might have changed a bit compared to the last call. It might have gotten a bit more negative. In terms of the improvement trend that we're gonna see now in the second half and towards 2024. If you could maybe discuss a little bit.
I mean, obviously, we're not gonna see a 900 basis point swing again in between quarters, but if we could at least have some kind of directional guidance, or not guidance, but directional view, that would be great. You know, talking about your current order backlog, and the profitability profile there, because it seems now you have EUR 2.4 billion on, well, of, of projects, basically, with at least 8% margin in there, which already supports 70% of the, of the consensus numbers next year. If you could provide a bit more color as well as to this TPI issue on margins directionally, that would be great.
I will try to do my best, Constantin. Just high level, I mean, order intake in Europe is strong, but order intake in non-European markets is substantially delayed. Even in Europe, we have some delays, which triggers pressure on the revenue recognition and on the activity. We still need to sell close to one gigawatt for POC within this year. I think we are in the last mile, and we see this absolutely achievable, but we need to do so, to do so in the next two months.
As a consequence of the, of the delayed order intake, we are backloading the year, and we are planning a record Q3 in installation, as well as substantial activity in installation in Q4. This delay in order intake triggers as well, very high activity level in nacelle production with POC, percentage of completion within the year. Just to give you one point of info, we are planning to assemble in the last quarter, the same megawatts that in the first half. This is the somehow the, the, the raise we see because we are planning a very high level of activity for the company in the second half, which we are prepared.
You know, we have everything in place to do so, but the activity level is expected to be very high. This is what is supporting the profitability expected in the second half. It's a high level of activity with better margin quality projects going through that activity. Regarding the midterm strategic targets, the preconditions are still the same. I mean, certain volume, let's say around 7+ gigawatts, certain volume in time, because if the volume doesn't come in time, then you have empty slots, and the empty slots cost you money and doesn't bring you revenue and margin. Timing of this order intake is critical.
If we keep suffering delays in U.S. or in Latin, this puts pressure on the midterm targets because it means that you have an organization without activity. Luckily, we see very strong demand from Europe, but additional strong demand from Europe means additional risk as well to execute that demand. Overall, this might deteriorate the margin might. So preconditions is volume. Margin on the order intake are stable. I mean, we are, if we keep selling at the margins that we are selling, this is the 8% EBITDA margin. The volume, seven gigawatt plus, we are not yet there. Let's see. The timing of this volume is always a risk.
The last is not deteriorating margin in the execution, which we are improving, but we are still deteriorating margin in execution. I hope this gives you a flavor of how margin is expected to evolve, which I expect, you know, positive improvements in the quarters ahead
It, it does, absolutely, most of it. I'm just wondering if just as a follow-up very quickly, I mean, these execution risks here, I mean, supply chain obviously is fixed. It seems to be fixed anyways, but can you maybe elaborate a little bit on execution? Where exactly are you failing here? What are the key issues in execution that you-
Yeah
seem to be seeing, maybe often in project execution? Ilya, the second question goes to you on free cash flow generation in the second half.
Yep. Now, execution today, you know, the nacelle factories are running quite well. We don't see a risk on availability of materials, we don't see risk on the price of the components. Blades is as well catching up on some, you know, normal issues in blade production. Where we see the issues as we speak, is the moorage cost in Turkey, where we have a huge activity of blade production, tower production, to deliver to the Turkish market, but especially to deliver to Europe.
And we are facing the moorage in the ports because the ports suffered big time after the earthquake, which means you need to pay vessels waiting to be loaded, and you deliver late those components to the projects, and you pay LDs on the projects. Europe, Germany, and Nordics are bringing back the execution back to normal, but it's not 100% there. I would say the moorage, that triggers extra costs on LDs on projects because the components are late. We have a plan to turn around this situation. That's not gonna be permanent, but it's gonna take still some time. And Nordics and Central are improving month-on-month in the execution.
We are not still to the point that we are able to deliver the project as we expected when we sold those projects.
That's great. Thanks. Ilya, just over to you quickly on free cash flow generation, second half, what can we expect here?
Yep, I'll take this one. Thanks, Constantin. The intro is the typical one. We're not guiding for free cash flow, we're not guiding for margins or EBITDA on quarters. To hopefully help us calibrate here a bit, Constantin, we see a clearly improved free cash flow profile for the second half. Main building blocks, A, you were discussing with the CEO now, that the sequential margin improvement Q on Q, three and four , will help that. Second, there is quite some one-offs for the first half, we don't see to repeat in the second one, for example, the unwinding of the shelter loans and some extra financial costs from there.
