Good evening, and welcome to Array Technologies First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded and we have allocated order for prepared remarks and Q and A. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Cody Mueller, Investor Relations for Ray Technologies. Thank you. You may begin.
Good evening, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss Array Technologies' Q1 2021 results. Earnings Conference Call. Actual results could differ materially from our forward looking statements if any of our key assumptions are incorrect because of other factors discussed Today's earnings press release and the comments made during this conference call or in our latest reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, each of which can be found on our website arraytechinc.com. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward looking statements. Today's presentation also includes references to non GAAP financial measures.
You should refer to the information contained in the company's Q1 press release 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 Jim Fusaro, Array Technologies' CEO.
Thanks, Cody, good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call. In addition to Cody, I'm joined today by Neepul Patel, our Chief Financial Officer And Jeff Krantz, our Chief Commercial Officer. I'm going to focus my remarks today on 3 areas. First, how our first Quarter results compared to our expectations second, how we see demand evolving for our products and third, The current commodity and shipping cost environment, how it impacts Array and the actions we are taking in response.
Then I'll turn it over to Neepul for a detailed review of our Q1 results. Revenues for the Q1 of 2021 were 246 $1,000,000 which was in line with our expectations. Adjusted EBITDA was $34,500,000 which was slightly below expectations, Demand for our products remains strong with quoting activity at the highest levels we have seen in our history. We believe the superior value that our tracker system delivers is being recognized by a growing number of EPCs, developers And asset owners globally and is underscored by the up to 4 gigawatt award that we recently received from Primoris, 1 of the largest solar EPCs in the U. S.
As well as the 3 50 megawatts of awards we received from 9 international customers During the Q1, increasing panel efficiency, falling storage costs and growing regulatory support Are expanding the lead that solar has over other conventional generation and other renewables. More than ever before, solar energy is becoming the first choice and shipping costs that are unprecedented both in their magnitude and rate of change. From the Q1 of 2020 to the Q1 of 2021, the spot price of hot rolled coil steel, the primary raw material used in our products has more than doubled. Many industry analysts and market participants expected the dramatic increase in the price of steel to be temporary, which was reflected in futures markets that had indicated lower steel prices for the second half of the year throughout most of the first quarter. Based on those expectations, we felt confident in our ability to manage our input costs and maintain our margins.
However, steel prices have continued to increase with spot prices of hot rolled coil up more than 10% since April 1, And futures now indicate higher rather than lower steel prices for the remainder of the year. Steel represents almost half of our cost of goods sold And we do not hold large amounts of steel in inventory. So a significant increase in the price of steel over a short period of time can negatively impact our results. Coinciding with the increase in steel prices has been substantial increases in the cost of both Ocean and truck freight. The average cost to ship a container from Asia to the West Coast has increased by more than 145% from April 2020 to April 2021.
There also remains significant disruption across several U. S. Ports resulting from the April Suez Canal accident and the February Texas storm, which has resulted in higher storage and expediting costs that we would not otherwise have had in a normal environment. The cost of truck freight has also increased significantly with the average cost per mile In the Q1 of 2021, up more than 30% versus last year and costs have continued to increase in the 2nd quarter. The continued increases in both steel and freight costs will impact our margins in Q2 and potentially in subsequent quarters if prices do not normalize.
In response, we are taking several actions to mitigate the impact on the balance of the year. First, we are increasing prices. For open contracts that we have not yet shipped product against, we are Currently evaluating how much of the commodity and shipping cost increases to pass on to our customers. We will make those determinations based on the specifics of each customer and situation. Given that steel prices continue to increase and the large number of open contracts that we have, it will take time for us to evaluate each contract and determine the The exercise is complicated because we have to balance the possibility that customers will delay orders if we pass through too much of the increase in steel prices on the basis that they may believe prices will be lower if they wait and take their order later in the year.
