Hello, and welcome to today's webcast with Minesto, where CEO Martin Edlund and CFO Alexander Jancke will present the report for the fourth quarter of 2025. After the presentation, there will be a Q&A, so if you have any questions, you can send them in via the form to the right. With that said, I hand over the word to you, Martin.
Thank you very much. I will immediately hand over to Alexander, our CFO. Just a quick note then that we're gonna do this in English. If you have questions in Swedish, that's perfectly okay to send them in, and we'll deal with them and translate them into English. We've not put a time limit to this webinar here, so we will elaborate a little bit on a lot of topics and also give ample time to questions towards the end. It's not a 50-minute, it's gonna be more closer to 45, I guess. Alexander, floor is yours.
Thank you so much, Martin, and hello, everyone. I will try to go through the financials for the period and the main topics for 2025. First off, we announced in October the outcome of the right issue, which brought Minesto SEK 99 million before issue expense. After issue expense, that amount was SEK 82.8 million. Also later in that quarter, the last quarter, that is, we repaid the convertible loan to Fenja Capital that was due in December, an amount of SEK 22 million. That gives us, for the period July to December, a positive cash flow for the period of SEK 37.4 million, and for the whole year, SEK 33 million.
In the end of the period, we have an outgoing cash balance of SEK 67.5 million, which we believe gives us a solid ground to go into 2026. Another things about the period is that we have continuously reduced the capitalized development work, which is a direct effect of that we are now more heavily focused on the commercial side, which Martin will elaborate a bit more later on in this presentation. As you can see in the numbers here, we have a more slim organization, which is due to the reorganization that was announced earlier in this year. We are focusing in our staff here in Gothenburg, but we still also have staff in U.K., Taiwan, and the Faroe Islands.
Lastly, we also completed the LTI program from 2021, June 2021, in December, which we have received some question regarding the cost. The cost for Minesto is in Social Security expense and was approximately SEK 150,000. With that, I'll hand over to you again, Martin.
Thank you. I will try to go straight into commenting 2025, and what we believe is the most important takeaways that takes us into the future and the focus where we are right now in the beginning of 2026. The first topic here that we would like to share with you and try to explain a little bit how we judge it is related to branding and external communication during 2025. I think it's fair to say that we have succeeded in pulling off the largest branding and awareness campaign ever in renewable innovation and definitely for ocean energy.
With half a billion viewers of the campaign related to The Faroe Islands Space Program, we have created awareness and brand building on a level unheard of. We see that from brand associations and from our partners and colleagues in this sector. This is extremely helpful to put tidal energy and Minesto Dragons on the global scene in a good way. This also leads to high-level invitations to the right type of context for us to do business at the highest level, which is needed when you're working with a breakthrough technology such as ours. We are invited to Swedish industry delegations, International Energy Agency, and other forums highly valuable for us moving forward.
The link to sales and the commercial agenda is very clear for us, that's why we're doing this. First, the deal flow during fourth quarter, also third quarter this year, has been at a scale and a level that we haven't seen historically with Minesto. As some of you know, I've been around for a while to follow this over the years. We get so many requests for information and quotes that we have to be very selective and clever in what we spend our focus on in this. Of course, there are a lot of, let's say, less interesting and more unserious requests, but also from world-leading renewable project investors and developers.
I believe now, and we'll talk a little bit about that we today are rigged in a way where we can deal with the most promising activities in this. There is comfort in numbers to catch the first movers, and inbound deal flow is highly valued because they've already shown interest in this. That's the first link between sales and this communication work that we're doing. The second one is then that we also see in those dialogues that are when we're approached, and in the dialogues we have also when we are approaching, that we have more comfort in what we're doing and in our offers at the start than we've had historically.
There are less discussions on how many years of continuous production, how long the service intervals are, what proof we can give on this. It's obviously so then when we are at the test scale, we have a large grid-connected unit. We provide data on this, but there is always an appetite for more in sort of a risk perception dimension. This is very helpful that we're working with big brands, we've seen with big industry, and the awareness is there. It's a classic way of building confidence in what we do, and I think we are really well-positioned now compared to historically.