Putting that together with a starting block of liquidity, on the free cash flow, summarizing, clearly a better profile than in the first half.
Great. Thank you.
The next question comes from Sean McLaughlin from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon. A couple of questions. Firstly, on the demand environment, you've talked about kind of non-US orders. Can you just maybe talk through the pricing environment and how kind of Europe versus non-Europe pans out? Thank you.
I can elaborate there. Usually, in Europe, there is, you know, the high need to reduce the energy dependence from Russia and from the gas. This triggers demand. Electricity prices are high, although have decreased lately, and this drives better PPAs and more allowable cost and price for the toolbox. Generally speaking, margins in Europe are slightly better and on a higher cost base because demands taller towers and more expensive equipment.
Demand in Latin America is temporarily very low for everybody, and that's driven by a high rainy season, with low electricity prices in the market and a demand that temporarily is not picking up. We are moderately optimistic that this is a temporary situation, but low demand means low demand and low electricity prices and higher capital costs. It means that temporarily, many projects are on hold. Many customers decide to put the projects on hold to invest. That puts more pressure on prices and on margins, which we try as much as we can not to compromise.
Thank you. If I can just probe a little bit into the guidance range. I mean, it's still a pretty wide range, you know, midway through the year. How you've said you're comfortable with the midpoint. I mean, what can get us comfortable about the upper end of this range? What risks are there around the lower end of the range? Should we think of the kind of 5-ish% embedded margin in the second half as a kind of runway into next year? Or can we also see, let's say, sequential H2 2024 on H1 2024 and H2 2023 improvement in margins? Thank you.
Yeah, the math to the midpoint points into the direction that you mentioned. I think the high end is definitely very challenging because the order intake is late, but theoretically possible, but challenging. The rest is about the risk of high activity level in the second half, very high activity level. In this case, for instance, for me to deliver the activity level, not me to deliver the activity level without margin deterioration. Those are the two key factors that I see.
Maybe just if I may, just to build on that a little bit and latch back to a previous question. I mean, the risk around high activity levels. I mean, logistics don't seem to be a problem anymore. Where are the key kind of pinch points around or the risks related to activity?
Yeah. I mean, we mentioned the port risk. We mentioned that in the last quarter, we need to assemble close to 3 gigawatts of nacelles. It's a huge number of industrial activity. We are planning to install in the third quarter, close to 2 gigawatts in that range. Very high activity. We are installing 200 megawatts a week as we speak. It's a massive level of activity in 30 projects simultaneously that, you know, something can go wrong somewhere. A machinery breakdown, health and safety issue, you know, there are, you know, a crane that breaks.
The typical activity risk that we have with very little buffer to deal with that because, you know, we are backloading the year because of the delay order intake.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Benjamin Heelan, from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes, afternoon, guys. Thank you for the question. The first one, one of your peers had obviously discovered quite material issues in the design of their turbines. I was just wondering if you had done any analysis to check whether this is something that you may see in your own turbines, or whether you are quite comfortable that this was not an issue for you. Secondly, looking at that chart you've got in the deck on the in-house versus outsourced production of blades, it looks as though there's been a bit of a shift towards outsourced blades. I just wondered if you could comment on that and if that's something that is strategic, just a bit of mix, and how we should think about that going forwards.
Final 1 on pricing. I know you kind of touched on the demand environment a little bit in the, in one of the last questions, but pricing is obviously at a fairly healthy level. Raw materials, all those sorts of costs are rolling over a little bit. How sustainable do you think this level of pricing is? Thank you.
Okay, let's take one by one. Regarding the peer's material issue, I think we don't know because we know the public information, of course. When you see this from the market, you automatically gather your team to analyze what could go wrong in our Delta4000 platform. Our Delta4000 platform is in the market now for five years, so we did a deep review into the platform. To the best of our knowledge, the issues that we are facing are normal course of business. Nothing extraordinary to be worried about.
At least that was our assessment of our current running product that, as I said, has been successfully selling for the last five years and, with operational experience of as well, 4 to 5 years. We are, you know, quality is a big focus, and de-risking is a big focus for the industry. The same for us, it's a high priority. After the analysis, we think that we don't have any structural systemic issue in the Delta4000 platform, which is the product that we sell today. Majority of the sales are that product. Regarding the in-house versus outsource, I mean, our strategy is very much to keep that, to keep certain volume in-house.
