Hello, Håkan.
Hello, everybody. Hello, Hanna-Mari.
Good to see you.
Good to see you, too.
It is three o'clock, which means that it is time to start. Welcome to Wärtsilä Strategy Call. I am Hanna-Maria Heikkinen, and I am in charge of investor relations. Today, our CEO, Håkan Agnevall, will discuss some of our long-term opportunities, and after Håkan's key messages, there is a possibility to ask questions. As a reminder, we will host a pre-silent call on March 26th together with our CFO, Arjen Berends. Let us leave the questions related to recent trading and detailed financials to that pre-silent call. If you have a question, please use the raise-your-hands functionality in Teams. In the case you do not have the possibility to use the raise-your-hands functionality, you can also send an email to me. Please, Håkan, time to start.
Yes. Welcome, everybody. It's time to reflect a little bit on where we are going on Wärtsilä. Just to start up with a snapshot from reality. Today I'm in Vaasa, and I just stepped out of a very interesting meeting with U.S. data center developers. I know many of you have been asking questions about our data center business and how it's evolving. I can say, I mean, it's a baseload application. We are making our first installations in Europe, and there is a lot of discussions ongoing with U.S. parties. The fact that they take the time, which we are very grateful for, to come to Vaasa, which is quite a trip from the U.S., shows that there is keen interest.
I will touch briefly on the logic for the data center business, but I just thought I'd start off with some exciting news, so to say. If I sum up the situation with Wärtsilä and looking forward a little bit longer term, before we look forward, learn from history, I think 2024 was a really good year. A lot of all-time highs for Wärtsilä, which we are, of course, very grateful for and happy. All-time highs on order intake, all-time highs in sales, all-time highs in absolute EBIT, all-time highs in free cash flow, etc. Yes, we are not at 12% yet, but I reiterate the message from before that we are on a solid path to reach our financial targets. I think we made a good step in the right direction with 10.8% last year, so improving from 2023.
If we then look forward, you've seen our guidance, 12-month forward-looking guidance on demand, and we have guided that it looks better both for marine and for energy. If we start with marine, I know I get a lot of questions on our marine outlook and how are we seeing the development. We have a fairly positive outlook, as I mentioned. I mean, what are the major drivers for us in marine? I would say that there are three major drivers. First is that our core segments in marine, they are growing. So it's cruise, it's ferries, it's offshore specialty vessels. Even in containers with auxiliary engines, there is quite a lot of activity still on the container side.
I also normally make the reference to Clarkson, have the deepest respect for their data crunching capability, and make the point that you cannot only translate the overall growth of marine to Wärtsilä growth, because as you know, we are strong in certain segments, and many of those segments are growing faster than the average. That is the first driver. Our core segments are growing. The second driver is the decarbonization transformation in the marine sector and its new fuels, but it is not only new fuels. It is hybrid solutions, it is conversions, etc. We also have a positive outlook on that. It will continue going forward. You know the starting point, IMO regulation 2023, carbon intensity index, that the whole framework is triggering some real strategic thinking among our customers and how our customers are going to develop their fleets on the decarbonization journey going forward.
In marine, similar managing, but I will get back to that, services, we continue to grow in a good way, I would say. I hope you noticed in our last quarterly report that we kind of visualize our order intake in a new way. We basically look at book to build for all the four different service disciplines that we have: spare parts, service hours, agreements, upgrades. The positive thing is that the book to build for all of these disciplines are bigger than one, and they are bigger than one in marine. They are bigger than one in energy as well. For group, they continue to be bigger than one. That is a clear signal of continued growth. The service strategy of moving up the service value ladder, we talked about that before, it's playing out as we speak.
That's the marine. If we then go over to energy and the outlook there, as you know, we are about baseload and we are about balancing. If I start with balancing, balancing of renewables when the sun doesn't shine, when the wind doesn't blow, you need balancing power to keep the power system stable. Our major competitor in this balancing space is their derivatives. We have our engines, we have our battery storage solutions, and our engines are, I would say, many times better than their derivatives in ramping. Fuel efficiency is better. We do see a lot of interest. I would say the US clearly has been very successful for us last year, and we continue to see, also with the new administration, we continue to see a lot of interest in renewables, especially in the, you could say, the mid-section of the U.S..
