Greetings, welcome to Energy Vault fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Laurence Alexander, Chief Marketing Officer for Energy Vault. Thank you. You may begin.
Thank you, and good afternoon, and welcome to Energy Vault's fourth quarter and fiscal year-end 2022 earnings conference call. As a reminder, Energy Vault's earnings release and an updated fourth quarter earnings presentation is available now on our investor website, and we will be referring to the presentation during this call. A replay of this call will be available later today on the investor relations page of our website. This call is now being recorded. If you object in any way, please disconnect now. Please note that Energy Vault's earnings release and this call contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risk and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements are only estimates and may differ materially from the actual future events or results due to a variety of factors.
We caution everyone to be guided in their analysis of Energy Vault by referring to our 10-K filing for a list of factors that could cause our results to differ from those anticipated in any forward-looking statement. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements except as required by law. In addition, please note that we'll be presenting and discussing certain non-GAAP information. Please refer to the safe harbor disclaimer and the non-GAAP financial measures presented in our earnings release for more details, including a reconciliation to comparable GAAP measures. Joining me on the call today is Robert Piconi, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Jan Kees van Gaalen, our Chief Financial Officer. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Robert Piconi.
Laurence, thank you, thanks to everybody for joining the call today. Just a few weeks ago, we finished our first year as a publicly listed company. A year that saw us launch in February while delivering our first $146 million in revenue throughout the year. $100 million of which was achieved in Q4 alone due to strong execution and customer focus by our people. In our first start to deployments and project revenue. I was on the floor of the NYSE two weeks ago with Judy Shaw from the New York Stock Exchange, who was interviewing me for a year-end review perspective, as we had met the year before during the IPO. It really struck me to step back and look at all that was accomplished. Starting the year having strategic investors like Korea Zinc.
Atlas Renewable step into the IPO with an additional $100 million of investment from the start. Immediately breaking ground on our first EVx gravity system outside of Shanghai in March 2022 were the highlights of the first quarter. Note that this first 25 MW, 100 MWh system, once operating this year, will be only one of two operating long-duration energy storage systems at this scale that is not a pumped hydroelectric facility. It really just shows you that the energy storage industry is still in its infancy, particularly for longer duration, which is in its own early development stages. We're real excited to show the world what we're capable of here as the EVx system comes online this year.
Sticking with gravity, we broke ground in Snyder, Texas, in September with Enel Green Power, with our first U.S.-based EVx system, and we finished the year signing more territory expansions and license royalty agreement territories outside the United States in Europe and the Middle East. All of which set the platform for future builds and subsequent high-margin royalty streams as the longer duration storage markets develop and become more important as renewables become a greater portion of our power generation. Turning to where there is much larger and immediate demand in the short-duration energy storage market, our EVS team executed with velocity and quality in development of our energy management system, enabling the signing of about 1.6 GWh of battery, hybrid, and green hydrogen energy storage projects with multiple regulated utility companies and some of the largest leading independent power players in the world.
This is further proof that customers see and value not only our differentiation in unique hardware architectures and software design, but perhaps most importantly, they recognize the seasoned operational and prior energy storage project experience of our team, trusting us to deliver on very large scale and complex projects as we will be turning over this year. The type of customers that we're working with do not take risks on execution, full stop. Their jobs are mission-critical, providing power. Our energy storage needs therefore have to support that, and we are excited this year to turn over our first systems. Our current backlog in awarded contracts now exceeds 5 GWh and approximately $2 billion. I could not be more proud in supporting the team here at Energy Vault.
We set some benchmarks in 2022 while executing well with a strong Q4 finish. Demonstrating significant market validation via our strategy across short, long, and ultra-long-duration storage wins across multiple storage mediums enabled through our software and innovative energy management system. We look to continue to build upon this momentum in 2023. Let's spend a minute here on Q4. Regarding Q4, we announced our 2022 revenue of approximately $146 million, which is within the midpoint of our pre-announced higher range of revenue, with gross margins of approximately 16%, reflecting a mix of Gravity licensed revenue from regional expansions in Europe and the Middle East, and execution on battery-related projects in the United States.
