Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Ocean Sun's quarterly presentation for Q1 2024. My name is Karl Lawenius. I'm the CFO and IR responsible of Ocean Sun. As always, we're going to give you a short brief of the company for new listeners. We're going to give you the updates on the operations and business developments, and round up with financials and a Q&A session. You can post questions directly in the Teams app, and we will answer them after the presentation. Ocean Sun has developed a unique and patented technology for floating solar. Very exciting and rapidly growing market. We have one of the best technologies out there that has low CapEx, as it is low material use, has a fast and easy installation, and a very lean transportation. So it has small transportation volume.
It has higher efficiency since the modules are water-cooled, being applied directly on the thin membrane, meaning that we get more power output from the solar panels. It is also seaworthy, and can withstand higher winds and larger waves in a cost-efficient manner, meaning that we can open up new areas for floating solar deployments. This quarter presentation is the first one for our newly appointed CEO. He has a strong track record from previous growth companies. He has a good knowledge of various business topics such as supply chain, and also a lot of experience from the important markets in Asia. Therefore, he's a very good fit for our continued growth journey. So without further ado, I want to present our new CEO, Kristian Tørvold.
Thank you very much for those kind words, Karl. It is indeed an honor to present my first quarter results as CEO of Ocean Sun. It has been a very exciting quarter for us, both in terms of strategy, people, projects, so let's dive right into it. We have written a new strategy for Ocean Sun based on our mission and vision, and values. We've come together with some key strategic priorities that we see as leading for us moving forward in this exciting market. The main points of this new strategy is market, product, installation, and operations. And to start, I'd like to talk about the market focus. We have shifted our focus, or continued a stronger focus, on benign waters, on lakes, reservoirs, and sheltered coastal sites.
This is, first of all, because our technology is proven in these locations, but second of all, because we see that this is where we'll have a large market for utility-scale projects in the short to medium term. Exposed coastal sites and offshore utility projects, we see as something that will come in the longer term from now. But of course, we have exciting pilots built in these markets, and we are going to continue our focus on R&D and intensive testing here, but it's not currently a sales focus. With our existing installations, we have learned a lot in terms of operations, but also installations. When we install our floaters, we learn how we can make it more efficient, more economical, and this is some learnings that we're taking in and bringing to our new projects.
Also, operations is important for us, of course, to make sure that our power plants deliver in accordance with the expectations. So in a package, this is the new strategy, and we're very excited to roll this out in the coming months. In terms of product updates, we have finalized the Acciona project. It is a 250 kWp floater. It's a single ring, as we see, on a reservoir in Extremadura, Spain. Acciona is one of Europe's largest energy companies, and they are testing our technology together with five other technologies at this site, and we are very excited to see the results, and we're confident that we'll be delivering very good production at this reservoir, with the cold water cooling the panels and a lot of insulation.
In terms of our other projects, I would like to talk a bit about the BOOST project in Spain. This was completed late last year, and we've had some very valuable learnings there, this first quarter. Again, we saw that new locations offers new challenges, and we are taking all these learnings with us now, as the project is moving forward to a second phase and a relaunch the second half of this year. We've also had exciting progress in Magat, in the Philippines. This project is now five years old, so we're writing a five-year report, anniversary report, where we will also publish a lot of the learnings that we have had from this project, and we will, of course, work together with SN Aboitiz Power and Scatec on growing this pilot into something more.
In terms of other projects, we have our Haiyang project in China, also a very good cooperation with SPIC, as it's been the whole way. The two floaters in the picture here are taken back to shore, as already communicated, and we will relaunch a larger ring also within the second half of this year. Other business updates for the first quarter is in terms of the pre-feasibility studies. We've delivered two, and we started a third, while we're also working on selling more. We've seen that this is quite an exciting business opportunity for us to have revenue during our engineering phase, and we will see more and more of these coming in. It goes faster and faster for us to complete them, and they're getting very, very good results and feedback from the customers.
