Good afternoon, and welcome to TPI Composites first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded. We have allocated one hour for prepared remarks and Q&A. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Christian Edin, investor relations for TPI Composites. Thank you, sir. You may begin.
Thank you, operator. I would like to welcome everyone to TPI Composites first quarter 2022 earnings call. We will be making forward-looking statements during this call that are subject to risks and uncertainties, which would cause actual results to differ materially. A detailed discussion of applicable risk is included in our latest reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be found on our website, tpicomposites.com. Today's presentation will include references to non-GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the slides accompanying today's presentation for definitional information and reconciliations of historical non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP financial measures. With that, let me turn the call over to Bill Siwek, TPI Composites President and CEO.
Thanks, Christian, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our call. In addition to Christian, I am joined today by Adan Gossar, our Interim CFO and Chief Accounting Officer. I will briefly review our first quarter results, cover our global operations, including our service and transportation businesses, then cover our supply chain and the wind energy market more broadly. Adan will then review our financial results in detail, and then we'll open the call for Q&A. Please turn to slide five. We delivered net sales of $384.9 million during the quarter and adjusted EBITDA of $6.1 million.
Although adjusted EBITDA on a billings basis was a loss of $5.3 million, it was better than planned as a result of tight cost controls and cost reductions globally, excellent execution, including on multiple transitions, which enabled us to deliver additional blade volume during the quarter. We signed a number of new development agreements in our transportation segment, and we also published our 2021 ESG report during the quarter. Please turn to slide six for highlights from the report. We made significant progress towards our 2030 goal of carbon neutrality by reducing our overall CO2 intensity by 9% and expanded on-site renewable energy generation. We achieved our waste reduction targets by meeting TPI's process waste reduction goal of 5% during the year. We increased transparency throughout TPI's value chain by initiating Scope 3 emissions reporting.
We reduced our already best-in-class recordable incident rate by 38% and lost time incident rate by 32%, driven by our behavior-based safety program. We improved our overall diversity, equity, and inclusion survey score by 6%, and I signed the CEO Pledge for Action as part of TPI's commitment to DE&I. Going forward, we will refer to our initiative as IDEAA, inclusion, diversity, equity, and awareness. Diversity without inclusion is not our goal. The goal, first and foremost, is to create an inclusive culture. Finally, we obtained third-party assurance from DNV for Scope 1 and 2 emissions, as well as select GRI and SASB topics.
Turning to slide seven, we've reiterated our long-term ESG goals to promote a zero harm culture focused on eliminating unsafe behaviors, to achieve 33% female and 33% racial and ethnically diverse persons on our board of directors by 2023, to achieve 25% female representation on our global leadership team by 2025, achieve 25% racial and ethnically diverse persons on our U.S. leadership team by 2025, and become carbon neutral by 2030, with 100% of our energy being procured from renewable sources. Turning to slide nine, I'll now give you a quick update of our global operations supply chain as well as the wind market. During the first quarter, we did not experience any significant production issues from COVID, including any material production stoppages.
Although there have been no production impacts to us so far from the senseless invasion of Ukraine by Russia, we will continue to monitor the impact of the war on our supply chain and take proactive measures to minimize potential risks. In China, COVID cases have increased significantly, and as a result, Shanghai entered phased lockdowns in late March. Domestic logistics have been impacted, but thanks to the efforts of our local and global supply chain teams, we met our Q1 production targets and continue to deliver blades on time from Yangzhou, as well as export the raw materials that we still source in China on a timely basis. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and execute our contingency plans to minimize the impact on our local production and raw material supply pipeline.
We are continuing to diversify and de-risk our supply chain by qualifying sources in the regions in which we manufacture products. Other than our production in China, which primarily relies on Chinese suppliers, we have reduced our exposure in China for TPI-controlled spend to just 6%, down from over 20% in 2019. During the quarter, we made excellent progress on the speed of our startups and transitions that we have in four locations during 2022: China, Turkey, Mexico, and India. We've completed five lines, two each in China and India, and one in Turkey, and they were all completed ahead of schedule, and as a result, will enable us to deliver additional volume to our customers during 2022. From a service perspective, we had another solid quarter of growth.