Our adjusted EBITDA of approximately -$11.4 million was slightly under our prior guidance, driven by upticks in investments in employees in Q4 to support the aggressive projects ramping into 2023, as well as some compensation-related expense given the overperformance achieved in Q4 and the year. Jan Kees will be reviewing more financial details of the Q4 performance shortly. Before we get there, I do wanna talk in some detail about the 2023 forecast, which I know many of you are very interested to understand. As we had already announced and pre-announced a stronger-than-expected Q4 revenue, I would like to spend some time talking about that forecast.
Before jumping into the specifics and our financial guidance, I first wanna outline our framework and philosophical approach as we begin to share more financial details with investors, transitioning from a first year in 2022 marked by large contract wins, announcements, and deployment starts with top utilities and global independent power providers to now in 2023, where we will be commissioning and turning over our first Gravity and battery energy storage systems globally. Let me first talk a little bit about the shape of the year and how we see our progress ramping.
As we saw in Q4 with the significant revenue upside achieved through executing ahead of schedule for a 275 MWh California deployment, we continue to expect a level of lumpiness in our results, which could result in potential timing shift quarter-to-quarter, really not unusual at all given our stage of executing on our first deployments as a company. Our outperformance in the fourth quarter is expected to result in successive quarterly growth ramps starting low double-digit million revenue to high double-digit revenue into Q2, and getting quickly into triple-digit revenue quarter-over-quarter in the second half of the year. Our second half of 2023 will thus represent our largest quarterly revenues in Q3 and Q4, coincident with our first project turnovers as expected and per contractual commitments to a progressive build to our year based on contracted bookings from 2022.
I wanna talk a little bit about some macro factors and talk about how those could potentially impact our forecast as well. We are approaching the revenue forecast that we've given, and specifically our cash and operating expense management, with a level of tightness and conservatism as we prudently plan for, one, continued uncertainty in the macro interest rate, inflationary environment, and thus general financial market volatility. Two, the potential for further regional impacts of COVID-related pandemic issues and work stoppages. Three, general supply chain and labor tightness. Four, the potential for geopolitical and unforeseen escalation that may occur. At the same time, and given our strong liquidity and cash position with no debt, we are well-positioned and poised to take advantage of the industry growth tailwinds for energy storage globally, and specific growth and economic accelerators in the U.S. market driven by the passage of the IRA.
We'll talk more about that in just a minute. Third, let's talk about how we're playing to our strengths. Compounding the momentum we're seeing across our business is our portfolio of proprietary and differentiated storage solutions that is unmatched in the market, and our unique ability to address short, long, and ultra-long duration needs across multiple customer use cases under the same asset management digital platform. The perspectives that we garner from our customers, from their short-term shifting needs, given peak demand cycles, to fossil fuel asset retirement tied to longer duration needs, and even very specific regional needs for backup and microgrid solutions requiring ultra-long or multi-day storage, are all contributing to fortify Energy Vault's role as a true strategic partner, helping our customers manage through this complexity.
In fact, we're very proud to have recently had our energy management system selected by one of the largest U.S. public utilities over other current leading platforms, which we believe demonstrates our innovation, our advantaged economics, and the velocity of our Energy Vault Solutions team. Fourth, I'd like to talk about the IRA, which was really a game changer to our industry, and just really refreshing to see the United States lead in this area, given the priority on solving the climate change problem. First to note that we haven't baked any of its expected benefits into our current forecast. In the U.S. market in particular, we uniquely can take direct advantage of the IRA, monetizing one, the ITC, which represents up to 50% CapEx reduction thanks to our domestic content and project site in energy communities as defined.
For our gravity projects in particular, given we can be 100% domestic content and for the projects that we initially own for gravity. In addition, the advanced manufacturing credit, which is a $45 per kWh for our hybrid green hydrogen storage solutions that we integrate deliver under EPC contracts. While the general energy storage market is made up of players that are more single-threaded in their technology and selling into broader growth trends, Energy Vault uniquely can capture significant direct benefits on top of the broader market growth for projects we may initially own. We have optimized our strategy to do just that, pending the treasury guidance that we expect is forthcoming, especially with our gravity energy storage portfolio, given its optimal positioning enabled through the IRA for the U.S. market.