We have signed an MoU with NHPC, which is India's largest hydropower company. The MoU states that we will be building a 2-MW demonstration unit in one of NHPC's hydro reservoirs within 2024. So we are hoping for efficiency and that we will indeed meet this timeline. After a lot of report writing from our CFO, Karl, we have completed the BOOST project and have gotten it approved from EU. So a lot of this revenue is referenced in Q1 results. We have had some changes in staff. It's with a heavy heart I say that Ivar Blekastad, our current COO, is leaving Ocean Sun. We are currently out searching for a new COO and a new CPO for our company.
So if everyone, anyone feels a calling to join our exciting team, you'll be welcome to see us here at our new offices at Lysaker. So with that, I leave the word to Karl to talk about the finances.
As usual, a short update on the financials of the quarter. We had a revenue of NOK 5.6 million in Q1. It is second quarter in a row where we see substantial and more than 100% revenue increase year-on-year, which is, of course, very promising and very satisfying. The revenue consists of project revenue from the Acciona project, the two pre-feasibility studies, and also a large part from the BOOST project that has now been completed. The result ended at -NOK 2.5 million, and due to working capital changes, we had a net cash flow of NOK 7.9 million in the quarter, leaving us with a cash holding of NOK 38.9 million at the quarter end.
So still a very solid position to continue our, our journey now under, under Kristian. With that, we open up for Q&A. If you come and, and present it, Kristian, I'll, I'll go behind the screen and read the questions. There's one question here on an update on the project in China. I think you gave that during the presentation. You wanna just recap what you said a little bit?
Yeah. The, the Haiyang project with SPIC, like I mentioned, the rings are taken back to shore, and we are working with SPIC, to, roll out a new and larger floater, with a lot of the learnings that we had from the first two floaters. We will also implement other learnings there that we also had in the BOOST project and, and what's happened since, since, well, end of last year.
Second question: Are these the technology updates that you mentioned in the presentation? Are they also required for installations on hydro reservoirs?
No. So, our current solution for hydro reservoirs is working very well, both in Albania and in Philippines. So, we have a great working solution there, but all learnings are, of course, valuable. So if we have learnings that we see can be implemented in future designs, also in hydro reservoirs, obviously, we will include them. But our current structures that we use for hydro reservoirs are strong and are proven.
... Do you have any information on the intentions of Acciona?
Well, Acciona, for now, they would like to test our system in comparison with what they already have installed at their lake or reservoir. Their timeline, we are not privy to at this time. But of course, floating solar is growing rapidly in South Europe, and especially in Spain. So, we're hopeful that this will move quickly, but it's not something that we are in control of right now.
Okay. What's your view on the market on hydropower reservoirs, the interest from hydropower reservoirs operators?
It's a bit of a, a mixed message, to be honest. On the one hand, we talk to reservoir operators that are very conservative in their approach. They're worried about potential technology failures that could impact the hydropower generators. But on the other hand, we're seeing big projects being built in Indonesia, in India, and also in East Europe, being planned at least. So there is sort of two stories in the market, but I think it depends a bit on the more traditional hydropower operators in Western Europe, contra the... Would be a bit less, I'd say, coal-hungrier that are in India and Southeast Asia, et cetera.
And we're of course working with all of them, and we're seeing, like with the MOU with NHPC, that there is a very strong interest for moving fast.
Perhaps you can give a short update on the rationale for putting floating solar and hydropower reservoirs, for those not too familiar with Ocean Sun and the FPV market as well.
Yeah, well, it's a great synergy between floating solar and hydro reservoirs. We can connect directly to existing infrastructure. We can use the water space that is already there, and we can, at some occasions, at least, utilize existing power purchase agreements, et cetera. So, it is, in many ways, a no-brainer to put floating solar on a reservoir. And in many cases, you can use at least 10% of the hydro reservoir space to have as much production as you have from the turbine.
Next question, where can I find the job postings for the COO and CPO position?
You can find them at LinkedIn, Ocean Sun's LinkedIn page, or if you're in Norway, you can also find it at finn.no.
Great! That was the last question. Do you have any closing remarks, Kristian?
Well, thank you for the questions. Like I opened with, I'm indeed honored to be standing here as the CEO of Ocean Sun. Very excited about moving forward with this great technology and a growing market, which I will also say, we have the best technology to meet the market needs. So, we have a bright future, and I'm looking forward to standing here the next quarters and giving new and positive updates on our journey. So thank you.