Of course, this is also a matter of the long-term growth trajectory, where we're influencing other types of stakeholders than just customers in legislation, in soft funding, in, in subsidizing and incentivizing ocean energy just because it is a valuable resource in so many parts of the world. That long-term drive is also helped by this. Just one example of that is that our technical director, our CTO, Bernt Erik Westre, he was last week at the International Energy Agency Ministerial Conference. The eye-openers that he could provide to key decision-makers in the EU context and globally in this, is astonishing to see, that we have more to do in the general sphere to push this really, really important opportunity globally for the energy transition.
This all comes together from comfort in numbers, increased likelihood of breakthrough, and then the larger long-term growth agenda. We will keep working with branding and take advantage of all the invitations we get to do films, to be represented in high-level conferences, in investor spheres, in the energy sector, and in the tech sector. An extremely good year, in this respect for Minesto. If we then move into sales work and sales activities, more hands-on, we have, as Alexander alluded to, we have reshaped Minesto's organization.
We have done a larger shift than can be seen in numbers of employees, because we have added people on the sales side and business development side. We have also transferred some of the key technical sales resources from R&D-oriented work into supporting offers, tenders, and also do the necessary work on building investment cases, and costing of deployments in different parts of the world. Quite important organizational change for us. In this, there is also now a substantial amount of, let's say, process-oriented and template-oriented material and know-how with Minesto that we rely on, which means that we believe that we can sustain and support a very broad market approach.
We are today, I counted this morning, the hands-on, let's say, hotter lead dialogues we have within this team now with sort of, distributed responsibilities. We're up to engagements now in a little bit more than 20 markets, actually. We're talking about... just to try to list a few of them, I mean, we're working in the North Atlantic with Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, Northern US. We have a European context with a really interesting comeback in Wales and Holyhead, where we've been historically for a long time. Adding Ireland, Scotland, also interesting activities in Norway and the big tidal EU market in France, where we have opportunities.
Chile is back on the table since I don't know if you remember that from very early days. It's one of the biggest tidal markets in the world as well. The whole Southeast Asia, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Maldives, Korea - not the North, and also with our partner in Australia, on Australia and New Zealand. What keeps us busy in those relationships is to follow the model that we have communicated earlier, that we try to set the scene together with local project developers, project investors, on what is the joint roadmap and agenda moving forward that should lead to large-scale deployments up the ladder here. This MoU is really an agreement on the commercial path moving forward together.
In an increasing share of MoUs and relationships, we reach into dialogues with direct project investors and strong utility partners and project developer partners with serious resources, not just smaller entrepreneurial actors. You can see that when we approach a market, there is an appetite to work with Minesto and build relationships, and we can today select more carefully, and have several options in each market, in some even too many to choose among, sometimes. That's the memorandum of understanding level, and we're pushing it into offering services in terms of site development and building business cases from a feasibility perspective. This is something we've been doing in a handful of cases, up until now.
We've only been paid for around half of them, three or four, where we have been offered compensations. Where we are now, we offer this as a, let's say, as a serious professional consultancy effort, where we always ask for compensation, and a business relationship. How can we motivate that? How can we deal with that? We see that the Minesto technology offers more than a standard tidal technology in that we monopolize the market to a large extent, and we open up twice as much opportunities as any other tidal technology for a given market, given our operating range, the low flow capability, and so forth, and also that we can utilize small ports.
This means that when we can offer transfer of knowledge and know-how on how to identify unique sites for us, and also have as an input to this, that there are first rights and in the next phase, even exclusivity for that project developer for that market, we see that we can position those services in a good way moving forward. The end game in all markets is always about creating the large-scale build-out roadmap to create value on a national level. In some markets, there will be, let's say, a detour via demo projects and smaller scale installations or via microgrids, where we swap out diesel. In many of those markets, it's also about right away starting with 10-megawatt arrays and beyond, which is quite a few steps up this ladder, moving forward.
The early step in business is also needed to actually support Minesto's sales overhead. We could never afford working broadly with those markets when we go into the real hands-on site development work. That can never be sales overhead for us. It needs to be something that is compensated from our local partners. I can give you one example of what this means, and what we know and what we're capable of doing today as a company that's unique for tidal, and I believe that Minesto is quite unique in the world to have this capability.