The 2 year extension of the ITC has given customers more flexibility on when they start their projects than they had in the past. 2nd, we are entering into long term supply agreements with steel suppliers at fixed prices. For example, we recently entered into an agreement with Nucor to For example, we recently entered into a supply agreement with a new international steel supplier at what we believe is an attractive price given the current environment. 4th, we are entering into long term contracts with Tier 1 freight providers to give us greater certainty on logistics costs and delivery performance. And 5th, we are extending the standard order lead times that we quote to customers to give us more time to procure raw material at the best price.
However, given the continuing increases we are seeing in steel and freight costs as well as our ongoing review of Open contracts to assess what costs we will pass on to customers. We are not able to affirm our previously provided guidance for the full year. We expect to update our guidance once we have completed the review of all of our open purchase orders and commodity and shipping prices remain stable a long enough period of time to give us confidence in using them to develop a forecast for the remainder of the year. Importantly, we believe our Competitors are being impacted by the same cost increases that we are experiencing. And in certain cases, much more significantly because Their smaller size gives them less buying power with suppliers.
We believe the near term pressure that is being created by the current environment may enable us to to procure raw materials at a competitive price or at all. We are in an environment where scale and deep supply chain relationships Our significant competitive advantages and we have both. Now I will turn it over to Neepul for a review of our Q1 results.
Thanks, Jim. Before I talk about our Q1 results, it is important to keep in mind that our 2020 results We're heavily first half weighted as a result of our customers seeking to lock in the 30% ITC prior to its step down at the end of 2019. This caused our customers to place the bulk of their orders in the back half of twenty nineteen and then take deliveries in the 4th quarter of 2019 and 1st 2 quarters in 2020. As a result, comparing a single quarter in 2021 to the same quarter in 2020 is not indicative of the trajectory of our business since the ITC step down skewed revenues in 2020 to Q1 and Q2. I'll now review our Q1 results.
Revenues for the Q1 decreased 44% to $245,900,000 compared to $437,700,000 for the prior year period, primarily driven by a reduction in the amount of ITC Safe Harbor related shipments that I discussed earlier. Gross profit decreased 63 percent to $43,900,000 compared to $118,400,000 in the prior year period, driven primarily by lower volume in the quarter. Gross margin decreased from 27% to 18%, Driven by less revenue to absorb fixed costs, somewhat lower ASPs compared to the 2020 safe harbor shipments, higher input costs due to Operating expenses increased to $30,800,000 compared to $17,100,000 during the same period in the prior year, primarily as a result of a $6,200,000 increase in equity based compensation Due to the transition to being a public company, dollars 2,400,000 of one time costs related to our common stock follow on offerings, Higher costs associated with being a public company and an increase in headcount to support our product development and international growth initiatives. Net income was $2,900,000 compared to $73,700,000 during the same period in the prior year and basic and diluted income per share were $0.02 compared to basic and diluted earnings per share of $0.61 during the same period in the prior year.
Adjusted EBITDA decreased 69 percent to $34,500,000 compared to $110,700,000 for the prior year period. Adjusted net income decreased 71 percent to $23,700,000 compared to $82,300,000 during the same period in the prior year. And adjusted basic and diluted adjusted net income per share was $0.19 compared to $0.69 during the same period in the prior year. Total executed contracts and awarded orders at March 31, 2021 was 777.1000000 increase from the amount at December 31, 2020. Turning to our outlook.
As Jim mentioned earlier, Given the continuing increases we are seeing in steel and freight costs as well as our ongoing review of open contracts to assess what costs we will pass on to our We are not able to affirm our previously provided guidance for the full year. Looking ahead to the Q2, we expect commodity price increases to delay some project starts, which will result in lower revenues and adjusted EBITDA versus the Q1. Now I'll turn it back over to Jim for
some closing remarks. Thanks, Neepul.