Our expansion in Europe is going as planned, including the opening of a new training center in Spain, the establishment of a new entity in the U.K., and the signing of several new significant agreements. We expect to grow the service business by approximately 40%-50% in 2022. On the transportation front, we had another good quarter. We are pleased with our operational execution on the passenger EV parts, and our customer extended the initial pilot production program for another quarter. Now it goes through quarter three. We successfully launched a new program with the same customer, and we plan to exceed the original estimate of 450,000 units we discussed during our fourth quarter call. We also kicked off development programs with multiple leading OEMs for Class 8 cab structures and last mile delivery vehicles.
Our pipeline continues to strengthen in the commercial vehicle segment and for unique components on passenger EVs. We now expect our transportation revenue on a billings basis to grow by over 70% in 2022. This is up from the 40%-50% growth we discussed on our Q4 call. Moving on to supply chain. The situation continues to be challenging with higher energy prices as well as the COVID lockdowns in China. During 2021, there were both significant price increases and supply constraints with respect to epoxy resin and carbon fiber, as well as increases in inbound logistics costs. We expect carbon fiber and related product supply to remain constrained as demand for carbon continues to outpace capacity additions.
Production of carbon products is also very energy intensive and continued rising energy costs is adversely impacting the cost of carbon materials after already seeing price increases of up to 50% for certain feedstocks during 2021. Epoxy resin prices continue to see pressure with constrained feedstocks and high energy costs. High resin prices in Europe and North America continue to be supported by bullish demand from industries like automotive, infrastructure and construction. While competitive resin suppliers are available in Asia, the current unreliable logistics environment and associated costs often offset any potential savings on price. As of today, we believe we have secured adequate raw materials for all planned production in 2022, including the raw material that is controlled by our customers.
Although we expect that the price of carbon fiber and resin will remain at elevated levels in 2022, approximately 60% of the resin and resin systems and approximately 90% of carbon fiber we use is purchased under contracts either controlled or borne by our customers, and therefore these customers receive or bear 100% of any increase or decrease in price. Not withstanding the challenging cost environment, we now expect to be able to hold the average bill of material costs for customers for which we control the supply chain to a less than 5% increase compared to 2021 levels.
As I noted earlier, we remain focused on localizing and regionalizing our supply chain to reduce the impact of high logistics costs, provide security of supply, and build long-term strategic partners with key suppliers to ensure the best pricing and availability in the short, medium and long term. Since our last earnings call, the war in Ukraine has brought to the forefront the need for energy security and independence, not only in Europe, but across the globe. To accelerate the EU's Fit for 55 energy transition plan, the REPowerEU program has been proposed. It is intended to cut Europe's reliance on imported energy, speed up the permitting process throughout Europe and should help accelerate the growth in wind installations. We are pleased to see Europe increasing its commitments as this is an important market for TPI, with over 30% of our blades going into the region.
In addition, Germany has announced plans to increase its 2030 clean energy target by 15% - 80%. This means that Germany would have to install more than 10 GW of wind every year starting in 2025, or 5 x what was installed during 2021. In the U.S., discussions regarding extending the PTC as part of a more comprehensive energy transition strategy have gained some traction in recent weeks. With that said, uncertainty around the timing and magnitude of any legislation, along with increased costs, is still putting a damper on U.S. demand in the near term. We believe that notwithstanding current challenges faced by the wind industry, demand for wind energy will strengthen over the long term, given the focus on energy security and independence globally, and the necessity to decarbonize and electrify to meet the aggressive goals set to combat climate change.
We believe that we are uniquely positioned with our global footprint in key strategic geographies, along with collaborative relationships with our suppliers to grow our market share with industry-leading turbine OEMs as the demand for wind begins to accelerate again. While execution remains our primary focus, we are moving forward with multiple strategic initiatives to enable TPI to capitalize on the expected long-term growth in the wind market, including expanding our global service offerings and leveraging our expertise in blade design while expanding our capabilities around logistics and recycling. With that, let me turn the call over to Adan to review our financial results.
Thanks, Bill. Please turn to slide 11. All comparisons made today will be on a year-over-year basis compared to the same period in 2021. For the first quarter ended March 31, 2022, net sales were $384.9 million, while net sales of wind blades were $354.6 million. The decrease in wind sales was primarily driven by a decline in the number of wind blades produced due to the reduction in manufacturing lines year over year and foreign currency fluctuation, offset by an increase in the average sales price per blade. Net loss attributable to common stockholders for the quarter was $29.9 million. As compared to net loss of $1.8 million in the same period in 2021.