It's, it's a matter of modeling the tidal site to really create a strong, secure link between the natural resource, the flow, and the profile of a certain site, and how much annual energy production you can get out of that site. You can imagine that that yield, I mean, that's the electricity that you sell, and if you are 5%, 10% off, that will have a huge impact on your case. If we take Hestfjord in the Faroes, which is one of our, let's say, learning environments for this, that what we've done in 2025 is to reassess the site with own measurements, together with the local utility in the partnership we have with SEV.
We can conclude that there is around 15%-20% more energy at this site than what earlier, sort of less, less accurate measurements and simulations have shown. This means that we can add megawatts to the site, and we can also optionally increase the size of each unit, thus making the case more attractive from an investor perspective. This is generic knowledge, it's approach, it's something that is needed in any business context where we enter into it. There are challenges to this. If you look at more mature wind sectors, there are third-party actors that always verify wind profiles for a site, which is also the driver of revenue in that sector. For us, the standards are not fully in place. There needs to be customizations to our unique technology.
We also need to find ways, and we find those ways, to build relationships with third-party actors in those markets to verify that our calculations are correct. I'm giving you this as an example of what hands-on sales work consists of for us, where we are today. We are doing this now at, I don't have a count, but I'd say that it's at least 15 sites in 10 markets around the world, where this kind of measurement, simulation, and assessments are being made at the moment. I think also on sales, apart from then the feasibility work here, we also see that there are invitations to tender coming up in a few markets: Canada, Indonesia. We are also involved in similar discussions in other markets.
This is, this is a quite interesting area that this is happening now in tidal, but it's also very, very difficult because the big utilities and the government agencies that will run those tenders, invitations to tender, they have no understanding of what it takes to invite tidal developers to this process. We've been successful in a few cases now to be invited as advisors into, let's say, shaping the tenders. I think that's quite an achievement, and it indicates also that we are one of the few actors in the world that actually have knowledge worthy of, of that interaction.
Obviously, where we are now, the number one priority for Minesto as a company, I think it's obvious to everyone that several smaller breakthroughs that lead to major breakthroughs on a sales perspective, is the number one priority for us as a company. I also hope that this discussion or this accounting for what we're doing, it's not like Minesto is just sort of waiting for something to happen. We have the strongest team ever and the largest activities ever from the strongest position ever, in pushing this agenda forward. We are really looking forward to 2026 in this respect. Okay, enough. There is also products and testing to comment.
2025 as a year as a whole has been the year where we have tested and produced for the longest period ever, if you're looking at the summer and winter campaigns, the previous winter. It's been really good to see the Dragon 12 perform as expected in Vestmanna. It's a really big unit compared to anything that we have worked with before. We see values in the robustness of a larger unit, that electric components and everything, we have more room for them in this machine, and that has also helped in how it is configured and how it is operating. There are limitations at this site.
It's still a test site, there are limitations on permits, on how long tethers we can run with, and where exactly we can position the system. It's undoubtedly so that our technology is verified as the world-leading tidal energy technology in its ability to convert the kinetic energy in the ocean to electricity. We are using this test site now to build, let's say, a microgrid product. It's very important because that will shorten lead times to deliver into the demo projects and the first arrays, of course, with units that are actually already now in operation that can be transferred. Really important.
It is also so that we have faced some challenges this winter, this autumn with our local marine operating partner. We use local work boats with small crews and that are locally based. And the vessel that we work with in Vestmanna has been forced into unplanned service over winter. And those technical issues with the boat has not been resolved according to the timelines that's been communicated to us. We've ended up in a situation where we've been waiting for the vessel to be available, and it's been pushed back. This has made it easy for us to make the decision to put the Dragon 12...
It's still installed, but we put it in park mode, not to push the technical boundaries further when the cost of recovery will increase because we will need to bring vessels in from Europe. And especially during winter, with weather, with weather risks and new mobilization, new training of staff, we felt that the results we have and the success of the D12 with previous testing is makes it, makes us strong enough in the commercial dialogues that we have at the moment. Obviously, we would have loved to keep testing and keep moving, and we will look into what test configuration and what electricity production that we will engage with moving forward here, depending on the priorities with the microgrid, and how quickly we can get the vessel available again.