I'll conclude by saying despite the short headwinds faced from commodity and shipping cost increases, we remain well positioned in a rapidly growing industry. The outlook for solar remains very strong. Businesses and consumers continue to accelerate their efforts to decarbonize energy. The regulatory environment is extremely constructive and solar with trackers has demonstrated it is the lowest cost and we will continue to work daily with them to ensure that we can continue to support the growth in the solar industry, while striving to deliver strong returns change in our cost structure or margins. We believe there is more than sufficient steel production and shipping capacity Globally to meet the world's needs and we expect prices will normalize once the restart of the global economy is complete following the pandemic shutdowns.
As inventory is rebuilt and supply chains refilled, we are confident We will see more rational pricing ahead. In the meantime, we will aggressively work our mitigation efforts and look for opportunities to use the current environment to play offense by leveraging our size and scale. We believe we will emerge stronger competitively when conditions normalize and when we entered into the current environment. And with that, operator, open the line for questions.
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer Thank you. Our first question is from the line of Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe first one, just I feel like a lot of people are going to have this question, but on the open contract construct, can you walk us through that a little bit more in detail? I was under the impression that once you accept the You go straight into the market or quickly thereafter and order the required materials so that you have a bit of a natural hedge against input cost increases.
I would have imagined you would have factored in logistics costs at the same time that you're pricing these contracts. So Could you maybe just refresh us on the timeline of you setting a price with the customer and then when you order from your supply chain and Kind of what the mismatch is here?
Yes. Hi, Brian. So the typical cycle time is when you go into A customer negotiation, the contract negotiation typically can take anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks depending on the size, complex the project, how much engineering work is done upfront. And then when you kind of settle on bill of materials, that's We would kind of do the outreach to our supply chain to get indicative quotes in order to support the quoting activity, which ultimately we give to the customer. So in normal conditions, when you have stable commodities, we would be giving indicative quotes that were obviously relatively stable to what the future Looking like so we could pretty much nail that down and obviously there was triggers per contract per customer on any Prior or existing cost escalations that one might see with commodities.
But given the rate of increase that we have seen, so for example, Since April 1, commodities hot rolled coil is up 10% and still continues to rise. Actually, it wasn't the case kind of early on if you go back to maybe like early April. So we were giving prices and futures were actually pointing down. So we felt confident in our ability to give a price. They would go back.
They factor that in. By the time you get to a contract where you're close to signing, We saw that in some cases prices went up, but still look like futures were going down. You give them a price increase and then lo and behold, you'd to the PO and by the time you would solidify your suppliers, there'd be subsequent increases. So is that lag or shall I say that lead time between when you Agreed upon a price and or subsequent price increases to when you actually close and then we negotiate with our suppliers that you were seeing a rapid increase In the commodities that impacted obviously our COGS. So that's kind of the mechanics and a brief timeline overview of how it's working with us.
Okay. That's super helpful. And then maybe just as we think about the rest of the year here, you're saying that there's definitely an impact on Q2, Sounds like on margins and then as you contemplate how to do some of the mitigation factors including price, it sounds like you're worried that some volume might slip into a later period outside of 2021, hence why the guidance isn't being reiterated here. I guess what's the sort of volume level that you still have, which you would consider in that open contract Phase where you are sort of at risk of either not being able to secure the volume Or you're going to potentially have to take a margin hit relative to what you initially We were thinking when you first quoted the contracts, just trying to get a sense of how much of the backlog awarded orders volume might actually be at play here? And then I have one last follow-up.
Yes, thanks, Brian. I'll put it in a different context. We've got roughly about 100 or so open contracts that we're currently assessing. So where there's a lot of analytics that we have to run through. So we've got price, which you mentioned, long term supply agreements, which we obviously announced Recently here with Nucor, we continue to diversify the supply chain, which when you do that, right, you build in an element of logistics, what does that cost, And then the freight agreements that we're executing too because in as much as we want to lock down our suppliers on the commodity element, we want to do the same thing with freight And then extending lead times for our customers.