It could be more or less, depending, depending availability of good place suppliers in different markets, and depending as well about how competitive we are in different markets producing the blades in-house. We don't expect structural changes. I think we are happy with our in-house production in blades that eventually will slightly grow a little bit year on year, next year, but with the same, with the same number of factories. It's the strategy for us to keep the know-how in-house, to better understand the quality, to better understand the processes, to better put in place plans to deal with the critical to quality topics in-house and with the suppliers.
That part is strategic for us, and the rest, if it's 60/40 or 70/30, it's gonna be opportunistic, depending in every market, in every location. Regarding pricing, we see stability. I think, the deals that we approved in the last quarter and the deals that we are discussing as we speak, and the portfolio of the order intake delivers the mid-term profitability guidance.
Very clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Sebastian Growe from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. First question that I have is on the statement that you made now several times about 7 gigawatts plus. Is this really what you see in terms of the achievable order intake for the total of fiscal 2023, if everything falls in place? You obviously made some comments around exogenous factors like rain seasons, like energy prices, et cetera. If you just could provide us with some more color, what it would take to really get to the 7, that would be much appreciated to start there.
Yeah. I think, you know, as Patxi mentioned, we don't guide order intake. What Patxi mentioned is H2 is expected to be better than H1. Let's see. You know, something I forgot to mention before about the risk in operation. We mentioned ports, we mentioned project execution, especially in Germany and in Nordics. We have an issue with high inflation in Europe and many suppliers going out of business, which usually creates pain and creates issues. Hopefully, this will stabilize. We are optimistic about, I would say, global supply chain for components and products, China and India are stable and open for business and very reliable.
A little bit more concerned in several suppliers in Europe, that are struggling, and service suppliers as well in Europe that might create some temporary pain. Back to your question of the 7 gigawatts, I would say it's challenging, but let's see.
Okay. Sounds encouraging. If I may then continue what that really means. Obviously, you pointed to a 2 gigawatts+ volume, obviously, for the fourth quarter that you have planned for, compared to the 3 that you managed and performed, executed in the first half of the year. We should actually, I think, see a similar level, like 1.5 or so run rate also in quarter three. This basically then also the way probably to look at then the year 2023 in execution. If that is all the case, and if then we have better tailwinds from better pricing sitting in the order backlog, what is kind of holding you back and turning more positive on the revenue side of things?
It's purely these kind of unknowns, and that is it in a way, but if things go well, then we could see materially better sales than the 6.1. Is that the right reflection?
Could be, could be. I think in the revenue side, if things go well, yes. The margin, of course, is gonna depend on the top line, and it's gonna depend on the quality of the backlog that we are executing, because we are still executing, I would say, super quality margin projects in the pipeline, and depends about the stills on deterioration in the margin. From an activity level, we are... You know, with the risk, as I mentioned, we have plans for being moderately optimistic about the activity level.
Okay. The last one for me, just touching on the operations, more to the execution part when it comes to an regional assessment. You mentioned obviously that the H1 order intake was solely coming from Europe. To what extent does this really affect also your execution in respect to what you have in India, compared to the European, perhaps with Germany and Spain, for instance? Does this create some frictions, or how should one think about that?
I would say that exposure to Asia was a challenge during COVID, indeed, a huge challenge. Now, we are very comfortable, and the bigger supply chain issues we have is that we need to debottleneck Turkey. The port capacity in Turkey needs to be debottleneck, and this is gonna take time, and it's gonna cost us money and LDs and so on. It's a temporary issue. We still have a lot of activity in Germany and in Spain. More than 50% of the nacelles are still produced in Europe, and we have a blade factory as well in Spain. It's not that we are fully dependent on Asia, but the India for global and the moving to India capacity.
To China has proven to be good for us currently.
Will then the greater push for local content, yeah, trigger any changes to the operational setup, or what's your view on the matter?
I think we are in discussions with policymakers about the new energy policy for Europe. We are strongly advocating for supply chain resilience, for a resilient supply chain in Europe. We are ready to do so. We have decided not to sell assets that we unfortunately needed to close in the hope that policy might support us. Let's see. We are advocating for that, for a resilient European supply chain. Resilient European supply chain needs a levelized playing field to protect the cost, because we cannot...
We might, you know, not be able to compete in a levelized playing base with, you know, with sectors that might have other state aids or kind of tailwinds in their, in the way they conduct their businesses.
Sorry for the very, very last one, I promise. On the timeline, when it comes to these very discussions to have a level playing field in Europe, because we, we can see that elsewhere in the renewable space, obviously. I recently just picked up that that was pinpointed at quarter four, eventually, that we might find a solution. Do you have any best estimate for us?
