Time, I'll read them off. With that, I'll let our presenter take things away. We have Vince Arnone, CEO of the firm. Vince, please go ahead.
Michael, thank you very much. I'd like to thank everyone for joining the webinar today. As Michael noted, my name is Vince Arnone. I'm Fuel Tech's President and CEO. Today happens to be my 26th anniversary with the company. My how time flies, but it's been an exciting 26 years. I want to thank everyone for joining today. Let's talk a little bit about Fuel Tech. Today we operate within two primary business segments, and we are focusing on a developmental business opportunity as well. The business segments, which I will go into much greater detail here on subsequent slides, are air pollution control and FUEL CHEM. We also call that chemical technologies. Our developing business opportunity is called DGI, which stands for Dissolved Gas Infusion.
Fuel Tech as a company has been in existence for, right now it's actually closer to 40 years. We've been a public company since approximately 1987 timeframe. We have developed an extraordinary solid brand name for the company over that past 40 years based upon the environmental solutions that we've been providing to our end markets. We're definitely a global company. We do our business outside of two office locations. First of all, our primary headquarters is just outside of the Chicago area. We also have an office that's located just outside of Milan in Italy, that represents our European presence. We've done business in many, many countries around the world, via the partners that we've done business with. We have over 1,300 installations over the course of that approximate 40-year timeframe.
As we sit here today, we have an extraordinarily strong balance sheet. Our financial position is very sound. We have approximately $31 million in cash on our balance sheet, and we do not have any outstanding debt. For 2025, we are looking at a nice year of improvement for the company from a revenue perspective, targeting approximately $30 million in revenues, which is a nice increase over prior year and actually improved performance over the past several years as well. We ended Q1 with actually the highest backlog for our air pollution control business than we have had in literally three years' timeframe. We are working through a business and operating a landscape that today is actually the best that it has been in probably six to seven years. Very happy to be speaking with everyone today.
On a high level, we provide emissions control solutions to end markets, primarily for nitrogen oxides emissions. I will talk about that in a little bit more detail. That is the essence of our air pollution control business. We mentioned water treatment. Water treatment is actually our developing business. I mentioned DGI. I'll give you more details on that shortly. We have a very strong financial position today. We are going to be able to fund business development opportunities that we see could bolster our performance for either our base businesses or our developmental business or other opportunities that we might see come our way here in the near term. Today we are a company of just over 70 employees. We are a lean organization. We do not manufacture anything ourselves.
Over the years, we've developed a supply chain of reputable suppliers that help to support manufacturing and fabrication of our products that we actually provide to our end markets. We have an SG&A infrastructure that we can leverage as we look to grow our top line. Our pollution control technologies have been state-of-the-art, and we've been delivering these, as I've mentioned, for three decades plus. We continue to be a leader in providing these technologies to end markets. Our businesses today, we believe, both have opportunities driven by some of the market forces that are in place. Today, most folks are pointing to the fact that this country and other parts of the world are going to be short of power generation as we look out five to ten years.
The demands for power generation, driven by AI and, and other needs, are requiring the development of incremental sources of power generation. This could provide excellent upside for our businesses as we look towards this next handful of years. Lastly, DGI, it's, it, it's a, it's a startup opportunity for us. We are not commercial with this technology. It's an advanced aeration technology, but we have significant high hopes that, that we can turn, turn it into a commercial business here in the near term. Financial highlights. I'll just hit the couple of points that, that are most evident. Bottom, left-hand, quarter there, a quarter of the screen, that's where you see our cash, cash equivalents. Again, as I said, just over $31 million at the end of Q1 of this year. We are, again, as I mentioned, looking at improved revenue performance for 2025, a nice uptick over 2024.
Gross margin performance is nicely improved thus far in this year. We're hopeful that that does stay consistent throughout the remainder of 2025. From an SG&A perspective, we're looking at flat to slightly higher here in 2025, versus 2024, but no material modifications expected. I mentioned our backlog at the end of Q1, just over $10 million. It's the highest backlog we've had in three years. This is just a pictorial of the scope of air pollution control products that we're able to provide to a power generation site. I'm not going to work through these in detail. Over our three decades in business, we've continued to build product offerings to be able to provide a nice full suite of technologies to our customers and end markets.