So when you factor in price and lead times, commercial team has to work with our customer to see What appetite they have, where that stands with relative to the project within their time horizon, does it move to the right, how far to the right. So that's something that we're actually assessing. And I really can't give you an exact answer on where it is and that's why we have to really sit down and go through these analytics to understand how much we can control within our own four walls and then the impact to our customer.
All right, fair enough. And then maybe just one last housekeeping one and I'll pass Don, there was a $10,000,000 line item called Investment in Equity Securities on the cash flow statement this period. You elaborate on what that was? Just hadn't seen that before.
Yes. And hey, Brian, it's Neepul. How are you? So this is what we had talked about in our Q4 Call, we did take an investment in a company and that's what that represents.
Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it guys.
Our next question is coming from the line of Michael Weinstein with Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question. Hi, guys. Thanks for
the questions. What I guess what's your decision making process for not hedging Steel, let's say, financial hedges going forward. Now you're talking about locking in a fixed price contract with Nucor at this point, Why not hedge what you think the volume will be for the next year?
Yes. Hey, Michael, this is Neapal. So in the past that has not been our strategy. We had been working with our suppliers to And let them take that risk on. And when commodities were within a certain band, that was okay to do.
We are open and we will be looking at other methods In the future on securing supply for a longer term.
Why not give revenue guidance Now is the supply chain tightness impacting project construction schedules to an extent that you can't give revenue guidance?
Yes, Michael, I would just go back to what we were saying. There's price that we're going to be extending to the customers new pricing. They have to digest that. Our lead times are going to extend with them. They'll have to factor that in as well.
So really those are the two elements that are really going to work and collaborate with our customer on to see what will stick, won't warrant. So it's far too early for us to really give any type of Volume commitment here or guidance.
Sure. And just one last question. Do you have any recourse built into your contracts for existing deliveries? Like is there anything there any wiggle room in your current contracts that allow you to pass along these costs or is it fixed?
Every contract is different. So there's some customers that will work with us on lead times relative to what buffer they put in their contract. So everyone is different. There's typically a little bit of headroom to work with. Everyone gives themselves a little bit of white space, if you will, on delivery.
But given where logistics are today in the current environment, it becomes quite challenging.
Thanks.
Next question is coming from the line of Paul Coster with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.
Yes, good afternoon. This is Mark Strauss on for Paul. Thanks for taking our questions. Jim, I appreciate your comments about the futures market in the second half of this year. Just Curious what you're hearing from your actual suppliers though.
Are they looking to add any incremental capacity or anything like that that Might lead to a different outcome?
They all have a different investment thesis and their demand profile You've got some out there that are supplying the automotive industry, others for more infrastructure focused, structural, if you would. Demand remains relatively high across the board. At least this is what they're telling us. You'd have to do your own deep dive on what they're saying in their earnings releases. But For the balance of the year, at least what futures are indicating, they continue to rise.
So that's indicative of the demand. To the extent they're going to add Capacity, that's really how they're going to really deploy their capital, whether they're going to bring those furnaces and mills back up or not. Okay. And part of that, Mark, is I think this is Mark, correct? Yes.
Mark is that's part of our analytics. When we deal with our Suppliers in these long term supply agreements, we're obviously looking for the commitment to support the capacity because one of the things that I want to press upon is, As when we go into these supply agreements, we want to make sure that we're locking down the assurance of supply and that's resonating with a number of our customers here.
Okay. And then as far as the balancing act between near term financial impact and longer term Keeping your customers happy and potentially gaining share. I mean, looking at approximately or Approaching 50% of your bill of materials at steel and those prices doubling, I mean are you willing to accept Very near term at least kind of close to breakeven or even negative gross margins in order It's to gain some share. Just any kind of color you can provide as far as near term pain versus long term gain would be helpful.