All the way from Texas and up. That is giving us business opportunities. Energy storage, there is also strong demand. You notice the lumpiness of the business. It has been a lumpy business. It's going to be a lumpy business. You saw the Q3 order intake was low. The Q4 order intake was very high. When you look at this business, you need to average out. You cannot look and quote unquote at developments. I think going forward, we will also see this lumpiness. That is certainly something to note. If we go over from balancing to baseload, as you know, we provide baseload in many parts of the world. There are big auctions, hopefully, scheduled at least to come out in Brazil. There is a lot of activities in Southeast Asia.
That, I would say, is the traditional baseload for utility applications or for the industry verticals that we have been active in before, like mining, like cement, etc. Now we also have this potential opportunity on data center growth. What is happening here, and it's a pretty recent development, is that the data centers are now growing. That's been a trend for some time. They're growing now to such a size that the dynamics of providing power to the data centers is changing a bit. Until recently, if you wanted to develop a data center, you had a power need, let's say, of 5, 10, 15 megawatts, you would go to your utility and you would ask to hook up, and you would sign an agreement, and then you would buy some high-speed backup power, high-speed engine backup power. That would be the model.
That was clearly not a model where we would be competing in because our engines are higher CapEx, but they are more focused on operational efficiency. What is happening now as the data centers is growing, now the data centers, they need everything from 50, 60 to several hundred. We even see gigawatt. We are not playing in the gigawatt. You have seen a lot of media on gigawatt and Microsoft contracting Three Mile Island, etc., etc. There is a lot of also interest in data centers in our sweet spot, which is, I would say, 10, 20 megawatts all the way up to 400 megawatts.
Because if a data center developer goes to the local utility and says, "I want to hook up, I need 100 megawatts," the utility would normally say, "Very happy for your interest, but now the need is so big, 100 megawatts, it's a lot. We need to put it in our planning process," and that means that you might have your power in 5 to 10 years. Obviously, that doesn't work for the data center developers. It becomes a baseload application. The data centers need to provide their own energy. The energy need is right, a lot of it is right up in our sweet spot, so to say. That's the kind of fundamental dynamic change. Now, we have the concrete proof points. What we have so far is in Europe. We are installing hundreds of megawatts of data center power on island.
As I said before, where I started, we have a lot of discussions with many interested parties in the US. The proof points are still to be there, so we can talk about order, so to say. A lot of positive interest. In energy, service continues also to be very important for both our growth, our customer satisfaction, and for the profitability. It is the same story there about moving up the service value ladder, bringing more and more customers into agreements, and also upgrading power plants from heavy fuel to gas, etc., etc. It is the same narrative on services that we mentioned before. We have both in marine and energy, if you combine it, we have a 90% renewable rate of our agreements, which is for us the ultimate proof point that we are adding value to our customers.
Otherwise, they would not renew the agreement. We have about 30%, 30-31% coverage of some kind of agreement for our installed base. Of course, there are more growth opportunities. Theoretically, it is 100%, but we will not get to 100. There are growth opportunities as we go forward. I think that was a very quick summary of where we are and a little bit outlook for the future. I suggest, Hanna-Maria, we open up for questions.
Thank you, Håkan. That is a great question.
One thing I should say, sorry, because I know the question will come, so let us comment that practically. Storage and strategic review. It continues. Yes, it has been more than a year now, so I fully understand the questions. When are you going to land and how are you going to land? It is the same narrative as before.
I mean, when we set out, we have a business, it's a billion, it's profitable. We took a step back. There are ample growth opportunities. How do we grow this in the best way for our customers to create shareholder value? We are exploring different ownership alternatives, everything from keeping it like today or to divest or partially divest. This analysis is still ongoing. We didn't set ourselves up a timeframe. This clearly has taken time, but we want to turn all the stones, so to say. We want to get to the end. We understand your questions, your eager questions, but we will get back when we have made the decision. The decision has not been made yet. Okay. Now, Q&A.