The local vessel and the setup we have is an absolute competitive advantage for Minesto. Vessels are always expensive, even small ones, but if we compare that to any other ocean renewable technology, we are at the 10th of their costs in operating their systems with marine recovery and launch activities. The microgrid setup is a partnership with a few really skilled partners in microgrids, in storage, with Capture Energy. What we do together is to build a fully functional microgrid, where we can opt to deliver electricity to grid, just to simulate, and we also have applications in Vestmanna under discussion, where we can actually hook this up to real process industry applications locally to make it a real setup.
That's an option that we're working with at the moment. This is also a setup that can be transferred to one of the three non-grid connected islands in the Faroe Islands, where there is a strong push to get rid of diesel-generated electricity. One of them is one of the most beautiful places in the world called Mykines, where in summertime they have thousands of puffins and a small population, but hundreds and hundreds of tourists, where the ecosystem and environmental aspects are a key driver. That could be a dream target for us to move this microgrid into a real value-creating context beyond Vestmanna. That's a little bit on testing. I could say that the value of...
When we say that we're only aiming for, let's say, microgrid installations or smaller projects in this, remember that we are in the energy business here. A small project here is a SEK 20 million-SEK 50 million sales for Minesto. I'd say a few of those would be quite a good start, even if it isn't the full-blown array build-out cases where we start. That is obviously also an option for Vestmanna and the new work we are re-engaging in Wales. Okay, enough on the testing and the hardware there.
Another area of interest, which is also related to the commercial agenda, is to further enrich our understanding of how tidal play together with other renewables and other energy-generating technologies in a certain market. We've hinted a little bit during autumn, third quarter, I think we started to talk about the value of tidal in the grid mix. This is something we've said from, I mean, since many years back, that there are plannable dimensions. We have base load capability with what we do. With the investments we've made in simulation tools and in competence internally, we are now in a position where we can put financial values to the tidal, to integration of our tidal technology into a grid.
This is extremely important for project investors and for pushing the first projects forward, because we will be at the price point that can arguably be somewhat higher than the established renewables. The immediate question you get, "Why should we invest in this novel technology with a risk component and that you present on a higher cost level?" Well, what we have now with those tools, we can hands-on show that that statement is false, because it is not about the individual project cost of energy, it's about the total cost of energy or the production system in that given grid, and what price you then can offer your with margins that you can offer your consumers.
It is extremely clear from the first round of analysis that we're doing here, based on the Faroe Islands, that we are significantly more cost-effective at the total level with a dominant input from our tidal technology into the grid mix than if we take tidal out and push the politically decided agenda to be 100% renewable in a few years. This is very important. What's also important to understand is that this is not a generic value of tidal technologies at large. You need a tidal technology with the performance characteristics that Minesto's technology has. We're flexible in what locations we can choose because of our insensitivity to water depth, and also because we can go for low-flow sites.
The third one that is a little bit more technical in this perspective is that we can keep generating over the tidal cycle for a longer period. Our systems will be at standstill for a shorter period in time, because cut in and cut off is pushed away from each other and creates longer production cycles. It is Minesto's performance characteristics that goes into this model, and out comes those values that we talk about. This is generic. We can apply this to any market. We're using Python PSA standard optimization software for this, and there are modules and references all over the world in how this is being used.
Our unique contribution here is that we've added a tidal module to it for the first time ever, which is quite good as a sales tool. Okay, that's the value of tidal in the grid mix. To move on here, I would like just to briefly comment on the geopolitical picture here. There's a lot of talk on whether the momentum for sustainability and the momentum for the energy transition, whether we've sort of lost momentum in this. I believe that verbally you can see from some political spheres and some areas of the world, the Trump sphere, that climate change is a hoax, renewables is just crap.
The hard financial and business facts around this is that the renewable transition today is driven by a commercial rationale. It is more efficient, and it makes more business sense to use renewables. What has been added to that picture now with uncertainty of fossil energy supply is quite dramatic. I see I've missed to flip my slides here. I had a slide here on the tide shifts between two sites, and a slide we've shown earlier on the difference between the blue tidal included scenario and the red non-tidal scenario. You can see here the cost of energy differences are huge for a 100% renewable energy system in that market.