Just to remind, we are not currently including these benefits in our forecast for revenue, cash, or margin as we await final guidance from the Treasury Department on the actual mechanics. We strongly believe the legislation, as intended, can and will have significant benefits to our company in an outsized way. Fifth, I'd like to dig in a bit more on the unit economics for our business, which is an area that many of you have asked about as we began our project deployments in 2022. As evidenced in our 2022 project wins, we will continue to generate higher returns than the industry average because we are continuing to focus on large projects with unique needs that we can match with our high energy storage solutions from a megawatt hour per acre high density and more efficient design for augmentation, as is the case with batteries.
No degradation in the storage medium, as is the case with our gravity energy storage solution, and for ultra-long durations in small footprints, as we did with our hybrid green hydrogen solution for PG&E. Generally, this means a move from the mid to high single growth margin % on our initial projects to mid-teen growth margin % across the board on all content and value added that we supply. In fact, our 2023 growth margins will reflect this as our projection reflects of 10%-15%. This includes allowing customers who wish to do so, or if we strategically decide to contract directly with suppliers to pass through product such as battery packages, and utilize the Energy Vault to deliver our proprietary hardware architecture across the gravity, battery, and hybrid systems, coupled with our energy management system.
Importantly, our business model and approach flexible to be able to adapt to each specific customer and project, whether customers choose to procure batteries on their own or not, for example. This may result in lower total revenues for some projects, but importantly, in those cases, we will be exclusively focused on the higher margin opportunity set associated with the project development, which we target in the mid-teen to 20% margin range. While our revenue will be growing in the 2x-3x range year-over-year, we are holding our OpEx flat off of our annualized Q4 2022 run rate as we exit the year.
This will allow us the potential to achieve positive adjusted EBITDA in Q4 2023 as we exit the year, assuming that we execute within the high end of the revenue range, and perhaps more importantly, allow us subsequently to enter 2024 on pace to achieve positive operating cash flow and adjusted EBITDA for full year 2024 results. Back to the specific 2023 guidance that we highlighted in our earnings announcement, sent out just 30 minutes ago.
We hold all of the factors above to influence our 2023 outlook, but have taken a very conservative baseline approach that we're adopting in how we forecast our business and felt it most prudent to take a very measured approach to 2023, especially given the significant second half revenue ramp that constitutes our range of $325 million-$425 million for the year. At the low end, our updated 2023 revenue forecast of $325 million reflects only contracted revenues already under execution with planned CODs within 2023. At the upper end of our range captures the potential associated with projects forecasted to be placed in service later in the year.
Some pending gravity and technology portfolio license agreements that are underway, other territory expansions, and other potential projects within the short listing or submission phase of our sales funnel. Importantly, we'd emphasize that even at the high end, we've adopted a level of conservatism that does not fully capture the various projects and discussions our team is working on. We plan to update this and refine this range throughout the year as we gain greater visibility on the development and completion of our large-scale projects. Additionally, as I noted earlier, our forecast does not assume any benefits as well from the pending IRA legislation, pending the Treasury guidance. Based upon the revenue forecast above and projects contracted and under development and deployment, we are projecting growth margins in the range of 10%-15% for 2023.
This expected growth margin outcome reflects a blend across our wide-ranging project slate, including gravity, battery, and hybrid green hydrogen projects. We believe it evidences our thoughtful approach to managing the returns of our business, as well as our ability to remain nimble and flexible in developing the right solution to our customers' energy storage needs. As mentioned above, we are holding our OpEx, our total operating expense, relatively flat to our fourth quarter 2022 annualized run rate, given the growth investments made in 2022. While this might be surprising, given the 2x-3x revenue ramp from 2022 to 2023, we believe this will enable more flexibility as we ramp the year and ability to continue to invest in the most attractive opportunities that present themselves.
Taken together, we're currently forecasting adjusted EBITDA in the range of -$50 million to $70 million in 2023. However, there's a significant amount of leverage within our range as we ramp into the second half of the year of between -$15 million to +$1.1 million, allowing us to potentially be adjusted EBITDA positive as we exit the year if revenue approaches the higher end of the range, thus entering 2024 with a platform for positive operating cash flow. One thing I want to iterate here at the end of some of the specific guidance is our primary focus for this year, which really hasn't changed on our focus from last year, which is executing to customer needs.