Thank you, Håkan. Moving to the Q&A, our first question comes from John B. Kim. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, everybody.
Two questions, if I may. First, if we could talk a little bit about what you're seeing in the merchant segment, quite a diverse set of subsegments that go into there. If you could help us understand how you see that going for 2025. Secondly, you may have seen earlier today the Industrial Clean Deal was announced out of the EU. I'm wondering if you can help us connect the dots from the more relevant parts of the policy to your businesses. What could we expect over the next few years? Thanks.
If we start with the last one, I haven't seen the Green Deals and what it entails. I'm so busy now with U.S. data center developers.
I guess, Hanna-Maria, if you can help me here a little bit, or otherwise we need to pull a blank on that one because if it came out today, I haven't seen it.
I think we need a little bit of time to analyze it. I think it's too early for us to comment that.
That was the first. Looking at the marine industry and the different segments. As I said, I mean, you asked about merchant. Basically, if we start with containers, I think that there is a renewed interest in containers, building vessels. There was a boom, then there was a slowdown. I think now with continuation of the U.S. challenges and continued high transport rates, there is also a bit of renewal of interest for new build. We do see that. That's one thing.
As you know, our core, what we do in those types of merchant is auxiliary engines, so to say. It is not the main engines that we have there. Now, if we look at other segments, LNG carriers, there is a bit of a slowdown there. I mean, there has been a lot of contracting activities, and the lead times from the shipyards are getting long. However, there is new Chinese shipyard capacity coming into that segment. That will probably have a positive impact going forward. We have a hybrid electric concept that we have launched for LNG carriers that you might be aware, where we can, our view is that over time, we can make significant inroad coming back, bringing the four-stroke engine, sorry, back into the LNG carrier space. That is an exciting opportunity.
If we look at offshore, I think high level of activity, but new build is still muted. We do have a strong service business, but I think people have learned from the past with a little bit of overinvestment. It takes even more time to ramp up there for the new build business to develop. Cruise, I'm leaving merchant cruise, is very active. I would say the big operators, they are operating clearly on levels way above pre-COVID. They had a strained balance sheet before, but step by step, they are getting out of that strained situation, and they are placing orders for vessels. You have seen that. Normally, I say that there is a 6-12 month delay in the process from when a ship is awarded until the engines are awarded. Cruise, I think we will see a positive development going forward.
Ferries, there is a clear need. I mean, average age, we know it's the same story, 29, 30 years. I think that we do see activities, but it's also hampered a bit by the financial strength of many of the players in the industry, so to say. But there is a clear need. Yeah, that's a quick overview.
Great. Thanks so much.
Thank you. Next question comes from Daniela Costa. Please go ahead.
Hello, Daniela.
Hello.
We can't hear you. Sorry, we can't h ear you.
Yeah, it looks like you are unmuted, but we cannot hear you. Maybe if we take—yes,
now it's good.
Thank you. Now it's working. Okay, perfect. Yeah, that works. Thank you. I was saying I have three questions, if that's possible. The first one is just regarding the situation in Europe.
Lots of debate of Russian gas coming back, and a fair amount, I think, of gas plants in Europe, particularly in Germany, have been mothballed or at low utilization. I don't know how much of your install base has been in that situation. If you have any views on what that could do for your energy business, that would be the first question. I'll ask them one at a time.
Okay. Gas, I mean, we have continuously been of the opinion that gas is needed, I mean, for the world, so to say, and certainly for Europe as a transition solution and transition over decades. Gas is certainly better from a carbon emission perspective than coal.
As you know, we are still very clear on our decarbonization strategy, but gas has a vital role to play in that decarbonization, Johnny, not only, but certainly in marine as well. That is the first starting point. Sorry, we continue to invest in the fossil technology. We continue to invest in our gas engines, for instance, where we are bringing down methane slip, very important, especially on the marine side, but I would also on the energy side. Now, utilization of our energy power plants overall, and I must say, I do not have the specific numbers and the specific statistics, but if you ask me to make a kind of, yeah, hopefully intelligent guesstimate, I would say that our plants have actually been running on fairly high utilization. Why I say that is because they are very energy efficient.