What's unique to Fuel Tech, historically, is that we have done some advanced mathematical modeling. It's computational fluid dynamic modeling that we developed internally within Fuel Tech over the course of many years. We've used this math modeling to be able to predict our product's performance at our customer sites. With every solution that we provide to an end customer, we sign up to contractual performance guarantees. It's this modeling capability combined with our database of experience that we've had with that 1,300-unit count that enables us to guarantee our product performance to our end customer base. That, combined with Fuel Tech's dedication and support of meeting our customer needs and holistic approach to our customer base, whereby we're just not looking to provide our solution to the customer and walk away.
We are looking to educate our customer base with regard to not just our solution, but with how our solutions can impact that customer environment and actually provide them with benefit on a long-term basis. This use of modeling has provided us with a competitive advantage over the years. We're looking to apply this type of technology towards our dissolved gas infusion initiative as well. Again, our three business offerings, if you will, air pollution control, nitrogen oxides reductions is the primary focus. APC is a capital project-based business, whereby we go ahead and look to win the contract award. Then we execute and start up that system for the customer. Then we look to go ahead and win additional awards prospectively. Chemical technologies is a different business model. It's a recurring revenue business model.
We actually inject a specialty chemical inside that furnace or boiler. This is predominantly for coal-fired units. Our program prevents the buildup of slagging and fouling on the inside of that boiler. It is a recurring revenue business opportunity. Dissolved gas infusion, from a business model perspective, we believe it could ultimately go either as a capital project sale or as a recurring revenue/leasing opportunity. I think the end markets that we actually look to address will drive the business model that is most applicable. Some of our business drivers for these business segments, I talked about the increasing demand for power generation. It is real.
We're seeing it reflected in projects that are coming to market for power generation for data centers, power generation for grid enhancement, just to support the increased demand that is expected over this next five-to-10-year timeframe. As a result of the need for power, we are seeing coal-fired units have extension of life. Units that had planned to shut down in 2025 are now being extended. It could be 2028, it could be 2030, it could be 2035. Because of the need for reliable power generation, we are seeing the extension of coal-fired life. Data center construction is real in support of AI. Fuel Tech had the opportunity to participate in a data center project that was built in the Northwest US back in 2017-2018 timeframe. Fabulous opportunity for us.
We actually provided 20 units of SCR contract value of almost $20 million for that data center project. Now we are seeing resurgence of data center projects once again. Today, we are in the process of bidding on multiple projects for data center opportunities. It provides us with a great deal of optimism about what could come later this year and as we move into 2026 and beyond. Okay. Regulatory drivers, we are not seeing any new regulation come to bear with current administration in place. We are not expecting any new regulations that will come to bear that will provide driver for us.
However, existing regulation that is in place today is sufficient to provide us with what I would call good solid base business opportunities for air pollution control, and also for some growth opportunities that we're seeing on the data center side. Internationally, there are regulations in place in Europe and in other parts of the world that are providing us with business opportunities today as well. No new near-term drivers on the regulatory front that could come sometime down the road. Last point as it relates to water and wastewater treatment. Water is a scarce resource and is becoming more and more so with every passing day.
We believe our DGI technology is going to have a play longer term as, as we see more and more of a focus on, on the reuse of water in society, around the world. More specifically on air pollution control, as I mentioned, it is a capital project-based business. We have a suite of technologies that we provide to the market here on the nitrogen oxide side of the business. We have a lower capital cost solution and a more efficient, higher capital cost solution. One is called SNCR. The other one is called SCR. We are providing both technologies into end markets today on a global basis. We also offer particulate matter control technologies, flue gas conditioning, and we work with ESP design as well, electrostatic precipitator design. All technologies are viable and active today.
Project pipelines, range of $50 million-$75 million in pipeline type of activity, could be larger than that if I factored in some of the larger scale data center opportunities that we are looking at today. We had a great start to the year. We have almost $6 million in new awards that have come into our hand in Q1. We are expecting more awards to come our way as we move throughout Q2 and into the second half of this year. These numbers here do not reflect any large scale data center type contracts that could come our way. Those could range anywhere from $5 million-$20 million in nature. In any event, we are seeing the best landscape of APC project opportunity on an overall global basis than we've seen in probably seven to eight years.
We're focusing on that very, very closely. As I mentioned, I won't go through here in too much detail. On the nitrogen oxide side, we have different levels of emissions reduction targets that we can address. Again, with different types of technologies, selective non-catalytic reduction works without the use of an SCR catalyst to help with the chemical reaction. SNCR works with the injection of a chemical. Basically, it's an ammonia-based chemical that enables us to provide the chemical reaction in that flue gas stream in very specific temperature zones that we determine based upon the modeling that we do to achieve the desired reductions that can be provided.