This year becomes even more critical in that regard as we will be turning over our first systems to customers and demonstrating not only our innovation in the development of technology, our innovation and execution capabilities deliver on time and on budget, but delivering a quality technical performance and operating performance for our customers for our initial gravity and battery energy storage systems that will be delivered and turned over this year. I want to talk also a little bit now about EVx and turning to some project-specific progress updates. Let's start in China, which is where we broke ground in March of last year with the first 100 MWh system. China continues to progress, and this success is leading to more opportunities for us in the Asia market, as you may have seen announced.
I'm really proud of the Atlas Renewable and the team from China Tianying as they have worked through two long COVID-related shutdowns, in particular in the Shanghai area, which is where Rudong is located, approximately 45 minutes outside of Shanghai. We've included in the investor presentation some additional pictures from Rudong, and you can see the extraordinary progress being made in such a short period of time. This is also further validation of EVx's economic and technological viability. In a few short years from 2017 and 2018 when we built the first 5 MW system in Switzerland, we have been able to develop the new EVx system in a new form factor, leveraging all of what was proven in Switzerland with a 5 MW system to an interconnected grid system.
To now to be close to be commercially developed in our first 25 MW and 100 MWh unit in Rudong, China, that, as I mentioned earlier, will be one of the first systems in the world in long duration at that scale that's not pumped hydro. We continue to be very excited about that and excited also about what we're implementing in that system. Let me give you a little bit of higher-level context as well as we see the present and future market segments for our EVx and how we are maximizing our opportunities for success. Let's start by segmenting the EVx market into two end-use types. The first segment is the utility grid uses, and the second being the industrial and microgrid uses.
The first segment for utility grids continues to be heavily biased in the current time to shorter duration needs and use cases that are currently being served as we are serving them with lithium-ion solutions. As time goes by and renewable power reaches a larger % of the overall power pool, the need for long duration will drive broader adoption of solutions like EVx and broader deployments. To address these market realities, we're establishing strategic relations early on with these same utilities that we're currently integrating some of the shorter duration projects where we've gained installed footprint. Our strategy is to expand these relationships in the future to include the EVx as their long-duration storage needs emerge and progress.
In fact, most of the utilities we're working with have those needs as they are shutting down some of their existing fossil fuel assets over time and will require longer duration storage solutions at the end of the existing grid. Shifting to the industrial and microgrid applications, we see a lot of strong interest today that requires durations of 8 to 12 hour and use cases accordingly, and are not well suited for existing shorter duration technologies like lithium-ion. We've talked a lot about our metals and mining investors and operations are great examples as they electrify their operations, and this has enabled us to work with our strategic partners such as Korea Zinc and BHP to develop ways to implement the EVx to decarbonize their operations.
Other segments, such as green hydrogen, that are emerging, as well as the strong demand required to meet the needs for sustainable aviation fuel, which is a market that we believe is gonna be in the multi-billions in the coming 5 to 10 years. In parallel with how we are addressing these segments, we are also executing 3 initiatives for us to extract both near-term and longer-term economic benefits from EVx. The first, as you might expect, is our continued cost reduction programs.
With the feedback, design, and construction of the EVx in Rudong, China, which follows all the learnings from Switzerland on our first grid-interconnected 5MW system in Arbedo-Castione, coupled again with the R&D efforts with our team in Switzerland and the United States, led by Andrea Pedretti and Chris Wiese, we continue to design, test, and validate the latest innovations to increase the economics of the EVx system. This includes leadership from Dr. José Andrade, who was a former PhD and head of the Seismic Studies Department at Caltech and joined us over 1 year ago, bringing tremendous expertise and research to help us continue to optimize the performance of that system.