If you move then to the final comments here on the global, that the Trump factor is there, but what we see hands-on in investments and in installations, this is moving forward faster than ever. We also believe that if we look at the unstable world that we live in now with the war in Ukraine, maybe the most tragic and severe aspect of it at the moment, and talks about security of supply, is that a renewable energy source that contributes to base load, that's hidden in the water column, that can't be seen, that is distributed nearshore, and that can utilize basically any port or beach and also local resources for service maintenance, is a technology that address needs related to security of supply.
I hope this has given you a little bit of insight into, let's say, the positioning of Minesto's priorities, where we are with our strive towards more commercial activities, and that we are, we are using the investments from fourth quarter here to do what we have set out to do, to invest in a commercial breakthrough. With that, I hope you have endured this, I think, 30-minute now monologue, and we will move into a dialogue, I hope. I know there are questions.
Thank you so much for the presentation here, Martin. As you mentioned, now we'll carry on with the Q&A. The first question here is: has Minesto given any further consideration to charging royalties on the energy that the Dragon generate? This could work on a cost per megawatt.
Yes. I mean, a royalty-based business, either as a royalty for exclusivity on a market is considered, but when it comes to the business model on electricity production, I think our primary choice is that we will, at least for the first phase of array build-out, we will have an owner stake in the SPV, in the special purpose vehicle. We will gain revenues from that or be able to sell shares in those market development or SPV companies.
We look into another model that is related to, for example, diesel savings, which this microgrid project will give us more answers on where we could sit on sort of on the hardware together with the customer, and we share the savings, the diesel savings, for example. There are a few ways of doing this moving forward, but we will revisit that royalty thought moving forward. We try to intend to follow at least larger project development customers, let's say, requests in how they want to structure the deal.
Thank you. On the investor presentation in 2024, Minesto presented a graph that showed that the power curve flattening beyond the tidal speed of 1.7 meters per second. Do you anticipate a flattening of the power curve for the Dragon 12? If so, can a larger generator be installed into the Dragon 12 to generate more power at these higher tidal flow speeds, since the generator was identified as the limiting factor?
It's a very good question. I hope that all the financially oriented people in the audience will bear with us, because we're gonna spend two hours now on how we optimize the our Dragons. No, we're not. I'm gonna try to answer briefly. We can combine different wing spans with different sizes of turbines to adopt to, and to optimize generation at different sites. In Vestmanna, we have not had the privilege of fully optimize this for several reasons. Historically, because we haven't understood that dynamic fully in the way we do today, and also because of permitting, environmental permitting constraints, marine licenses. You see, we have one clear indication of that this question or this, let's say, a proposal that makes perfect sense.
It is that we are upgrading the D4s from 100 to 185 kW. Everything else the same, basically, but we upgrade the power, and that creates a significantly more powerful system. It is even so that if we have underrated the power, we can end up in a situation where we can't produce when we have the most electricity, because we need the breaking power of, the generator. The generation of electricity will be helpful in breaking and controlling the system at its right pace. This is an area where we've spent literally thousands of engineering hours over many, many years to know exactly what power curve we want for a certain site. It's actually done in that way.
We look at the profile, and then we can ask the engineer, design team, the simulation team, what kind will be representative for this power curve, and then we can do it. We can push significantly lower flows, and we can also adopt the system to generate an optimized generation from the higher end of the flow. The short answer would have been yes to that question, really.
Thank you.
We can do that.
How does Minesto plan to manage its communication and work with its infrastructure suppliers in the future? It was recently announced that there were delays in recovering the Dragon 12 because the marine vessel used to bring the Dragon 12 on shore was on service.
Yes. I think that with scale, redundancy is an absolute necessity. In this case, I mean, this there is a domino effect of technical issues with this vessel, where service has not been done in parallel, it's been done in iterations. To be fair, it's created a lot of frustration, and if we would have known for how long this out-of-service period would have been from the start, we would highly likely have used an alternative vessel. It's... Yeah. We're working with small local actors. That's where the cost efficiency lies, we could have engaged more from a communications perspective, but we also have to, let's say, back and stand by those actors in the local community.