Difficult, Sebastian. I wish I could be more specific. This legislation is in the making. It's quite. Policymakers are working in different views of the different countries. If this could be absolutely no protectionist whatsoever, or if we should put certain public money at work in order to protect any strategic sector for keeping supply chain in Europe to support the energy independence. Because, you know, energy independence with supply chain single source is not that really that independent, and that's what we are advocating. I cannot be more specific than that, that I wish to see an European policy similar to the U.S. policy to protect the local content.
Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from Christian Bruns from Montega AG. Please, go ahead.
Yes, hello. Christian from Montega. I think most of my questions have already been answered. I would like to know when there will be a decision on your, on reopening your U.S. facility. Can you tell something on this? The second question is given that your pipeline is now just not the whole pipeline, but the order intake was just 100% Europe, what is the maximum capacity you could install in Europe in 2025, given that here the environment is very comfortable for you?
Mm-hmm.
Is there any capacity restriction here?
Yeah. The first question, US, we were internally discussing when is the right timing to do that announcement, we ended to the conclusion that we could start right away. We have everything prepared, we decided not to do so and better wait for more visibility on the pipeline, which we don't have yet. We are in discussions with customers, the level of maturity of these discussions are not robust enough. We need to wait, at the moment that we see orders, then we will, not just one order, but a pipeline of orders, because reopening a factory from one or two orders and not having activity is something that we don't like to do.
Mm-hmm.
We want to see a good visibility on the pipeline and then push the button, and everything is ready for that. Regarding the capacity in Europe, I would say from a product point of view, we don't have a limited capacity.
Installation, yeah.
Yeah, the plants are global. The challenge is the local execution, which we are planning to increase the capabilities. We are as well working with governments. I mean, Germany is a core market for us, really core market, where we are quite optimistic that we can grow year on year, and that's our plan. We are working as well with the German government and the association to try to de-risk the execution, because the activity level that is expected in the few years, you mentioned 2025, 2026, is a substantial increase, and this is gonna require more police permits, more permitting, different ways to assess the highways. We are analyzing waterways, and this is a very constructive dialogue with industry and with the government.
We are doing the homework to be in the position to, to do bigger volumes in Europe and especially in Germany.
Thank you. That was helpful.
The next question comes from William Mackie from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, good afternoon. A few questions, please, to follow up. First one is coming back to installation rates, and really just to make sure I understand what you're saying or clarity. You've thrown out a couple of numbers, but could you at least reiterate what your expected installation rate is in megawatts in Q3 as you work through the planned catch-up and then in Q4? Well, the numbers you're talking about put you into record territory.
Yeah. you know, you need to take this with a grain of salt because we don't guide installations, we guide the revenue. we want to give you information of the activity so you can better understand the business. The current planning, as we speak, I have it in front of mine, for Q3 is 500+ units, which is a substantial increase versus Q1 or Q2. In Q2, we did 359 or something like that. we have a substantial increase to 500+ in Q3, and Q4 is 400+. That's the level of activity in installation, and yes, it's a record level for quarters.
To what extent are you confident you have sufficient on-the-ground logistics to execute at such high levels in? Most of it is Europe, right?
Most of it is Europe. Yes, you are correct. Yes, we have the cranes, we have the people, we have the plans to have the components. If everything works as per the plan, the plan holds that installation, and we are working towards that plan.
Thank you. With regard to what you reported, if I just look at the number, the Q1 and the Q2 numbers, it appears as though you had a negative installation rate in Q2 in Latin America. Was there a reallocation of the work that you did between the quarters?
Shouldn't be. Shouldn't be. That's a mistake we will clarify and get back to you in a one-to-one, but I don't think, I don't think so.
Okay.
oh, yeah, could be. Yeah. You were spot on. I mean, one project in one Latin American country was relocated because of some customer issue without P&L impact for Nordex.
Okay, super. Thank you. Now, in Q1, you mentioned that there was about a 400 basis points drag on the profitability related to a high allocation of LDs and a high installation costs in the Nordics. Can you give some sense of how that was running in Q2? To what extent was there still a substantial LD drag, and would you quantify it?
Unfortunately, I don't have that level of detail. Conceptually, it's lower, it's substantially lower, things are getting back on track in Nordics. In Germany, the level of deterioration in execution has improved substantially. In the beginning of the year, we were paying substantial amount of liquidated damages for late installation and late connection, majority of the projects were in liquidated damages. At the end of the quarter, just a handful of projects that you count with a hand were in the LD territory. If we reduce from 4 to 2 or 4 to 1, I cannot be that specific.