I'm also pleased to share with you that we've retained the services of William Baker, the renowned engineer of the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai, which is the world's largest building at the height of over 2,700 feet. Bill will be applying his surpassed expertise in development of the world's most innovative high-rise structures to our optimization efforts. Also to specific customer opportunities where his presence and expertise will be welcomed and will also help us accelerate the permitting of the existing range of height of our structures and the potential to even accelerate those same heights of those structures. Within our Gravity focus, we have a team that's supported by over 70 team members. We're excited to see the development they're able to make throughout 2023 and look forward to share the details of their progress in the coming quarters.
Another initiative associated with our EVx systems, as we previously announced, are continued licenses and royalty programs that give us the opportunity for attractive recurring revenue at very high margins that will materially and positively impact our overall company blended margins. In addition to the announced opportunities in China and the follow-on opportunities alone in China of up to 6 GWh , as has been announced in the last 6 to 8 months, I am pleased to announce today two new EVx licensing partners in CITC, based in the UAE for Egypt, and also New Energy Keepers based in Greece to also develop the Cyprus market, which were signed in the fourth quarter.
We will continue to pursue these type of businesses globally to make EVx a meaningful margin contributor to the bottom line today while bridging to the future state of broader market adoption of longer-duration systems as the grid develops with more renewable power generation and therefore, the need to address the increased intermittency that comes with renewables. The third initiative is leveraging the IRA as another amplifier and accelerator for our EVx business within the United States, as we've discussed above, and perhaps globally as other nations and even regions may follow suit on the leadership the U.S. has provided in developing incentives to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy and renewable storage. While the legislation has not yet been fully defined at a detailed implementation level, we believe that it will come to market more or less in the same form and function as currently understood.
We currently believe that both the advanced manufacturing credit and project investment tax credit could significantly and positively impact the economics of the EVx in particular for the coming years. We believe that the local manufacturing construction of EVx would make it suitable to receive advanced manufacturing credits of perhaps as much as $45 a kWh . An attractive design and draw to the EVx is the ability to locally source material and label that would enable the system to take advantage of many of the domestic content portions of the ITC as well. You can expect a lot of focus and continued updates in this regard on EVx, the U.S. market, and development of the IRA in the coming quarters. Just to highlight a few of the commercial activities in progress as we came out of Q4.
We have 1.6 GWh of signed contracts and booked orders in the backlog. This is a more than 3x increase from the third quarter of 2022, where we exited with 495 MWh . This includes 275 MWh with Wellhead Electric, 220 MWh with Jupiter Power, which was acquired by BlackRock infrastructure in Q4, 440 MWh with NV Energy, and up to 700 MWh with PG&E in California. Our submitted proposal pipeline grew more than 50% quarter-over-quarter. As energy storage demands and needs, as we see, remain robust, and we remain with a seat at the table in making proposals.
Our awarded category shifted by approximately 17% for the quarter-over-quarter, driven by positive factors as projects were converted that were sitting in the awarded category into booked orders. As I mentioned before, the primary focus of 2023 will be on project execution. We are currently on track to deliver all of our signed projects on time, and our team is working very hard to navigate the supply chain permitting and interconnection delays that are prevalent in the industry. Thus far, have been able to manage through in working both with our customers and with our supply chain partners.
Given the rapid pace that we are seeing with the energy transition and all the unique use cases and solutions required to meet our customer needs, we continue to believe our differentiated holistic solutions-based energy storage approach is the best one suited for this market and will set up Energy Vault for a very large and unique future as a major leading player over the next 5-10 years. One last comment on the project we signed with PG&E for a hybrid green hydrogen plus battery storage solution in January, really showcases the differing needs of our customers and our ability to deliver on them.
In this case, this is the case in California, they needed a product which could provide a minimum of 48-hour long duration energy storage to address needs in the event of a power safety shutdown, as was evidenced by the wildfires that impacted the utility industry in California some years back. They also required black start and grid-forming capabilities in the event that there was a public safety shutoff event. Given our technology agnostic approach with our software, we were able to engineer, design, integrate, and will in the future operate the system with our proprietary software that will actually enable up to 700 MWh or almost 4 days of long-duration energy storage.
