Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining H.C. Wainwright's 27th Annual Investment Conference. On behalf of H.C. Wainwright, it's our pleasure to introduce Vince from Fuel Tech.
Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Vincent Arnone. I'm Fuel Tech's President and CEO. I want to thank everyone for joining for the conference and for joining for my presentation today. Let's talk about Fuel Tech. Fuel Tech is a company that's been in business for actually close to 40 years now. We've developed a very strong brand name over that almost four-decade time frame, focusing on two primary business areas, one being air pollution control, where we focus on reducing harmful emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels. Secondly, FUEL CHEM, which we call Chemical Technologies. That's a specialty chemical program that we inject into furnaces and boilers to remove slagging and fouling from the burning of coal. We have a developing business that is pre-revenue. We call it DGI, Dissolved Gas Infusion. That business is an advanced aeration technology.
I'll talk about all three of them in more detail over these next 20 minutes. We've installed more than 1,300 systems on a global basis. That's the basis for our brand name recognition. Today, we operate out of two offices, one just outside of the Chicago area, and we also have a small European presence just outside of Milan. Our systems are installed worldwide. This year, we're actually at a little bit of an uptick in our financial performance. Revenue is targeted at $28 to $29 million this year, a slight increase from 2024, which was an increase over 2023. Our balance sheet is quite strong as we sit here today, $31 million in cash on the balance sheet, no debt. As of today, we have an effective backlog of around $10 million, which is for our air pollution control side of the business.
That's the highest effective backlog that we've had in about three or four years. We're operating in a solid fashion today. High level, when you look at why some would be interested in investing in Fuel Tech. Again, long-term provider of pollution control solutions for all industries, for any application that is going to be combusting a fossil fuel. That could be coal, could be natural gas, could be oil, could be waste. Financial position I just talked about, very solid in terms of where we stand today. We have the ability to leverage our SG&A infrastructure. As a company, we don't manufacture anything ourselves. We provide engineering design solutions. We have a supply chain in place that enables us to go ahead and have our systems fabricated, manufactured, and then delivered to our customer sites. We have the ability to leverage SG&A.
As our revenues grow, a lot of that margin from those revenues will drop to the bottom line prospectively. Our primary claim to fame is with removal of nitrogen oxides. That's what we've done as our base business for, again, close to four decades today. It's apropos today as we're talking about a very significant planned build-out of power generation in this country and around the world as well, in support of AI, in support of cryptocurrency mining, in support of general data needs. We're expecting the ability to be able to play in end markets to the extent that these developments actually do come to fruition. Today, along those lines, we have a sales pipeline that's the largest that we've actually seen in literally 10 years.
The bids we have outstanding are directly related to new power generation developments, specifically for data center build-out in this country and in other countries as well. The largest sales pipeline we've had in more than a decade today. In addition to that, I did mention that we have a developing business in Dissolved Gas Infusion. It's pre-revenue today. We have demonstrations in place, and I'll talk about those more in a little bit. High level on the financial side of the equation. Let's go bottom left. We talked about our cash position. I'm very pleased with where we stand from a financial stability perspective. We've had about four consecutive years of being what I would call cash flow break-even. We're ready to take the next step to generate operating income and to generate cash flow.
We believe the landscape of opportunity that we have in front of us is going to enable us to do that. On the revenue side, through the first half year of 2025, about parity versus 2024, we are expecting that to build in the second half of 2025 to the point whereby we will, in 2025, exceed 2024 revenues. Gross margins are stable overall at 46%. That's a blend between the two business segments. SG&A stable as well year on year. We're a very different company than we were a decade ago. We used to be a company of $100 million plus in revenues, with a labor force of around 240 to 250 employees. Today, you saw our top line, $28 to $29 million. Today, we actually have 72 employees. About a decade ago, our end markets changed dramatically, 10 years plus.