I know for certain customers that have bought our engines, and they have other gas turbine equipment, etc. When they see the thermal efficiency that we are bringing, maybe their initial intention was running it to more like a balancing power, but they run it for baseload because of the thermal efficiency. Our plants have already, I would say, my best guesstimate in Europe, the utilization of our running installed base has already now been fairly high.
Okay. Thank you. The second question is regarding your mix. It sounds like you've had a fairly higher than normal aftermarket versus history. Is that something that you expect to continue to be the mix shifts more and more, or any things we need to kind of keep in mind when we think about 2025, 2026?
I do not see major shifts.
I mean, the mix here is oscillating a little bit between 50-55%. The share varies a little bit, mostly on the new build business, because both new build and services are growing. If you have a great new build year, as we know, it provides a lot of top line, and then the share will swing. I do not see, I mean, a structural shift. It will vary somewhere around 50-55%.
Okay. Got it. Finally, just in terms of margins, it has been quite hard to think about the margin because storage seems to have been quite volatile. Can you maybe sort of divide the margin in two and tell us how should we think about the moving pieces for storage from here? On the rest, you seem to be getting close to the 12%. Is there further upside?
First of all, I make the general disclaimer. We do not give guidance from audience. Having said that, if we start with our thermal business, both marine and energy, I think we are on a journey of continued profitability. You have seen the waterfalls in our quarterly reports where it is, I think, very clear that we continuously improve. Yes, maybe marine had a little bit of flat in the last quarter, but there is a movement of continuous improvement of our profit margin, clearly. On storage, as you noted, we have step by step improved the profitability. Now LTM, we came out at 4.2% or 4.3%. Our intention there is also to continue our strategy as it has been selective growth. We have grown slower than some of our competitors, clearly.
On the other side, I think we have performed better on the profit margin and profitability, quite frankly. That is the strategy that we will continue to execute.
Just on that point, sorry, has a follow-up there to make sure I was clear? Because it looks like when we try to back the quarters, and I understand the data is not there, and maybe that's the problem, that in Q4, the profitability in storage has come down, but maybe is there just volatility, as you've said?
Yeah. I know I often make this comment. I think you cannot consider a Q on Q comparison. You need to have a little bit longer because it might vary. I would say the overall trend is the right one.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you, Daniela. Next question comes from Panu Laitinmäki. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you.
I wanted to ask about the decarbonization in marine and basically potential impacts on that from the new US administration that's a bit more critical towards it. I have two questions. First is about the IMO and how does IMO work? Can the US kind of slow down the developments or reverse the regulation what IMO is planning? Secondly, what is the sentiment among your customers? Have you seen less sense of urgency to proceed with decarbonization and new fuels and all this because of the kind of big shift in the biggest country lately?
IMO, I'll give you my view. I'm not claiming to have deep insights on the inner workings of IMO. I mean, as we all know, it's a UN organization, and basically all nations are represented.
That, of course, leads also that it's normally a slow-moving organization and things are taking in careful steps. Okay? I think 2023 was a big year when the IMO launched the CII and EEXI index and provided the framework. Now, first of all, the U.S. is a great nation in many areas, but it's not a great shipbuilding nation. Most of the vessels are actually built in China, 50% of the world's shipbuilding capacity in China. You have Korea and Japan. Many of the owners, the big owners there in Europe, I mean, we know the big container companies. There are big freight companies also in the U.S., and we have all the big cruise operators there. They're U.S. Now, what is the actual role of the U.S. in the IMO discussion?
I don't have the insight, quite frankly, how big, first of all, what position they are taking now. I think we can all suspect based on other communication that they will take a certain position. How will that influence the other participants? I don't have insights to that. Personally, if you would ask me, I think it's unlikely that they're going to reverse existing legislation or regulation. Could there be impact on the speed going forward? Maybe. Yeah, I think that's the comment I have on IMO.