It's unfortunate, and we will learn from this, especially when we talk about the commercial contexts and what service assets and what redundancy that is needed for timely maintenance.
Thank you. D12 has been productive for nine months, but I can't find any income from the electricity generated. It will be a couple of SEK millions, I believe. Is this revenue hidden somewhere, or is it simply pro bono to SEV?
First, it has not been producing for nine months. It's been installed for nine months. As we told yesterday in the press release, we have over winter now put it in. It's installed, but it's in park mode. We're not flying it in the trajectory of an eight, and that has to do with service intervals being exceeded. We want to have, you know, immediate backup to recover, if need be, when we're pushing it beyond its limits, which is something we want to do. For the production period, you know, we've been in Vestmanna for three, four years now, and we also use the site for extensive generator testing.
We're actually putting a lot of energy into that test facility in Vestmanna. The balance between how much electricity we have produced over years and what we've consumed is probably one explanation. The other one is, if not the pro bono factor, but to invoice at the range we are, we have, together with SEV, decided not to engage with that at the moment. It is not so that we have for six months, continuous full performance production at the unit either. That is not easy at this site, given the permit restrictions and tether lengths. The results on performance, power curves, the way we generate over tidal cycles, are really impressive data from the D12 that has been generated.
We are not hiding any revenues or putting them in someone's pocket. I think that the accounting is reflective of the incomes.
Thank you. Has the PPA with SEV expired, or has it been renewed?
It has been renewed, that PPA is valid. It is also a PPA and a pricing structure that applies to the larger build-out in Hestfjord. I believe that we need to finalize some permitting in order for that PPA to be signed by the authority. It is by law stipulated that the conditions around Hestfjord project will make it eligible for the same, let's say, subsidized pricing. The pricing model is really interesting because it gives us payments equivalent to the cost of producing electricity from crude oil at their power plant in Sund.
That's a stable, high level, despite the fact that they have done a good deal in procuring oil, when they did that a few years ago.
Thank you. Can you list the projects that are currently the highest priority and provide estimated start times for construction or operational phases for each one of them?
Any construction apart from the build-out of the microgrid in Vestmanna, where construction is already ongoing, and we're implementing that hardware, upgrades of seabed infrastructure, upgrade of onshore, and upgrade of kites, that is ongoing and in delivery. For any other site, we invest in permitting in Hestfjord. We invest in business development in North Wales. Apart from that, it's dependent on financial closure or signing deals. We're not spending money on this, on our account. As of today, we have not signed any deals to deliver hardware.
Thank you. Are there any specific EU or national support programs that Minesto expects to receive decisions on during 2026? If so, what amounts or conditions are involved?
I haven't talked about that. Maybe I should have said more about that, actually, because it's one of the key aspects of commercialization, is the broadened approach we have on soft funding, where we go for both some really large, let's say, array-based project funding contracts. You can easily find some of the big EU programs from what is called the EIC Accelerator and the European Investment Bank. They're the custodians of the Innovation Fund structure. Of course, we are looking into those programs and actively pursue those opportunities.
There's fierce competition, and there are a lot of ifs and buts around this, but one of those large projects, is an injection in the range between, let's say, EUR 10 million-EUR 20 million, targeting a project build-out to reduce CapEx and bring match funding in from private investors. There are several similar project programs in other geographic contexts. I think the CFD auctions in the UK, where you get significant price subsidies on sold electricity, is of equal importance and value to attract and secure, complete, reach financial closure for the projects. We have a range. I think we're up to a portfolio now of 5 or 6 smaller active soft funding programs, and we can expect another 10 or so to be added over the 12 months ahead.
that's supporting sales for targeted markets. It supports some, let's say, targeted technical aspects, and also some interesting business development. The soft funding, let's say, injections to Minesto, we have a clear target to bring ourselves back on track, where we've been for most of our development cycles, historically, where a significant portion of our fixed costs are covered by soft funding.
Thank you.
The ratio today is lower than we expected, where we expect it to be in when we approach summer and autumn.
Thank you. Another question on financing here. How much capital does Minesto plan to attract for upcoming projects, and can you provide a timeline for when investment decision or potential share issues may be expected?