The coal-fired marketplace in this country, which used to be a strong source of revenue for Fuel Tech, became not that same strong source of revenue for us. We had to restructure. I became CEO actually in 2015. I've been CEO 10 years now. My responsibility was to align the company's SG&A infrastructure with what end markets were offering us, hence our need to go ahead and change the complete structure of the company today. This is where we stand. Bottom right, we're looking at backlog levels. You see $7.8 million as of June year to date. We did announce over $3 million in contracts here within this past two to three-week time frame. Our effective backlog as of today is indeed greater than $10 million. High-level picture, we offer basically pollution control solutions through all aspects of the boiler environment.
I'm not going to work through all of the technologies in detail. That would take a little bit too long. Over the years, through acquisition, we've acquired additional technologies that give us the ability to deliver a nice suite of products and services to our customer base. What we believe is unique to Fuel Tech is that historically, what's given us our basis to provide performance guarantees for every single one of our contracts is we actually do computational fluid dynamic modeling for all of our applications. This enables us to go ahead and determine where precisely we inject a chemical into that boiler to affect a chemical reaction that then produces the desired outcome in terms of nitrogen oxide reduction. We've been doing that for our technologies for the past 30 years.
We're actually going to look to do the same type of technological approach for water and wastewater treatment as well. A little more detail as we go into the operating platforms. APC, capital project-based business. It's the scenario whereby we bid on work, we win the contract, we then execute on that contract, and then we move on to another site or another opportunity. We have to win that contract again. The chemical technology business is a recurring revenue business. Whenever we ship that specialty chemical to a customer site, we recognize revenue. It's a nice recurring revenue opportunity for us. DGI, DGI could go a variety of different ways in terms of the business model. It could be a capital project sale. It could be a long-term lease or rental opportunity as well. Given that we are pre-revenue, we're exploring all of our opportunities at this point in time.
What are the drivers for our business today? I mentioned this a couple of minutes ago. There is a very strong increase in demand for power generation. Our focus is predominantly in the U.S., but we're going to see it in other parts of the world as well. The demand for power is a level of build-out of infrastructure that we have not seen in this country in literally decades. There isn't a day that goes by where we're not hearing about either a utility or a hyperscaler talking about investing in a build-out of power generation. This is going to be a significant driver for Fuel Tech's businesses prospectively. What we're seeing is because of that demand for power, just as a general statement, we're seeing extension of life of coal-fired units that are operational today.
Not all of this power is going to be able to be built within a three to four to five to seven-year time frame. The grid is going to have to rely on extending life of coal-fired units. That also bodes well for our technologies, in particular our FUEL CHEM technology. I talked about what's happening on the data center construction side of the equation, that that's happening today. That's an area where we are looking to play. It provides the largest growth opportunity that we've seen for our company in literally 10 to 12 years. Regulation, with the administration today, we are not expecting to see any new regulation that would provide for incremental reductions in pollution. In fact, it's probably the opposite. What we're seeing is this administration is looking to pull back on certain areas.
There was something that came out, executive order talking about limiting or eliminating CO2 emissions. Fine that may happen, that does not impact Fuel Tech's business. Nitrogen oxides are not a greenhouse gas emission. That's not going to impact us. The only way we get impacted is if there's a pullback on some of the longstanding Clean Air Act amendments and if there's a pullback on what's already in place in some state and local municipalities as well. We're not expecting that to happen at all. On the water side, we're talking more and more about water reuse just as a general statement. That bodes well for all water cleaning or cleansing technologies. Air pollution control in more detail. As I mentioned, it is a capital project-based business.
Our suite of technologies is generally a lower capital cost product offering that we provide to our end customers, and it has a range of possible emissions reductions depending on what that client needs for their application. Our pipeline today, as I mentioned previously, is the largest we've seen in quite a few years. As I noted, we just were awarded a little over $3 million in new APC projects here within this past two weeks. I am expecting as a company for us to close an additional three to five is the range in additional capital project awards for APC before the end of 2025. That would be exclusive of anything that could come our way from a data center opportunity. The data center opportunities are larger scale contract opportunities. I'll talk about that a little bit more as well.