This increase in net loss was primarily due to preferred dividend, stock dividend and accretion, a decrease in the number of wind blades produced, cost challenges in our Nordex Matamoros facility, restructuring costs, and approximately $7.1 million in non-restructuring related operating costs that were associated with certain manufacturing facilities where production has stopped. Our adjusted EBITDA for Q1 was $6.1 million, or 1.6% of sales, compared to $13.1 million or 3.2% of sales in the same period in 2021. Moving to slide 12. We ended the quarter with $131 million of unrestricted cash and cash equivalent and no net debt. The net change in cash for the quarter of approximately $111 million was in line with our forecast.
Net cash used in operating activities was approximately $81 million, primarily due to an increase of accounts receivable of $31 million, the majority of which was to one customer, a decrease in our accounts payable of $19 million, and an increase in contract assets, which was the result of increased procurement of customer-specific materials to minimize the risk of potential production disruptions that may occur given the recent COVID-19 impacts in China and geopolitical uncertainties, including the ongoing war in Ukraine. We expect a small cash burn in Q2 before we begin generating free cash flow in Q3 and Q4. Back to you, Bill.
Thanks, Adan. Turning to slide 13. As we look forward to the rest of the year, we expect Q2 sales and adjusted EBITDA on a billings basis to be much higher than Q1 of 2022 and expect adjusted EBITDA on a billings basis to be flat compared to Q2 of 2021. We are also reiterating our full year billings targets for sales and adjusted EBITDA to be flat compared to 2021. Our formal guidance for 2022 has not changed, and once again, we will not provide GAAP revenue or adjusted EBITDA guidance given current market volatility, potential impacts under ASC 606 related to future contract modifications or extensions, and corresponding changes to our long-term volume, which cannot be forecast with certainty at this time. Please turn to slide 15.
To close, we remain focused on managing our business through near-term challenges in the industry and our efforts to position TPI as the preferred global solution provider to our customers and their customers to enable profitable execution and growth in the future. I wanna thank all of our TPI associates once again for their commitment, dedication, and loyalty to TPI in our mission to decarbonize and electrify. I'll now turn it back to the operator to open the call for questions.
Thank you, sir. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing any star keys. In the interest of time, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and a follow-up. Thank you. One moment, please, while we poll for any questions. Our first question comes from the line of Laura with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you. Hi. Hi, Bill and Adan. Thank you so much for your time here. Bill, you just talked a little bit about the seasonality on EBITDA. Can you talk a little bit more on the revenue side? I'm wondering about, kind of the trends that you're seeing, the lockdowns in China, transitions to startups for the rest of the year, et cetera. How should we think about the cadence for the next three quarters?
Yeah. Hey, Laura, good to talk to you. I think the way we've got the cadence now, and we talked a little bit about in the fourth quarter, is Q2 will clearly be a better revenue quarter than Q1. Q3, I think is probably at or a little bit above Q2, then Q4 comes down a little bit as we normally see towards the end of the year.
Are you seeing? You mentioned no impacts from the lockdowns in China in the first quarter. Any trends that you're seeing in the second quarter, or is that fully, I would say, mitigated?
I would like to say it's fully mitigated. Obviously, there's still lockdowns happening, so that will still remain a challenge, I think, into, you know, through the second quarter. I will tell you that even though the lockdowns in Shanghai didn't happen until late March, we were experiencing them through the quarter in various, you know, parts of China already. We've kind of been dealing with that, you know, through the whole quarter. Again, I think we're in pretty good shape today. Our team has worked the situation pretty effectively, so I still don't anticipate any issues. We have taken some additional inventory on in the event that we do have some minor delays so that we don't stop production, but right now we're in pretty good shape.
Got it. Good to hear. Last one on my end on the ASPs. It seems like you're well ahead of the guide that you gave for the year. Is there some timing issue that's making first Q particularly strong, or should we use this level for the remainder of the year?
Yeah, it's a little bit of a timing issue because we had some startups with transitions, we had early blades at a higher price as we ramp up the production. Laura?