Yes. I would preface it, Mark, by saying, 1st of all, the industry is still very healthy with respect to the growth and what solar Overall for new electricity generation, so the train has left the station there. But again, this is part of the analytics that we're driving here To really balance between these short term projects, I. E. Those 100 contracts or so that we're fleshing through versus their overall portfolio and where that lands.
But I wish I could give you more color, but we just got to put pen to paper here and sit down with the customers and really flesh this out.
Yes, yes, makes sense. Okay, thanks Jim.
Our next question is from the line of Stephen Byrd with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, thanks so much for taking my questions. I guess thinking about the nature of the contracts, you've given us a lot of color to think through. At a high level, I guess, stepping back, is there a chance that this kind of a commodity shock could result in sort of Different structured contracts in the future sort of fundamental changes in how contracts are structured. I know it's early days, but just curious, do you think this is something where you and your customers can sort of look at this and think through a different approach in the future in terms of how to mitigate these risks?
That's exactly what we're doing, Steve. These are the conversations we're having with the customer. I think what Neepul alluded to earlier, we have a very strong supply chain, Very diversified, so we never really had to give that volume commit. So when you had times where commodities were somewhat normalized, that worked well. I think I even mentioned on the last earnings release that we certainly want to be working with our supply chain and firming it down.
I'm not a Strong proponent of giving volume commits, but certainly in these times that's kind of where we're heading. Now how that changes the contractual language, What that means for the customer and how that construct really comes forward, that's customer by customer and that's exactly what we're doing here Throughout the balance of the year.
Understood. And in some other parts of CleanTech, we've seen sort of ideas around shared pain and gain. And I'm guessing that could be at least one option that you could consider here as well?
Potentially.
Okay. Understood. And then lastly, you had described in your prepared remarks a bit about sort of obviously this is impacting you, it's impacting competitors as well. Would you mind maybe just expanding a little bit on sort of how you assess your relative position compared to the competition? I know that's not always Easy to fully know exactly where your competitors are, but given your what you've seen, would you mind just adding a little bit more to that?
Yes. And again, I emphasize it's our belief and it's predicated on our size and scale and what we've shipped. And certainly, when we sit down with the likes of Anucor and others, they understand and recognize the value that we bring and they're obviously willing to Put pen to paper with respect to our performance. So our supply chain and how they are responding relative to our growth We have there is our ability to supply is our ability to lock down some of these long term supply agreements. So that's where our focus is and We believe this is a strength for us going forward.
Understood. And so that could lead to potentially a shakeout where smaller players really are To your point, they may not be able to provide the volume, might actually exit the business as they're feeling enough pain. I guess, we'll have to stay tuned to see.
Yes, I wouldn't speculate on that. I would just kind of point you back to where our strengths are and our demonstrated results.
Yes, very good. Thank you very much.
Our next question is coming from the line of Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks so much guys. Can you speak to the geographic concentration on the projects that are getting pushed out to the right? Is that primarily in North America or are you starting to see that in Europe as well?
I would say the first of all, I'll have to get back to you with respect to Via geographic impact, but certainly as we go through these contracts, I don't have that readily available right now and that's going to be an output of the analysis that we do run. And I could I would say that we are seeing that globally, especially in Western Europe as well.
Okay. That's super helpful. And then Just in terms of kind of normalized seasonality, you guys have a really good view on construction schedules and kind of how these timeframes work. And There's some inefficiencies here that you're speaking to, but just in terms of kind of overall demand and normalized seasonality ex The basic supply chain issues, are you seeing incremental growth this year in the ways that you had anticipated? Or is it Something that's a little bit more systemic here that may last a little bit longer around some of the seasonal UCL impacts.
No, I would go back to what I said earlier. The overall industry remains healthy and strong. We're not seeing like any serious dislocation long term.
Like I
said, this is something that we see as rather short Obviously, we're going to assess that with our customer base, but not on a longer term basis. So hopefully, I'm answering that question.