With SCR, we actually still have to have a source of ammonia, but that source of ammonia is passed through an SCR catalyst, again, to get the chemical reaction that we're looking to achieve for the customer base. On the particulate matter side, again, we help with flue gas conditioning. Flue gas conditioning helps treat the reactivity of ash particles in a flue gas stream so that they are more capable of being captured by downstream pollution control technologies, that being the electrostatic precipitator. These technologies can be provided in tandem as well to provide enhanced benefit to the end customer base. As I mentioned, 1,300+ systems on the APC side of the equation, and a great deal of experience here.
The landscape of project opportunity has changed over time as we've seen the primary source of fuel for power generation change from coal towards natural gas. Fortunately, our product line works with natural gas opportunities as well. As you can see in the pictorial, the great majority of the revenues that we are generating on a project-based basis is actually coming from natural gas-based opportunities. All of the new build that we're seeing for new power generation is natural gas-based. We have the ability to play in that new build opportunity that's coming here, within this country and around the world. Chemical technologies, this program, this business segment predominantly focused on coal-fired units. 95+% of the revenue that we generate is from coal-fired units.
At one point in time, this business generated close to $50 million in recurring revenue every year at gross margins of greater than 50%. Today, with the reduction of coal-fired power generation in this country, this year, we're looking at approximately $15-$16 million in revenue generation. It still will be at that approximate 50% gross margin level. It is still generating significant cash flow for our company. It is a very important business segment for us. We were fortunate at the end of last year. We added one additional coal-fired unit to our base fleet of customers. As a result, 2025 is showing a nice uptick in revenue versus 2024. We are looking at an opportunity later on this year to perhaps demonstrate at another new coal-fired customer account.
Hopefully, as we look to end this year and move into 2026, we'll have an additional customer to be part of our base for the 2026 generation year. The chemical technology opportunity is limited in nature, and our program does not work for all applications. Our program is most successful when the boilers are running at high levels of capacity and for longer periods of time, and when they are utilizing a source of fuel that the boiler was not designed to utilize. In situations whereby the units are running hard because of regional dispatch requirements or seasonal requirements as well, and if they're trying to use a lower cost coal fuel, they're more likely to have the scenario whereby the unit slags up more quickly than it should and has to shut down for some very destructive cleaning.
If that happens at a point in time when this unit is supposed to be generating at high loads during a high winter or summer demand, that unit's losing significant opportunity to generate profitability for that unit's owner. That is where we are most effective at providing a benefit to the end customer. Just an example, pictorial example here. Again, we mathematically model these solutions as well. Middle of the screen, you can see the molten slag forming on the inside of that boiler. After our treatment, we have tubes that are now clean and have clean flow paths. This technology also works on oil-fired units.
We are looking at an opportunity to expand our program down in Mexico, where they are burning very high sulfur fuel, down in Mexico at this point in time as part of their portfolio of power generation. We are hoping that the new administration down in Mexico is going to have a stronger focus on mitigating some of their pollution from utilizing this high sulfur fuel. We can actually help them with that problem. Lastly, here with dissolved gas infusion, it's a new initiative for us. We've been working on looking to bring this technology to marketplace over this past few years at this point in time. We have had successful demonstrations at an aquaculture site, and we have actually demonstrated at a municipal wastewater site as well. Our technology is an advanced aeration technology.
We infuse water with a high concentration of gas, predominantly oxygen, and then we deliver that highly concentrated gas-laden solution into the wastewater treatment process with the intention of helping biological and chemical reactions work more effectively and more expediently to address the customer's issues. That's the intention of DGI. Every wastewater treatment facility requires oxygenation in some form or another, whether it be surface aerators or other solutions. Our solution is novel in how we deliver it. Our solution is novel in the high concentration of gas that we are providing to that wastewater treatment process. At a high level, first under pressure, we have a patented saturator whereby we actually infuse the gas into the water. Okay. Then secondly, we actually then inject that gas-laden water into the wastewater treatment process.
Our injection system is patent pending, not patented quite yet, but we're developing some solid IP in this area to support this technology as well. The benefits and markets are wide. We have done one aquaculture demonstration back in 2023. We're just about to start up on our second demonstration at a fish hatchery out in the Northwest US. That demonstration is actually going to be starting early next month. It is actually a trout hatchery that we're going to be working with. The trout hatchery is actually looking to build a greenfield hatchery site, and they'd like to use a new technology as their oxygenation source for this greenfield site. We are going to be demonstrating at an existing site, starting again early next month.