Got it. That reminds me on the first question, was there anything on the revenue side that we should take into account for transitions and startups for the rest of the year?
We are largely through the transitions at this point. We have, you know, two lines still being transitioned in Mexico, and we have a couple in China yet. No, I don't think anything of any material difference from what we saw in the first quarter.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
Yep. Thanks, Laura Sánchez.
Our next question comes from the line of Joseph Osha with Guggenheim Partners. Please proceed with your question.
Hello, this is actually Hilary on for Joseph. I first wanted to touch on the transportation side of business. A lot of exciting moving parts there, and I know you highlighted the 70% growth for this year. I was kind of wondering if you could provide updated thoughts on how we should be thinking about that over the next couple of years and when we might see that generating a more meaningful amount of revenue.
Yeah. Hey, Hilary, good to speak with you again. We've made some really nice traction over the last several quarters, including the first quarter. I think the quality of our partners in the development agreements should result in some meaningful movement over the next couple of years for sure. Clearly, the program we have working with the EV passenger vehicle is gonna drive significantly more volume next year than we have in the plan for this year as well. I think the conversion of a number of those development projects that we've entered into into actual production contracts we should start to see that towards the end of this year or early next year. We should start to see that impact in 2023 and beyond.
Great. Last one for me. Just on the cost out initiative, if you could kinda give us an update on how that's progressing, against targets for this year or ongoing. Thank you.
I'm sorry, Hilary. They couldn't understand what you asked. Based on cost outs, did you say?
Yeah, just the various cost out initiatives that you've been working on.
Oh, yeah.
... If you could just give us, update on progress there. Thank you.
Yeah, going really well. You know, we talked about taking a significant amount out last year, the year before. We have some pretty ambitious goals for this year. We were ahead of our cost out plan for the first quarter. They're going very well. You know, just very diligent on every dollar we spend, as well as taking costs out of the process as well. We're ahead of schedule, and we plan to stay ahead of schedule.
Great. Thank you.
Yep. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Justin Clare with ROTH Capital Partners. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, thanks for taking our questions.
You bet. Hey, Justin.
Hey. So first off, just considering the cost inflation that we've seen since March, wondering if you've seen any impact on order volume or customer demand. It sounds like, you know, you're maintaining your revenue expectations, so maybe there hasn't been a meaningful impact here. Just, you know, wanted to see, you know, any impact to customer demand at this point.
At this point, no. We've been very successful in our transitions. We've got the ability to provide some additional volume this year. There's some interest in that in certain geographies. I would say we haven't seen a decrease. We could see a little bit of a pickup just because of the speed of our transitions and demands in certain other regions. At this point, Justin, we haven't seen any decline in demand from a cost standpoint.
Got it. Okay. You know, in Q1, you know, you produced more sets than you had planned, and I know a part of that is the transitions. Is there anything else in Q1, were some plants performing, you know, ahead of expectations, or anything else that enabled you to kinda exceed expectations there?
Yeah. Actually, from an operational standpoint, all of our plants are operating really nicely this year. No major operational hiccups or issues. We did produce more than expected out of Mexico. That was planned from our standpoint, based on what our customers' needs were. They accelerated a little bit. Other than that, you know, just very good execution with a little bit of build ahead in Mexico.
Okay, great. Just one more if I may. You said you secured all the raw materials for your planned production in 2022. Can you share, you know, when you were able to do that? Was this, you know, potentially ahead of the most recent increase in costs? What is typical? Like, is this a proactive, you know, action that you had taken given, you know, the expectations here for inflation?
Yeah. It really varies by commodity. You know, lead times vary. But in this environment, we were proactive, as we have been through the whole of COVID. You probably remember us talking about building inventory levels in the COVID timeframe as well. The key here was making sure that where we are reliant on our customer to contract for the material that we worked more proactively, I would say, this year than in the past with our customer supplier as well to make sure that we had the proper allocation and volumes at the right time. I think it was proactivity on the part of our supply chain as well as better collaboration with our customers that control their supply chains. It's a combination of things.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Yep. Thanks, Justin.
Our next question comes from the line of Eric Stine with Craig-Hallum. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, good afternoon. It's Aaron Spychala on for Eric. Thanks for taking the questions.
Hey, Aaron.