We're very excited to bring and demonstrate and showcase our broad technology expertise to be able to design and architect this solution with our partners, and to progress on this project to completion planned in the second quarter of 2024, and to continue and even broaden this partnership with PG&E in the city of Calistoga. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CFO, Jan Kees van Gaalen, who can provide more details into our financial results from Q4.
Thanks, Rob. Turning to our financial results for the fourth quarter of 2022. Revenue in the quarter, $100.3 million, primarily reflecting $84.5 million in revenue earned from our battery storage projects and $15.6 million from EVx licensing deals. Wellhead construction began in Q4, and we began recognizing revenue for that project during the quarter. Revenue from Wellhead drove battery storage project revenue during the fourth quarter. Licensing revenue in the fourth quarter was driven by $9.7 million in revenue from the Egypt EVx licensing deal and $5.9 million from the Atlas licensing deal. For the full year 2022, revenue was $145.9 million, primarily reflecting $85.6 million in revenue earned from our battery storage projects and $58.5 million from EVx licensing deals.
Fourth quarter 2022 gross profit was $15.9 million, driven by licensing revenue recognized during the quarter, bringing full year 2022 gross profit to $59.3 million. Total operating expenses, excluding cost of sales, were $41.7 million in Q4, up $5.4 million versus the $36.3 million we reported in Q3 of this year. Stock-based compensation was $14.3 million in Q4, up $3.4 million versus Q3 2022. Depreciation expense in Q4 was $0.2 million compared to $5.2 million in Q3.
Excluding these non-cash charges, operating expenses were up $7 million versus the third quarter, mainly driven by an increase in headcount. This brings total operating expenses to $122.4 million in 2022, and $81.3 million if we exclude stock-based compensation. Sales and marketing costs for the fourth quarter of 2022 were $4.3 million compared to $3.8 million in Q3 of this year. Excluding stock-based compensation, sales and marketing expenses were up $0.6 million sequentially. 2022, total sales and marketing costs were $12.6 million, excluding stock-based compensation. Sales and marketing expenses were up $6.7 million year-over-year, primarily due to an increase in headcount and an increase in marketing and public relations costs. Turning to research and development costs.
For the fourth quarter of 2022, they were $13.9 million, compared to $16.7 million in the third quarter of this year. Excluding stock-based compensation and depreciation, R&D expenses were up $2.7 million versus Q3, driven by an increase in R&D activities and STIP that accounted for $1.9 million. Total R&D expenses for the year were $50.1 million, excluding stock-based compensation and depreciation. R&D expenses were up $20.3 million versus 2021, primarily due to higher R&D activity levels. G&A for the fourth quarter increased to $23.5 million, compared to $13 million in Q3 of this year. Excluding stock-based compensation, G&A was up $6.6 million versus Q3, driven primarily by an increase in headcount, with STIP accounting for three and a half million of the $6.6 million increase.
Year-over-year, G&A increased from $18.1 million in 2021 to $56.9 million in 2022. In line with our business plan, we will exercise continued focus on our operating expenses as we selectively expand globally and position the company for the overall growth of the business. Operating loss for the fourth quarter of 2022 was $25.7 million, compared to an operating loss of $36 million sequentially. This brings total operating loss for 2022 to $63.1 million. Fourth quarter 2022 adjusted EBITDA was negative $11.2 million, bringing total full year 2022 adjusted EBITDA to a negative $11.4 in 2022. Our earnings release, which we filed this afternoon, includes a bridge from net income to adjusted EBITDA.
The key non-cash or non-recurring items that we added back were $41.1 million of stock-based compensation, $20.6 million in merger transaction costs, $7.7 million in depreciation and amortization expense, and $2.8 million in asset impairment charges. The key non-cash or non-recurring items that we deducted were $3.7 million in interest income net, and $2.3 million gained from the change in the fair value of our warrants. As of December 31st, 2022, we had approximately $286.2 million in cash equivalents, and restricted cash, leaving us well-positioned to continue to progress towards our growth objectives in 2023 and beyond. As of December 31st, 2022, we still have $5.1 million outstanding private warrants, which are required to be remeasured to fair value each period.