Okay. Thanks a lot guys.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Philip Shen with Roth Capital.
Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions. First one is on the Nucor Contract, could you give us a little bit more detail? Sorry if I missed it, but perhaps the length of the contract and are you matching The nuclear contract with a customer contract, for example, and any other structures you might have there, Including to what degree when you lock in price, are you locked in at a discounted spot, at a premium spot, that
Yes. Unfortunately, I can't give too much specifics surrounding that agreement because our size and And our ability to get these contracts is a competitive advantage, but I will tell you that it certainly is a discount to spot.
Great. Okay. That's helpful. And then can you from a length standpoint, is it a year long or is it matched with the customer contract
No, not at this juncture right now. Certainly, we obviously have obligations, confidentiality with Nucor. So I just want to respect that.
Okay. Appreciate that. And then I know you've touched on this in a number of ways, but when you look at Q4 when you guys That was just 2 months ago. And you talked about how much steel and freight have gone up in just 1 month, well, I guess, since April and the beginning of April over the past month. So what else what are the factors do you think true of you to Remove that, the guidance for now.
Is it was it just those two factors or were there factors? And if so, Any color on that would be great.
Yes. I would just go back to what we said here. I mean, really, it was the rate of increase. Again, like if you look from since April 1, the hot rolled coil is up 10% and it's still rising. And then if you look where it was same period last year, I.
E. Q1 of 2020 to the Q1 of 2021, it's up two It was really that rate of increase. And then to compound that, obviously, you look at what's happened with freight as of April 2020 April 21, freight is up 145 percent and that's all since really the beginning of April. So a lot has really changed. And then I would add on, if you look pretty much towards the beginning of April, futures were actually pointing down for steel in the second half.
So that was gave us a little bit of optimism. And then in short order, they have increased substantially. So a lot has changed just since April 1, that has really caused us to really revisit, go back to price, go back to those Long term supply agreements, supplier diversity, getting long term agreements now with freight carriers and extending those lead times. So That's really kind of those the 3 pillars, if you would, that has really changed since the last time we spoke.
Okay, Got it. And then from a seasonality standpoint, last quarter you talked about Q1 being 20% to 25%, Q2 being 25% to 30%, Q3 being the same and then Q4 being 20% to 25%. I know Q2 is looking to be down now. Can you give any sense what Q3 and Q4 might look like? Or is it actually just not possible because you got to review those 100 contracts?
Yes. Unfortunately, it's just the latter what you said there. It's really we have to go back to the customer with these prices. And again, I remind you that We've already gone through, shall we say, the Phase 1 of price increases. So we have to sit down what does the extended lead time really mean And what are these continued increases in our cost, I.
E. Price mean? So we've got to bet that with our customers.
Okay. Thanks for taking all the questions.
The next question is coming from the line of Martin Malloy with Johnson Rice. Please proceed with your questions.
Good afternoon. The first question I had on the international markets where you continue to add customers, Are these markets where they previously were not using trackers or are you gaining market share from customers that were previously Using trackers.
Yes. Hi, Martin, it's Jeff Krantz here. A quick answer to your question, It's more of the latter. We're actually taking some share from some European tracker companies in markets that had already been established with trackers.
Okay. And then on the last call, and with the last earnings release, you talked about the R and D investments You're going to be baking, ongoing here. And anything to update us there in terms of timing of when we might see some
No, our investment continues on the R and D. Nothing material has changed from What we plan to roll out, and I would love to invite you out to come to our research center so you can see what we have planned.
That'd be great. Those are my questions. Thank you.
Next question is coming from the line of Kashy Harrison with Simmons Energy. Please proceed with your questions.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking the questions. So first one, Jim, just maybe just a really, really simple question. What's your base case on how long it's going to take for the business to normalize? Are you thinking we're back to normal 2022?