Okay. The second part of the question was that have you seen kind of change in the sentiment of your customers? Are they having less urgency to proceed with this?
No, the general answer is no. I do see shifts in different approaches to fuels, etc.
Because, I mean, if you go back beginning of last year, there was a lot of attention to methanol. I mean, we have sold more than 200 methanol lines, which is quite a lot during a short time. Now, because of the lack of availability of methanol, the pendulum is swinging back to gas. We will see, and we will see those swings back and forth from different fuels and different solutions. The good thing is that we are a provider of all those, and I would argue that we are a technology leader on most of these. Like LNG, we are clearly a technology leader. For us, it will be a good situation overall, so to say, anyway. The decom is certainly still on the agenda.
I mean, you need to develop a fleet strategy for your CII strategy, the carbon intensity index strategy, and that triggers definitely actions. The choice of fuel will change a little bit over time. The choice of different solutions will vary a little bit over time.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Panu. The next question comes from Timo heinonen . Please go ahead, Timo.
Yes, hi. It's Timo from DNB. Coming back to the data centers. You mentioned that you are delivering hundreds of megawatts in Europe as of now, or I assume during this year. In terms of orders, those must have been booked last year. Can you comment, kind of are we talking about 300 megawatts or 900 megawatts? Second point, just in terms of getting a picture of the values, how does the pricing reference kind of look like?
Should we compare those to the typical kind of thermal plant type of deals, baseload megawatts, and the price of what you report as orders?
Yeah. First of all, it's hundreds of megawatts. I cannot be more specific than that because we have confidentiality. We have signed confidentiality agreements with our customers, but it's hundreds of megawatts. What's the price realization? I would say it's a price realization that we normally find in our thermal power plant business. I would say that going forward, I mean, since this will be running as baseload application, the service business will be according to baseload, which is 8,000 hours a year, which is good.
These orders were booked last year?
Yes.
They are in the numbers, so we can kind of calculate a little bit how much of orders. Would you dare to comment anything about pipeline for you?
Kind of is the business in megawatts enough kind of in Europe, in the US? You haven't booked, assumably, orders yet from the US?
No, that I've been clear. We have not booked orders in the US. What I'm a little bit cautious is that this is a project business. You get a couple of two, three big orders. That's great. It can be silent for a quarter or two, and you get it again. As you know, this is project business. I would say underlying sentiment is positive. Of course, we want to provide more proof points. We'll come back when we have the proof points.
One follow-up I had on this. When you mentioned project business, are you taking these orders as EPC, or is it still no EPC even on data center side?
I mean, our EPC EQ approach overall, we are still doing EPC, but we are doing it in a much more selective approach. We do it in certain countries. We do it with certain customers. I would say in general, the data center will be equipment, not EPC.
Thank you. Finally, just to check energy outlook as well as marine better next 12 months. Is there a tilt kind of which is better or kind of even does better imply worse year on year in storage?
Timo, I appreciate your question. Better is better. I will not go. I mean, I will turn the question around, just to make a point. Timo, can you please predict the future in the current geopolitical situation? I think we are seeing, and to be more, I mean, a more serious note.
I mean, we see increased level of uncertainty, clearly. I think the current US administration has a very broad agenda and making bold statements and is creating a lot of uncertainty. That uncertainty is, of course, not good for the overall decision-making. That is why I and you noted the caveat that we put in relation to our guidance that we said that this is an environment that has more uncertainty than normally, so to say. Therefore, it is hard to make forward-looking outlooks.
Appreciate that. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Tommy. The next question comes from Anders Roslund. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello. I had a follow-up on the data center business again. Given the fact that Mr. Trump is sort of less interested in renewables, could this be a revival for the LNG part of baseload in the US?
That's why people are coming to Vaasa and look at your engines. The follow-up is, could you really export the engines from Europe to the U.S., or what sort of tariffs could you confront?