I think that kind of question, as most of you know, is not something I can comment verbally on in a webinar like this. Let me put it like this, that our focus now is customer financing on Minesto, to blend it with soft funding. We're gonna push forward with this agenda, work on regaining confidence from the capital market. When we reach summer, autumn, we will have to make decisions on what type of financing that will be appropriate. There might be opportunities that arise in some ways before that as well. It's not me communicating a timeline, it's more thinking out loud.
Obviously, fundings for Minesto moving forward, if we talk about equity or any other type of financial product into this is something we plan to do to secure delivery and production capacity.
Thank you. Can you provide specific figures on the current capacity and efficiency of the Dragon systems, and when do you plan to achieve full commercial scalability?
The current system at 1.2 MW, the Dragon 12, is a full-blown commercial scale unit with full functionality. It is installed at the site with some limitations, which means that we can show its full capacity, but we cannot run it continuously over long periods of time because of those constraints. That, that is more than enough for us to show customers and invite them to, in detail, study the performance, robustness, and so forth. We believe that we are there on the power plant level. When it comes to building large-scale arrays or Dragon Farms, there are a few components related to electric transmission and distribution that will be added from new suppliers in order to make it really cost-efficient.
We might also have to scale up anchoring solutions, and swap suppliers in that area. Apart from that, we're good to go. There are no, let's say, concerns or worries on how this setup should look and how much the systems can perform and deliver into such a Dragon Farm.
Thank you. The Hestfjord, 10 MW project has been delayed significantly compared to the original plan. Can you explain exactly what is blocking the project, and when investors can realistically expect progress here?
Expect progress. I've said it before, I expect progress very soon in several of the commercial dialogues we have. I don't because of, let's say, relationship considerations, I do not want to elaborate on what's delaying this. I think that the general challenge for us is that we are creating a new industry. The perception of tidal energy and the risk perception of introducing new production technology in the energy sector is a challenge. I think we're addressing this in all possible dimensions, where we are reducing CapEx, communicating the strength of the technology, building partnerships, but I cannot give you any forecasts on this.
Thank you.
We want to enter into that. The plan and the ambition is that this should happen this year, this spring.
Thank you. What are the main concerns about investing in a Dragon Farm for, would you say?
I think there are conventional project risks related to environmental consenting. Let's say, the financing structure of the project, where there are some novel dimensions compared to an offshore wind project, for example. That's one area that is generic for any tidal developer going for this. Then, of course, what I talked about earlier on, really being accurate with the yield. How much energy do you produce over a year, and when do you produce it? Which is, of course, the main driver for the business case. This has never been done before.
I think to overcome that, to find the right first movers and to work with financial structuring of this to reduce some of the financial risk, you can always transfer this into financial risks, is what we're working with, and that's what needed to push the first movers into teaming up with us.
Thank you. Given the fall in share price within just a few years, what concrete measures is Minesto taking to restore confidence and create real shareholder value?
I think that the focus on generating substantial sales, shifting to the commercial shift we're doing, I think that is the main avenue moving forward. I mean, apart from taking care of those achievements and milestones in our communications, an absolute necessity. I think that's the core driver. There are maybe 10, 20 other things that we're working with to improve our communications, with a small organization, to be able to increase the frequency of use, you know, the normal conventional way of interacting with the capital market. We want to secure partnerships with financial advisors in a way where we have them close to also work in those dimensions.
Thank you.
There's much, much more to it. I mean, the how we work with developing the board of Minesto, how we open up the test site for a broader audience. It's a long list, and you can imagine that is not exactly the last bullet point on Minesto's on Minesto's board meetings and management meetings. We're all extremely well aware of both the, you know, the shareholder perspective in having a stock that is diving, as Minesto's has been doing for 2025. Obviously also how it limits our short-term ability to secure funding. It's.
Thank you.
the number two priority, apart from sales, and we believe that sales is the number one aspect of fixing the second priority.
Would you say that the branding operations during 2025 have meant that the likelihood for our first breakthrough deal has shifted away from the Faroes to other markets?
I think that we have improved the likelihood of other markets to break through significantly, and it's not only the branding, but it's also our approach to it. The Faroe Islands is still a core case, and where we have the fastest route to large-scale deployment.