Maybe first on the service business, you know, good to see the EU expansion and kind of the growth targets that you laid out. Can you just kind of give a little more color on kind of the growth profile, the margin profile there, and how you think about that business over the next couple of years?
Yeah. We'll grow it. We grew at 50% last year. We'll grow at another 40%-50% this year. That's assuming it's all organic. Margins are better this year, better utilization of our personnel, a better allocation of talent around the globe, as well as some better pricing on some of the deals that we've cut with our customers. It's a combination of just you know very robust a robust market in the service business, a need for very high-quality blade technicians, which we have a bunch of them around the globe. Obviously, we build them. We should be able to repair them and service them. Just focusing on higher dollar and higher volume and higher margin work. Just combination of all those.
All right. Just maybe on offshore, you know, kind of seeing folks talking about a reprioritization there. Can you just kind of talk about how that might impact you and just how you are thinking about the opportunity offshore here in the near term?
We're continuing to work a number of different opportunities in the offshore space. It's a complicated space. There's a lot of risk involved. You might have seen, you know, Vestas talked a little bit about it during their earnings release earlier this week. We're proceeding, you know, very cautiously and carefully and making sure we dot i's and cross t's. We do see it as a nice opportunity going forward, and we're continuing to pursue it with vigor.
All right. Sounds good. Thanks for taking the questions.
You bet. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks, guys. It's Alex Vrabel on for Julien. Thanks for taking our questions here. Wanted to ask.
Sure.
Specifically a little bit more on the raw material side of things. I know you guys mentioned you know carbon fiber as well as epoxy resin earlier in the call, but I'm wondering if you can expand a little bit more on some of the other inputs here, whether you know balsa wood, PET. I mean, particularly as we go into this rather inflationary backdrop on oil and whatnot. What are you seeing there, and kind of what's your outlook, I guess, throughout 2022 into 2023? Thanks.
Yeah, you bet. Our, you know, obviously carbon and epoxy resins we've talked about. Our other big inputs are glass, you know, fiberglass and core, which would include balsa and PET as you mentioned. Glass, you know, market trend is up a bit. Our actual trend is pretty flat from 2021. Again, that's just relationships, volumes, et cetera. We've been able to keep that relatively flat, but the market trend has been up a bit in 2022 from 2021. From a core perspective, balsa is actually flatter trending down. There's a lot more demand for PET. Capacity hasn't come online as quickly as most would like. We do see in the market a bit of a price increase from a PET standpoint.
From a TPI standpoint, we've again been able to secure volumes at prices that are flat to last year or down. Other than that, you've got coatings, which are the you know kind of the paint that we use on the blade. Again, market price is up a bit, but we're flat year over year or down on that as well. We're tending to trend a little bit better than market, at least the spot prices in the market. We do see a challenging remainder of 2022 from a commodity standpoint.
Got it. Appreciate that. Just a quick follow. I'm wondering if you guys can characterize sort of the cadence you expect on utilization throughout the year versus, you know, where you are in Q1 to your full year 2022 guide, which obviously you're maintaining. Thanks.
You bet. For Q1, we are right around that 65% level. Expect to be in the mid-80s% in Q2. Mid- to low 90s% in Q3 and Q4 both. Utilization picks up pretty nicely as we get through transitions.
Got it. Thanks, guys.
Yeah, thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Alec Scheibelhoffer with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.
Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my question here.
You bet. Good to talk to you.
Yeah. Likewise. Just looking at the strong increase you've had in average selling price per blade, I was wondering if you could give some color on what's driving that and maybe some outlook moving forward and how we should be thinking about that.
Yeah, I think as we mentioned a little bit earlier, part of that is as we go through a transition, early blades produced once we start production are generally priced at a higher ASP until we get to a certain number, and then it levels off to a normal price. So that's part of it. Part of it is just blade mix. The mix of blades produced in Q1. We do expect that to kind of level out and come back down to kinda where our guide range was as we get further into the year. Some of the transition blades that we are doing, especially in China, are smaller blades. So ASP on those is a little bit lower.
As those come on full steam, we'll start to see that ASP come kinda back down into the range that we originally guided to.
Excellent. Thank you for the color.
You bet.
Our next question comes from the line of Kashy Harrison with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, this is Luke filling in for Kashy. Thanks for taking the questions.