Three primary technologies that are in play for us are Selective Catalytic Reduction, Selective Non-Catalytic Reduction, and a technology that was developed by Fuel Tech called ULTRA. ULTRA is a safe conversion of urea to ammonia at a customer site. Ammonia is required to effectuate the reduction of nitrogen oxides. There are some plants today that have large storage tanks of ammonia on site, and that's a hazard. In order to avoid that hazard, they can use our ULTRA technology and actually convert urea, which is fertilizer basically, to ammonia at the site as that ammonia is needed real time for that SCR or SNCR application. We've sold probably close to 200 ULTRA systems. We're seeing more interest in that technology in the United States today.
We've actually sold more ULTRA in China than we have in the U.S., which is interesting. Here are some of the range of solutions we have here for APC. As I mentioned, on the nitrogen oxide side of the equation, we can actually combine technologies to achieve higher levels of reduction. Nitrogen oxide reductions for SNCR are typically from the 20% to 40% to 50% range. You see that in actually 25% to 50% on the bottom. SCR systems 90% plus. The more difficult the application is, the better we fare as it relates with competition in our industry because we've been doing this for four decades and our reputation is quite strong for how we develop process design solutions for our customer base. The other APC technology that we focus on is it's a particular reduction technology.
It's called flue gas conditioning, whereby we actually treat flue ash with a combination of sulfur and ammonia, and then those particles become more catchable, if you will, by electrostatic precipitators. I am stuck. Can you advance me, please? Thank you very much. I appreciate it. OK. Got it. Oops. That sounds fine. Oh, there you go. Thank you very much. This is just a depiction of how integrated our NOx reduction solutions can be. I discussed the combination of these technologies on the prior slide, but our greatest experience lies in nitrogen oxide reduction solutions. Can you advance me, please? Thank you. Over the past several years, it's a dramatic change in terms of the fuel source that we are providing our technology to. Over the past several years, the great majority of our APC revenues are driven by natural gas applications.
If you were to look at this same slide seven to eight to 10 years ago, the great majority of our revenues would be driven by coal-fired required solutions. Our technologies are definitely saleable and functional across all fossil fuels. Today, natural gas is dominating the marketplace for our applications. Please. Some commentary on the data center and marketplace. This is really no surprise to everyone given what's going on in the marketplace today and what's in the news on a regular basis. Data center growth is extraordinary. The demand is going to increase by 50% by 2027 and 165% by the end of the decade. Just extraordinary numbers. OK. On the next slide, we're providing selective catalytic reduction for this end marketplace.
As I mentioned previously, as a company, given our size, we're able to scale quickly because internally we do the engineering design solution externally through our supply chain. We actually go ahead and fabricate and manufacture our equipment. That gives us the ability to take our engineering designs across multiple members of our supply chain and execute along those lines. We can scale up our top line dramatically with the infrastructure we have today. Point of note on the bottom, just to give you a magnitude of some of these contracts, data center sizes will vary. What we'll see is there are multiple gas turbines per data center site. It could be one, could be as high as 25, depending on the size of that gas turbine in terms of the megawatts that it's looking to generate.
Our price point for an SCR solution can vary between $1 million per unit to $5 million per unit. You can see now the magnitude of what a contract can mean for Fuel Tech. A 10-unit solution could be $10 million. It could be as high as $50 million for a data center contract. It's a different ballgame for us altogether. Please. Just points of note here in terms of I get questions all the time. Why aren't pollution controls on every single gas turbine at every single data center site? There are drivers in terms of what requires the need for the pollution control solution. Number one, site location. Is that site in a state that's in an attainment or a non-attainment area for, call it, for the Clean Air Act amendments?
If indeed that site's in a non-attainment area, that site is more likely going to require pollution control solutions to be in compliance. What is that source going to be for power generation? Is it a primary source for the site? Is it going to be a backup source for that site? If it's primary power and that site's going to be running, that power generation is going to be running 24/7, day in, day out, it's going to require some sort of pollution control solution. If those turbines are backup in nature, in all likelihood, it might not require a pollution control solution. That determination will depend on the permitting that's required and how many hours those units are going to be scheduled to run. The more they're scheduled to run, the more likely that they will need a pollution control solution.