Are you thinking we're back to normal
Well, I wish I had the crystal ball on the futures for steel. No one seems to have gotten that one right. But We're certainly going to work this as hard as possible to really understand what the impacts are, at least to ensure we can continue to execute here. Really, it's I'm not a savant when it comes to steel futures and what 'twenty two looks like. But what What we have pen to paper on right now is really making sure that we put the right agreements in place both with our suppliers and freight forwarders.
We can ensure the lead time and get the right price for our customers really to work through this hyperbolic increase in commodities as we're seeing.
Okay. That's, I appreciate the honesty there. And then, in terms of, I know there were a few questions asked about these long term agreements that you're thinking about entering into or you've entered into. Are there any concerns that When we do eventually emerge on the other side of this that these contracts could actually make it difficult to hit your long term EBITDA Margin targets that you've outlined previously?
Great question. The key there is making sure that you have key strategic suppliers And many of them, so that you at least have some flexibility and ability to move should they go in either direction, I. E, the commodity. And then obviously, we work with our suppliers
And then Final one for me, if I could sneak one for me sneak one in. This was for Neepul. Working capital represented Pretty meaningful use of cash during Q1. How are you thinking about it over the course of the rest of the year? Should we expect Working capital to represent a source of cash?
Or do you think it's going to continue to be a use of cash in Q2 through Q4? Thank you.
Yes. Hey, Kashy. So Q1, the reason it was a source was related to the linearity and the ITC order placements and the prepayments in Q4. So we Fully expected that as we ramp up for the build seasons here in Q2 and Q3, we expect a little bit of use, but then by Full year, we expect it to be a total source of cash.
Okay. Full year is total source. Got it. Okay. Thank you.
Our next question is from the line of Jeff Osborne with Cowen. Please proceed with your question.
Good afternoon, guys. Most of them have been asked, but a couple. I might have missed this, but you were referencing the open contracts in response to Brian's Are 100% of the contracts outstanding open or is there a portion that are closed just due to the terms and conditions?
There's a portion that are closed, Jeff.
I assume it's not that meaningful though relative to the open, Given the nature of the conversation, is that fair?
That's a fair assessment.
Okay. And then a couple for Neepo. I was wondering if you can comment on what The comparison was safe harbored revenue from Q1 of last year just as you flagged the year over year tough comps. Is there a way you can quantify that?
Yes, sure. So Q1 of 2020, we had about $300,000,000 of Safe Harbor shipments. And In Q1 2021, this current quarter, it was about $100,000,000
Got it. And then, how should we think about the OpEx trajectory from here? It came in a little bit higher than I was modeling at least. Is this a good run rate for the rest of the year? Or as you're still building out the team internationally in the new Phoenix Center, should that continue to rise?
We expect it to be in the range of this quarter. As we continue to invest, it will be a slight rise, but it will be in this range of the current quarter.
Perfect. And then just two quick ones on the steel side. Is there any perspective you can give in terms of lower Steel usage in terms of pounds or kilograms per unit over time, is there an ability to take steel out of the unit? That's question 1. And then question 2 on Steel front, is there inflation on the galvanization of the steel?
So I think the 50% comment was the raw But I wasn't sure in terms of your suppliers that are then galvanizing the steel for you. Is there cost inflation there as well?
Yes, Jeff, the galvanization is inclusive to the metric that we gave you surrounding costs. And then to your former question surrounding Yes, that's part of our DNA when it comes to value engineering. We're always looking for opportunities to improve our bill of materials, making it more cost effective.
Perfect. That's all I had. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
At this time, we've reached the end of our question and answer
prepared remarks for the concluding statement here and that is the headwinds we face from these commodity and shipping cost increases. We definitely I feel we're well prepared and positioned and are executing to the plans that we have outlined. And solar remains to be very strong. We continue to build relationships with our customers and supplier and we're going to continue to work with them on a daily basis. So with that, we're fully committed.
We certainly appreciate your time. And with that, I'll turn it back to the operator to close.
Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time.