Thank you. Do you still believe Wales has a tidal market for Minesto, considering the successful all previous CFD rounds? Will you be bidding in the next round, considering you have one of your biggest assets here, the Minesto Assembly Hall?
We will come back, I hope already this spring with some news and explain where we are in Wales. We can say that we are working really hard on or let's say, to deliver on our goal to kick that case alive, and actually in an expanded format as well. Wales is definitely a part of Minesto's future.
Thank you. In the spring 2021, a collaboration with Schneider Electric was announced. Is this collaboration still in place?
No. It's faded away for several reasons. One main reason is that Schneider Electric changed its strategy a year or two ago significantly to moving into software, abandoning project management roles, and also abandoning some of the product areas vital for this collaboration, subsea hubs and some transformer units and other things. That one is not, from that perspective, alive. Good relationships with executive management and a potential partner on some level, but the ambitions from historic ambitions are no longer alive in that sense.
Thank you. You say you use a local vessel. Why do you need to bring in a vessel from Europe? Surely, there is more than one vessel available in the Faroes.
There are some specific needs on a small vessel that actually is not available in the Faroe Islands, but I will not go into those technical details. It has to do with an ability that we have helped this supplier to install in this vessel.
Thank you. What is your current approach to actively seeking grants? Have you applied, as you do not seem to have participated in certain obvious funding grants? What is Minesto's strategy in this regard?
We have historically used soft funding as a strategic tool to mitigate risks from an investor perspective, and that remains both on a project funding, project investment level and a company level. The plan is clear. We want to bring in significant soft funding into Minesto as soon as possible, and we believe that it is highly likely that we will succeed with that, despite the fierce competition in this area.
Thank you. In a new technology like this, what are the main challenges to get insurance companies to provide reasonable price insurance of warranties of the technology or production?
You need to work with some of the insurance companies that take sort of a business development approach to ocean energy and this sector, there are some good players we're working with in the U.K., brokers and also larger insurance companies that wants to be a part of this. But it's absolutely clear that there are certain types of insurances that we will not be able to reach for the first installations. You need to prove yourself. I mean, if you look at uptime and business continuity, those aspects are gonna be difficult with. Obviously, the certification process on an array level might demand that you actually start building some things before you can prove it.
This is gonna be an area that you need to keep a close eye on, and you need to have investor partners that understand those, let's say, hurdles to overcome.
Thank you. Given the complexity and amount of data involved in this field, how useful is AI in the work with identification of sites, optimizations, and configurations of the Dragons to sites?
I mean, we use AI in a conventional way in Minesto with, you know, reducing man-hours in formatting things and structuring data, but it's still in its infancy. It's a very interesting question. I can say that this is an area where we have ongoing work, because, as you say, this big data sphere where we are, will benefit from this, if we get it right.
Thank you. This sounds like an interesting phase for Minesto. What are you hoping to report in one year from now?
I'm hoping. Well, I'm hoping to report, well, actually, I'm hoping for Alexander to show you numbers that look different from the numbers that you saw, where the column of sales has real numbers in them, and that he's smiling as he's doing now. That's what I'm hoping for and where we're headed. Obviously, we want to see more units in production, in installation, bringing the first invoices in from electricity production. There are and, well, the soft funding side, that should also be on a different level than where we are today. We have a lot to do in 2026.
Thank you. I think we take one last question here. You recently announced that a new site will be made in EU water. Where will that be?
It's coming soon. We have to show respect to some of our partners there and not disturb those negotiations by being premature in communicating this. EU, this is also. We talked about soft funding. We've had challenges to find good tidal sites within the European Union jurisdiction. Now we are there, and it's also very much thanks to technological progress that we've had in 2025, where the commercial boundaries of generating have been expanded. We will come back to that as well in more detail and explain this and not just be vague about it.
This has resulted in a situation where the comeback in Wales and the new sites in EU, in real European Union, can be commercially addressed in a very nice way. You have to have some patience with that with us announcing where.
Thank you. Thank you, Martin and Alexander, for presenting here today, and thank you all for tuning in and sending us questions. We wish you a pleasant day.
Thank you very much, Ludwig, and see you in a quarter.