You bet, Luke.
I'd like to talk about the cash flow statement a little bit. Obviously, you guys called out that there was a little bit of a headwind with accounts receivable and timing of payments. I'm just wondering if you can give some color on the cadence of working capital over the course of the year and your level of comfort with where cash is at right now. Thank you.
I think as we mentioned, we expected a pretty big burn in Q1 for a number of reasons as we were getting through some of the cost challenges in Mexico, some buildup of AP at the end of the year, some CapEx carryover and what have you. We're right on target with where we thought we would be at the end of the quarter. For the balance of the year, as we mentioned, we'll have a bit of a burn in Q2 before we turn to free cash flow positive in Q3 and Q4. Ending the year in what we think is very good shape. We've got $107 million of availability under borrowings that are not outstanding today.
We feel very good from a liquidity standpoint through the balance of 2022 for sure.
All right. The rest of our questions were answered. Thank you.
You bet. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Tom Curran with Seaport Research Partners. Please proceed with your question.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
So, um-
What do you got for us?
Just two. You've repeatedly emphasized that your primary focus for 2022 is execution, and it sounds as if the company is off to a promising start with that priority when it comes to transitions. Could you elaborate on the transitions that occurred in China and India in 1Q? Were these transitions between customers or inter-customer transitions between molds? And what are some of the tactics that proved successful or lessons learned that you should be able to apply to future transitions wherever they might be?
No, great question. In India, same customer, just going to a larger blade. That was in India. Sorry. In China, same customer, two new blades. Multiple blade transitions in China, plus a blade transition to a larger blade, both in India and in Mexico for the same customer. Just as an example. This one is a little bit unique 'cause it's a blade we built in another factory in China. From start of production until we got to our desired cycle time of 24 hours was five weeks. That is blazing speed to anybody in the blade industry. The reason why, part of it was, you know, we had prior experience on the blade.
The main reason is we've, you know, we've known about these transitions for a long enough period of time that we were able to better collaborate and plan with our customer, and hold our customer accountable for the portion of the transition that they need to participate in, whether it's approvals of molds being installed or cut up blades, various things. It was really the lessons learned are just enough time to do truly detailed planning and do that planning with the participation of our customer and our suppliers for equipment and what have you, and then execute that plan and hold all parties accountable. I think that's the biggest lesson learned for us.
The other thing I will mention is, you know, we have a dedicated team now that is responsible for the transitions. We have a dedicated team of unbelievably talented people that travel the globe and assist our local sites with the transitions. Having them involved early, often on the ground when we need them, that's been a big help as well.
Bill, how long have you had that team?
You know, well, really just since last year is when we formed it and we're able to carve out resources from our teams around the globe and just put this as one cohesive team, and we don't pull from that team for other projects. They are fully dedicated to transitions and startups. Just having a dedicated team that is their focus. We've had teams that have done transitions in the past, but not to the extent we do now, where they're 100% dedicated to a transition and to the startups. They're a cohesive unit.
I like to call them the go team. You know, they pick up their bags are packed, and they go when we have a transition, and they camp out in the plant until we have it right. That's just been over the last year is when we really started utilizing a fully dedicated team.
Interesting. In Mexico, you highlighted that production came in, it sounds like a bit better than expected for 1Q. Could you clarify how Juárez and Matamoros performed respectively? For Matamoros, where you're at with getting the Nordex facility up to where you want it to be?
Yeah. Juarez performed very well. That's where we had the, you know, the kind of the build ahead. For both blades that we're building for our customer there, operationally went very well. As you might recall, we had some challenges last year with the multi-piece blade, when we started that out, but we've ironed those kinks out. We've worked very collaboratively with our customer, and we are on track to deliver the volumes they need this year. In Matamoros, our plant for Vestas there continues to operate very well. With respect to Nordex Matamoros, operationally, we're in very good shape today. You know, we produced the volumes that we needed to produce in Q1, after hitting our production in Q4 as well.
We are in the middle of a transition there, and that is going as planned. I would say from a pure operational standpoint, we've turned the corner there. The plant itself is now getting to a place that, you know, to become a world-class blade plant, which is what we like to operate, so we're very close to that. We still have some cost challenges there that we're working on. Some of that is, you know, qualifying new material, locally sourced versus from China to avoid the logistics costs. We're working through those for the balance of the year. Operationally, from a production standpoint, we're in very good shape.