I would say that there was already a fairly strong LNG sentiment in the U.S. even before the current administration. I think the sentiment has even further strengthened, so to say. Yes. Now, tariffs. We export our engines from Vaasa to the U.S. If there would be a tariff, that would affect, we will pass that on to our customers, clearly. We will not eat this. One should also acknowledge there is a lot of uncertainties around tariffs. When will they be applied? Sorry, there's some noise in the background. Somebody's having fun in the background.
Anders, can you please mute yourself?
There is a lot of unclarity on potential tariffs. Would they be, how broad would they be, how would they apply? Another thing to look at is, of course, how the US dollar-euro is developing because there you have seen a very strong dollar. Those two combined, what will be the net effect? Very hard to predict.
Okay. Thank you. That's all for me.
Thank you, Anders. Next question comes from Sean McLoughlin . Please go ahead, Sean.
Good afternoon. Thank you. Just a question on the portfolio business.
I guess if there's been anything strategically that's changed, obviously, given the order intake strength last year, given this very strong bounce to positive margins, is this actually an acceleration of a sale at a good multiple, or is this actually, I don't know, changing the way that you're thinking about some of the businesses within that portfolio?
Yeah. No, I can confirm that these businesses will still be divested. No change of that direction. I think what we said before is that some of these businesses we needed to turn around before we divest. I think you're now seeing that we are turning the businesses around, and then we are divesting. I mean, we signed for ANCS last year, and we will continue the journey with the other business units in portfolio to divest.
Is it fair to assume then that we might see divestment of this business pretty quickly?
I won't go into the time elements. I mean, the sooner the better, but we want to make sure we get a good value realization and therefore turn the businesses around and then divestment. It's over time. We will not be finished this year. We continue year by year.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Antti Kansanen.
Thank you. I want to continue with the theme of today, so data centers and a question on Europe versus U.S.A. I mean, you've had a good traction in Europe with these projects that you were referring. Are these all coming from the collaboration that you have with AVK? Could you maybe talk about their role in that as well? Maybe a follow-up on the US market.
I guess you have a little bit of a different market strategy there going straight to the end clients. Are there any kind of scale differences or cultural differences that the engines have not been as favored as turbines so far? Or is it just you're early in the game of penetrating that market? These topics, please.
No, I mean, if we go to Europe, we have a partnership with AVK, and these first orders have been with AVK. I can confirm that. I mean, in the U.S., it's more the latter option that you put. It's early stage. It's not a significant different approach, or it is just early stage. This development, like I kind of sketched before, where it becomes a baseload application, you cannot get access to utilities. This is evolving as we speak, basically.
That's why there is still a bit of a learning curve. No, as I said, a lot of positive discussions ongoing.
I wanted to challenge that a little bit. I'm not an engineer by any means, but if you think about the baseload power for data centers, is it kind of do you need that much kind of dynamic kind of fluctuation on the supply that the energy would be beneficial compared to a turbine?
No, but you need thermal efficiency for your operating costs. I mean, normally, we have a thermal efficiency about 49-50%. The average derivatives on a good day, they have maybe 40-42%. That differential makes a hell of a difference in fuel cost. That's the key thing in baseload.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Antti. The next question comes from Tom Skogman. Please go ahead, Tom.
Yes. Hi, Hanna-Maria and Håkan. I was also wondering a bit on the same topic now when you have these American visitors there. What is kind of the promise that you say to them when they are used to buying gas turbines? They've all heard about these benefits, but if I would buy something for hundreds of millions of dollars, I would like to have numbers. Now you provided one number, but are there other numbers that you can present?
I mean, I would love to go through if we can go through our technical specification, but I'm not sure that the investor collective would be very excited when we go through. I bring out the major one, and that is the fuel efficiency. We don't need water. We need very little water. I mean, gas turbines for cooling need much more water.
Our lead times are much shorter because, as you know, I mean, if you look at some of the big gas turbine players, the order backlog is significant, primarily, if I understand it correctly, on the big turbines. That also has a repercussion on the delivery times of the aero derivatives, so to say. There are some of the critical factors.