Thank you, José Luis. Building on that question, just when we think about the target level of gross margins within the turbine business, I mean, it's been down close to 0 in some quarters on the figures that you report, and it's historically been up as high as almost 20%. When we think about the contracts which yourself and Patxi are signing off, what is the sort of level of target gross margin we should be thinking about within turbines midterm?
I mean, that's. We sell at 8% target level, assuming, let's say, 7 gigawatt company. That gives you, you know, a certain contribution margin that we usually we don't disclose. But what I can tell is, EBITDA level 8%, with the assumption that the volume is approx 7 gigawatts.
Thank you.
We are closer to running out of time. Maybe last question because we have one other also asking question. Please, the last one, okay?
Sure. North America, just if you'd like to talk about, whether you have the right product for North America, some of your customers, some of your competitors are introducing new product for the US market, or would you need to go through another innovation cycle to prepare for a US market ramp up?
We are planning to sell a slight modification of existing products, so using existing blades and existing components. That's our main plan. If we are successful or not, future will tell, but in our current plan, it's not a new innovation cycle, but building on reliable components because innovation also always carries certain risks, especially during the ramp-up phase.
Thank you very much.
We have a follow-up question from Constantin Hesse from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Just a very quick one. At least Q1, you said that the catch up of the delays would be done by the end of the first half, you would have delivered most, if not all, of your low-quality projects by the end of the year. Does that still stand? That's the first question.
Unfortunately, not. I mean, we did a substantial catch up, we improved a lot in the margin, the deterioration, and in the LDs. Unfortunately, we were not able to debottleneck the situation with the ports in Turkey, this is still creating pain for us. The second factor that is affecting us is that we were expecting a earlier order intake with earlier production, with earlier installation. This is now why the second half is has high level of activity.
Understood. Just the last one, because we couldn't hear it. There was a question regarding sequential improvement in profitability. If we take the current expected roughly 4% or 5% of the dollar margin at the second half and look into 2024, it's probably fair to assume a continued improvement in margins in 2024, right?
Well, that should be the expectation. I mean, it's too early because we are, after the summer break, we will start the planning for the, for the budget and the business plan. If the company sells, you know, 2024, we still need to sell all the fish. I mean, you know, we have.
Yeah
... we have little volume in the backlog for POC and activity in 2024. All the majority of the fish is gonna be sold in the second half of the year, but as well in Q1 and Q2 next year. I would say too early to say, but if, if, if the conditions you mentioned materialize, we should see a sustainable better margin, you know, quarter-on-quarter, because less deterioration and better quality on the order intake.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
The last question for today comes from John Keam from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Just wanted to see if you're seeing any progress on country-level legislation in Europe. I'm wondering if you're seeing new policy at the country level, specific to debottlenecking, permitting, or anything else you see as kind of a binding condition or restraint on your ability to grow in the market for the next three years. Thanks.
I do see. Yes, we do see substantial improvement in Germany, which is our core market and which we are very happy. Germany now, you know, to see the volume of the auctions, the available number of projects in the auctions. This was always a matter of concern because Germany is a key market for us. We are leaders in the market. The market is expected to grow. Two prerequisites to grow. One is the availability of permitted projects. The other is the ability of the supply chain to execute. We don't see that prices and high interest costs are gonna harm the market because the country needs to decarbonize.
I'm very optimistic to see the progress in the legislation about permitting, about making more land available, about several legislation steps that the German government is making. Hopefully, the European legislation will go into that direction. That's the expectation, and the rest of the European countries will follow.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much for all the questions and the fruitful discussion. This closes our Q&A session. I'd like to say goodbye from my side. Before ending the call, I'd like to hand over to José Luis again for his final remarks. José Luis, the floor is yours.
Thank you. Thank you very much for, for the time, for the interest, for the questions, and as usual, I would like to provide you our key takeaways. First, given our slower start in terms of order intake for the first half of 2023, we expect a back-ended load profile for 2023. However, we assume a sequential improvement of margins in the second half of the year. We confirm our expectations for this year, as also indicated in the last call, that the performance in the second half will be stronger than in the first half. With our latest financial measure, we have considerably strengthened our financial structure and even flexibility.
Finally, confirm our guidance and meet the targets, and hope that good policy development and measurements in our core markets will translate very soon into higher volumes and margins. With that, thank you for your participation, and wish you a nice afternoon. Goodbye.