Great. Thanks for fielding my question.
You bet. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Pavel Molchanov with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks for taking the question. I dialed in a little late, so sorry if you covered this already. Since the start of the war, I'm curious if specifically from the European onshore market, you've encountered or your blade customers specifically have encountered any increase in incoming appetite from developers. In other words, you know, natural gas, $20/Mcf, you know, tremendous focus on disentangling from Russian supply. Obviously, you're well-positioned with your facility in Turkey. Is there anything like that that you can point to?
You know, I think there's certainly a lot of talk, Pavel, about, you know, increasing installs over, you know, over the foreseeable future. Have we seen an increase in demand for the balance of 2022 specifically related to that? I would say no. Now it's possible that blades that we are producing are now being diverted to Europe that might have had been earmarked somewhere else. Don't know that today. I will tell you that about 37% of our blades in Q1 went to Europe compared to 30% last year. So whether that was already planned or there's some correlation, it's probably too early to tell. We do expect, obviously for the longer term, for there to be really, you know, strong demand in the European market.
whether we're seeing it today just yet, I think it's still a bit early for that.
Okay. On the non-blade sales, $30 million this quarter, you know, pretty solid growth versus a year ago, and I think your second highest quarterly number ever in that category. Is that still all from Proterra?
No. We've got, Proterra clearly is still in the mix, and then, our EV customer, that we're building parts for, that's clearly a big part of that as well.
Okay. Any sense of when you might be able to disclose some additional detail on who that is?
My guess is we won't be able to disclose it. Would love to be able to, but at this point, their policy is to not disclose their suppliers.
Understood.
Yeah.
the growth anyway.
Appreciate it. Yeah, we're pretty excited about it.
Our next question is a follow-up from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, good afternoon, team. Thanks for your time and patience. Appreciate it.
Hey.
I just wanted to follow up here and talk a little bit, Bill. I wanted to follow up and talk a little bigger picture here and step back and certainly considering some of the comments from NextEra out there about sort of the fungibility between solar and wind. What are you seeing out there in terms of early days on the back of AD/CVD? Any effective pivots out there? I mean, again, I get that there's a lot of other dynamics here, but would love to hear how this might be fomenting potential demand. When that might materialize and how much, you know, the BBB yay or nay might be holding customers back at the same time.
Yeah. I think the uncertainty around long-term policy is probably overriding, you know, any impact of the anti-circumvention stuff and maybe some. I know NextEra talked about a pivot or a shift from solar to more wind this year. We haven't seen a meaningful uptick as a result of the challenges in the solar market yet. Again, it's still a little bit early to see that demand shift. It's not easy to just, you know, turn on and turn off these deals. I will tell you that, you know, it is certainly possible that we start to see some of that manifest itself in the back end of the year. At this point, I would say we haven't seen anything material.
Got it. Then just when you think about the timeline there for seeing some of that uptick, I mean, is it, as you say, like, by the end of the year, we get tax extenders or what have you, I mean, at least it pencils down. Hopefully you see something of an uptick in U.S. origination just with that, quote-unquote, "certainty" at that point? Either way.
You know, Julien, yeah, I think if something happens sooner rather than later and we get certainty, then clearly that helps the market. When we see that manifest in a tick up in demand, I think is still a little bit hard to tell. You know, there are some that are saying if we get something here, you know, before the midterms, which most don't think that's likely at this point, we still probably don't see any real impact until best case back half of 2023, from a major swing. Again, I think it's a little hard to pin it down. I wish I could.
With the uncertainty there, as well as just the continued challenges from a supply chain and a cost standpoint, I think that's impacting some of the decision-making and the wait and see as well. You know, my best guess would be, you know, best case, it's a back half of 2023, but more likely into 2024.
Got it. Yep. I got you there. I appreciate that. Anyway, good luck. We'll speak soon.
All right. Thanks, Julien Dumoulin-Smith. Take care.
Thank you everyone for your questions. At this time, we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to management for any closing remarks.
Thank you. I'd just like to thank all of you again for your interest in TPI and your attention today, and look forward to our next discussion. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a great day.