Is it also a selling point that these plan to connect the data centers to renewables in the future somehow, that, and you can present some numbers for that then? I mean, how is the fuel efficiency? You gave is 42% compared to 49%-50%, but how does it change 5, 10 years down the road when they have connected it to windmills?
I mean, right now, and you should talk to the people in the data center, there is a rush for data center capacity. Certainly in the U.S., thermal is many times the way considered forward. Of course, the hyperscalers, so the customers, customers, they certainly have an agenda to have as green energy as possible. I would say, is that the primary focus now? No. To your point, this is an additional benefit on our side because, as you know, we have experience to integrate renewables with our thermal, and we are better at balancing than the gas turbines. That is a secondary kind of positive. I would say that during this rush, the rush in the market, that is not on the top of the agenda yet.
For these orders you have booked in Europe, are the end customers behind these American tech companies?
I do not think I can disclose that, actually. Sorry about that. We have signed some confidential agreements.
Just on other types of power plant orders from the US, have you seen that some orders are slipping already because of these tariff fears?
No, not yet. I think on the storage side, we start to see some hesitation on orders because of the whole geopolitical agenda and discussions on tariffs. How that translates going forward, it remains to be seen. As I said, this uncertainty is not good.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tom. I have received a couple of questions by email. Continuing with the storage, what is your read on Fluence Warning? What is different in what you see?
I mean, you have to talk to Fluence about how they see their reality and the way forward. I mean, I can say that we have chosen a bit different strategy than them. They have grown faster than us, but we have been more selective in our growth. We have grown slower, but we have also achieved a higher profitability. I would argue we have had a more focused both geographical approach, but also customer segment approach. We have been talking about, and which we still stand behind, our capability to execute, deliver on time with the right quality. This is where we should excel. Our thermal stability, still we haven't had any fires in our installations. That is by design, of course, by luck as well. I would say we have an industry-leading thermal design.
This capability of ours to integrate with our power system companies and to integrate it with other assets for overall uptime reliability and lowest energy cost. We talked about this before. There is a huge energy storage market. Some customers are much more focused on CapEx. We are not as competitive there, let's be frank. There are certainly customers that value our key attributes. There we grow.
Another question regarding navy business. You have not mentioned navy activity in marine. Do you see something in the long-term project pipeline?
Our navy business is less than 5% of our overall revenues. Of course, there is a lot of attention on this. It is growing. I mean, considering everything, how defense is evolving in general, that is growing as well. When it comes to M&A, we talked about that before.
We will focus more on bolt-on acquisitions than big strategic bets, so to say.
Thank you. The next question comes from Panu Laitinmäki.
Yes, thank you. I just wanted to clarify that so I understood that you booked several hundreds of megawatts of data center orders last year. If that is correct, it means that out of the power plant orders, it was like 25-30% of the orders.
I will not give you the numbers still.
Yeah. I mean, yeah, but the megawatts are in your report. The question is that how much was balanced?
I will not tell you. I will not tell you. I said that already.
Okay. Maybe it is final. I mean, the traditional baseload then was fairly small last year, right?
No, it was not. I am not telling.
What we have been communicating is that balancing overall was about 70% of our order intake last year.
Overall, including storage or in power plants?
In power plants.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Mikael Döppel. Mikael Döppel, please go ahead.
Yeah. Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Yes.
Good. Hi. Good afternoon, Håkan and Hanna. A couple of questions. First, coming back to Håkan, your comment on M&A. You said that you're focusing on bolt-ons. I was thinking more broadly about how you think about capital allocation because, I mean, looking at your balance sheets, it's super strong. You had a net cash position at the end of the year. You previously said that you don't see any bigger investment needs in Vaasa, that you have plenty of capacity to grow. Just wondering what you're going to do with the cash.
I mean, why are not extra payouts or buybacks topical already now? Even on top of that, you have the portfolio visions, which we talked about earlier, which you're likely going to divest over time. Just curious about your thinking around that, especially with regards to the payouts and that part of the equation.