The opportunities that we have for end markets, water and wastewater treatment, municipal wastewater treatment plants, agriculture potentially as well, food and beverage reservoirs, lakes, landfill, leachate. The end markets are large. We're just starting with trying to put this into end markets. We need to have documented science-based demonstrations in hand that we can use as a basis to go to market. As I mentioned, we did demonstrate that at an aquaculture site, and we actually have put a white paper out there in support of that second demonstration here, starting early in this coming month. In wrap up, we are looking at some of the best opportunities that we've had for our company since the 2018-2019 timeframe.
On the APC side of the equation, our order flow has been solid to start this year. We expect more to come, but we're really, really excited about what could come next with the power generation buildout that we are seeing in, in support of data centers and, and grid support as well in this country and different parts of the world. Chemical technologies, we're not seeing or we're not expecting significant growth, but we do have opportunities to add additional recurring revenue. And DGI, we think a wonderful opportunity to perhaps add a third business segment here not too far into the future. Financially, I mentioned our balance sheet extraordinarily strong with greater than $30 million in cash and no debt. We are expecting a good year of performance here in 2025, which is a nice improvement over recent financial performance past.
The backlog we have in hand today is the best we have seen in three years. I think we are well positioned to go ahead and turn Fuel Tech back into profitability as we look at 2025 and beyond. I will not touch on the financials. I just talked about them. With that, I will look to close the discussion. Michael, I will look to turn this back into your hands.
Very interesting events. Thank you for that. You have an interesting portfolio of technologies. Maybe if we could just come back to the capabilities you have to service data centers. Yes. I am guessing that those are effectively custom builds for each center, or is it in any way plug and play? Yeah.
Once we actually have a functional design for a turbine of a certain size and capacity, at that point in time, it can become plug and play. Every turbine of a certain size or different OEM is going to require a specific design. Once we do have that design in hand and developed for that particular turbine, now you can generate plug and play and multiple units at a site or differing sites, and it becomes more of a plug and play opportunity for us. Excellent. You gave a forecast there of revenue from a data center would be from $5 million-$20 million, something like that. Yes.
What would be the, and I don't wanna hold you to it, so don't bother to be exact, but, just what's the range of a gross margin that we could expect from a data center?
Right. From a data center perspective, again, depending on the turbine size that's being applied, our per unit price could range from $1 million to maybe as high as $2.5 million. You just take multiples of that to come to your full contract value. To your margin question, our historical APC margins are in the 30-35% range, gross margin margins on those projects. If we're going to do a multiple plug and play, I wouldn't necessarily expect that we would generate maybe that high of a level, level of margin for a one-off custom system.
We'd probably pull that down as an expectation a little bit there for multiple units going to a site.
Interesting. It looks like so much of the company's background has been in air pollution, but then you had a number of interesting water pollution, water conditioning technologies that you showed there in your deck. What do you think would jumpstart growth of that particular side of the business?
Yeah. For our DGI side of the business to really start to take off, we need to have in hand demonstrated success criteria with an end market or multiple end markets that we can use as the basis to have confidence to then explode ourselves into end markets with additional personnel and perhaps the buildout of additional systems as well to have at the ready to be able to address customer needs.
We're not there quite yet. We need to have that demonstrated success, with hopefully the support of a very pleased customer that will jointly help us go to market with that success.
Interesting. Coming back to the air pollution side, everybody can see a demand for increased power generation. That's gotta be good news for you. Is there a risk there of relaxing regulatory requirements, so they wouldn't have to be as rigorous about, you know, emissions?
Always a risk from that perspective. I commented a little bit on regulation previously. We're pretty confident that we won't see new regulation that ratchets down any emissions reductions requirements.
What the EPA has currently in place today, we believe is fairly solid, and we don't believe that that is going to be pulled back to eliminate the requirements for any of this new power generation build to have at least that base requirement for pollution control remediation on that new build, if you will, for power generation. We are watching that very closely. If we see that complete pullback on even the basic form of environmental regulation, that would be a sea change that would impact many, many, many companies, not just Fuel Tech, if that comes to bear. We are not expecting that today.
Very good. Very interesting, Vince. I wish we had more time. Unfortunately, we are out of time. Let me thank you again for a very informative presentation. Thanks also to all of our participants.
If you have additional questions, 'cause I know we didn't get to too many, please let your COD representative know. We'll run down answers for you. Again, everybody, thanks for participating. Vince, thank you for presenting.
Michael, thank you.
Thank you. Thanks to everyone.