Lastly, different turbines are capable of generating higher or lower numbers of NOx emissions. There are certain turbines that are more advanced with their combustion controls that they have in place on the turbine. If that's the case, they might not need a selective catalytic reduction on the back end. Other turbines will need that. There's a variety of items that come into play as to why pollution control would be needed, perhaps not be needed at a data center site. Please. FUEL CHEM, I need to move a little quickly, folks. Chemical technologies, 99% coal-fired unit application. We inject a specialty chemical into the boiler to reduce slagging and fouling. At its peak, this business back in 2013, 2014, it was a $50 million annualized revenue per year, generating 50% gross margins.
Because of the shutdown of coal-fired plants, this business today is forecasted to be $15 to $16 million in revenue for the year, also 50% gross margin. Still generates great, excuse me, gross margin and much-needed cash flow for Fuel Tech. There is the opportunity for this to grow, but on a minimal basis. Not every coal-fired unit needs this program to run on a recurring basis. This is a great business and a great business model for us. Let's go ahead, please. The primary reason this business exists is to reduce operational downtime. When you remove slagging and fouling from a unit, that unit does not have to come down for extended periods of time for destructive cleaning. If you have a unit that's running in the summer or winter when megawatt prices are at their peak, they don't want to come down.
It's at those points in time, those types of units that have to run more base loaded, particularly during summer and winter, they need our program. Please. An example of what the inner tubes of a boiler would look like, pre our program and post our program. Our program is basically designed to remove that slag that builds up on those internal tubes. Please. This is also chemical technology. This is on an oil-fired unit actually in Mexico. On the left, you're seeing a plume that's created by the burning of high sulfur fuel oil. On the right, our program actually eliminates that plume because of how we interact with the removal of SO3. Next, please. DGI, as I mentioned, pre-revenue, it's an advanced aeration technology. What we do is we take gas, oxygen as an example.
We actually inject that gas into water, into a fluid or solution, and then we target the injection of that gas-laden liquid into a body of water or a basin that needs to be treated. We're actually delivering a very highly saturated solution that has gas in it, oxygen, could be CO2, into a body of water that needs to be treated. Every single water and wastewater treatment plant or application needs oxygenation of some sort or another to enable chemical reactions and biological reactions. This is a new technology for us. It's taken us a little while to try to move it forward, but we believe it's going to have some application opportunity for us prospectively because the effectiveness of this is real, and we believe in the technology approach. Please. What can we do with this?
Right now, we're actually in the midst of demonstrating at an aquaculture site out in Utah. We just started the demonstration last month. What we're doing is literally within a two-foot basin of water, we're basically injecting this gas-laden oxygen into that water to maintain high levels of dissolved oxygen for that aquaculture growth cycle. Those folks that we're dealing with believe that maintaining DO levels within a range over a growth cycle are going to be beneficial for food health, food growth timing as part of that growth cycle, and just the overall process improvement for the operation. Aquaculture is not the only application for this. It could be municipal water. It could be industrial water and wastewater treatment as well. Please. Here we go. Those are end markets right there. I got ahead of myself.
Food and beverage, any application that has a wastewater treatment facility is a potential end market for this technology. Please. OK, let's see here. I talked about the demonstration that just started up. We actually did one prior aquaculture demonstration in 2024. This was a shrimp farming application, and we believe the technology worked very well there. Please. OK, coming to the summary at this point in time. APC offers the largest growth opportunity for our company today. I talked about the data set of opportunities for us at this point in time. It's the most exciting opportunity landscape that we've literally seen in more than a decade. Chemical technologies, there is opportunity for a little bit of growth here. We are looking at an additional coal-fired unit that we're going to demonstrate at in the fourth quarter of this year.
If that comes on board, it's a large coal-fired unit that could add $2 to $2.5 million in annualized revenue as we move into 2026. DGI, again, pre-revenue, demonstrations need to turn into commercial results. That's where we need to drive there. On the financial side, I talked about revenue, revenue opportunity. That excludes anything on the data center side of the equation. I think we're well positioned financially with our balance sheet as we sit here today. We have enough capital to invest in the development of these business segments. I think we're in a great situation today as a company. It's the best situation we've been in in a long time. Please. I'm going to end on that. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for your time.