No, I mean, overall, as you probably know, we have a target to give out more than 50% of our profit. I think this with what has been proposed by the board today, the aim is 52%. You're fully right. We have a strong balance sheet. We are well funded for our R&D because, I mean, we are running higher R&D than ever. I think it's 4.6% of our old sales last year. We continue to invest in plants and equipment.
I would say we are investing in a similar rate that we do the depreciation and amortization, so to say. We have a balance sheet where we could clearly make major strategic moves. That's for sure. I mean, and we talked about before, what are the obvious big strategic moves, M&A, etc., etc., if it comes out, when it comes out, and there are many ifs and buts. I would say on the other side, we are going into a situation, this overall geopolitical business situation, which has a lot of uncertainty. It is also good to go into this, I would say, era of uncertainty with a strong balance sheet.
Okay. Just to follow up on that, you mentioned M&A, and I think you mentioned it before. Could you just briefly recap the strategic rationale for you to be interested in those assets?
No.
I mean, M&A is a very strong player in two-stroke. They're also in four-stroke. The strategic rationale would be around the two-stroke business. Because today, we don't have two-stroke investors, so to say. We used to have; we divested it because it was the smaller player in the two-stroke space. M&A is clearly the bigger player in the two-stroke space.
Okay. Good. Finally, on another topic, carbon capture systems. We talked about these. I think you've said that you've done some pilot projects last year. You're going to commercial the business this year. Just wondering, where are we on that one? What does the pipeline, for example, of potential order look like right here and now? What's the uptake been among the customers and so on?
You're right. Sorry.
We are running pilots as we speak, and the intention is to do a commercial release this year. I think we should also acknowledge that this is an ecosystem that needs to evolve. I mean, we are providing our parts to the puzzle. Basically, we extract the CO2, and you can store it on a vessel. We have many other important steps to the puzzle. Okay, once you bring it to shore, what do you do with it? Do you pump it back in a well? Do you use it as a raw material for synthetic fuel or something else? This is a very dynamic and evolving space. We provide one important piece of the puzzle, but we do not solve the whole puzzle. Now, what we have said is that we identify this to be a EUR 10 billion business opportunity over 10 years.
You hear the kind of timeframe, 10 years. There is a lot of interest, I would say, from different customers. I will not go into the customer list, so to say. Considering the ecosystem approach, this business will take time to grow, so to say. It is also clearly dependent on the regulatory development, both, I would say, and I know, but also in the European context.
Right. Right. Okay. I guess commercialization later this year, perhaps, or is it fair to assume that there is not going to be much action or orders on this business still this year? Is it more of a kind of a midterm story from your point of view?
I would say that the growth of carbon capture, I mean, significant contribution to that, so the top line is more a midterm.
Okay. That is fair. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mikael. The next question comes from Sean McLoughlin. Please go ahead, Sean.
Thank you. I think this is a question that you've already been asked before, but it's regarding Suez and the impact, the beneficial impact that it's had on your service business, on service growth. I mean, as you look back on 2024, are you able to give us some kind of a steer of how much of that 15% year-on-year growth it actually contributed to?
I won't give the numbers, but it's a minor portion, so to say. I mean, it's clearly so. I mean, the logic is, of course, that Suez is closer, people travel longer, and therefore it generates more service hours. It's also keeping more vessels operating because you need more ships to provide the same type of capacity. Those are the fundamental drivers.
I would not say that this is a major driver to our growth during 2024.
Fair enough. I guess we should assume that it will be an even smaller contribution this year, given that it is almost kind of annualized through 2024.
Yeah. No, I think that is a fair assumption.
Thank you.
Thank you. Now, I do not see any raised hands. We have still eight minutes' time left. In the case you have questions, please use the raise your hand functionality in Teams. If you are very quick, you can also send me an email. It looks like there are no further questions. Thank you, Håkan, and thank you for all of the good questions. As a reminder, please note that we are hosting a site visit to Kampen, the Netherlands, at the end of March.
I hope to see many of you there.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Kampen is our global logistics center. For those of you who do not know where Kampen is, thank you.
That is correct. Thank you, Håkan.
Welcome. Thank you for your questions, and thank you for the call today.
Thank you. Bye.