I would like to reiterate the 2023 financial guidance that Rob introduced earlier in the call. For 2023, we expect revenue guidance to be in the range of $325 million-$425 million. Our latest forecast reflects more than doubling year-over-year growth at the midpoint, evidencing the strong commercial and financial momentum our team continues to achieve. With that said, our 2023 guidance reflects a more conservative approach to our financial expectation for the year. We have taken a philosophical relook at how we forecast our business better to better account for the inherent lumpiness associated with our large-scale projects and their development, compounded by the back-end-weighted nature of our expected financial results this year.
We remain relentlessly focused on continued measured growth of our infrastructure and organization to further results of our business and that of our customers. We will also target adjusted EBITDA in the range of -$50 million to -$70 million with year-over-year difference, a result of the change in revenue mix as we roll off the margin tailwinds from the licensing and royalty deal signed in the first quarter of 2022. As we continue to build and develop our infrastructure, hiring key resources for the delivery of our projects and expanding in international markets. With this, I will now turn the call back over to Rob.
Thank you, Jan Kees. Would like to also welcome and thank Jan Kees for his first quarter under his belt here at Energy Vault, and he's a great addition to our team. As we're looking at the business, given the growth, we're gonna be taking on his global experience, let alone his length of tenure across multiple public companies, across the world, is gonna serve us very well.
Thank you.
Look, here, we're at the end of the call. A few things I want to reiterate here before we turn it over for questions and a few data points I'll point to. We really tried at this point, as we're digging into the forecast for this year, to begin to share more information as we now have more visibility with executed contracts and booked orders. A few data points I wanna highlight and reiterate with you. One is on the funnel metrics. We shifted to a more near-term 12-month funnel approach and segmented it in four sections. There is a page within our investor deck that's on the website that summarizes that funnel.
I wanna point you to a 50% increase in the number of proposal submissions that we've made from 13 GWh last quarter, now up to 20 GWh, which is a massive number. I think it's a great leading indicator of what's to come. Not suggesting we're gonna be batting 1,000 on those or win all of them, but you can count on the fact that we're gonna win some of them. I think that's a great leading indicator on that front end of that funnel as we move from those submitted proposals to shortlists, to project awards, and then into bookings. And we've, I think, demonstrated an ability to move that forward with velocity. The other thing I wanna highlight, as Jan Kees mentioned right at the end of his review of the results, is liquidity.
I think we're in just a fantastic position with no debt on the balance sheet and finishing, with actually growing cash quarter over quarter, is just a fantastic data point and puts us in a great position, to now, as we evolve the business, entertain and have discussions as we are, to get surety and bonding capacity, for example, for these larger projects and with non-collateralized solutions. Really avoiding letters of credit that require us to restrict cash, but we're working in a very positive way with Marsh, which is one of the largest players in the United States, in bringing solutions together for non-collateralized bonding capacity as well as non-collateralized letters of credit. That's gonna serve us well as we will not restrict cash on our balance sheet.
The other thing that I wanna highlight and emphasize is for the first time, we shared information about our growth margins and unit economics, but also spent some time about our philosophical approach to how we contract our deals, and the blend of our portfolio, as well as the mix across customers that we work with where they want us to integrate 100% through our books of all the third-party equipment and others where we choose not to and focus on the integration component. We're very sensitive about that because we want the highest returns on the work we're doing. It demonstrates value. We should be generating the high returns on what we're doing. That shows we are differentiated and in some cases can command a price and even a premium because of the nature of that differentiation.
It's a very important strategic area for us. It is an incentive for the entire company. Growth margin performance is one of the key incentives this year tied to compensation of our executive team and all of the employees in the company. I also want to highlight here at the end that hopefully you can appreciate a much more conservative nature a bit as we look at our forecast for 2023. This is just a function of, one, the world we live in as 2022 demonstrated, as the last few years. You know, we joke with the team a bit that as we sit here today, we know that as we sit here a year from now, we're going to look back and see that the year went completely different than we thought.
Obviously, certain things we know will go as we expect them to in terms of delivery to our customers of projects underway. In terms of what we're gonna book this year, the new things that pop into our funnel, that we don't see today, maybe some things that fall out, we're very excited about that and we'll continue to capitalize on we believe is a very differentiated solution. However, we have taken an approach and have attempted to share with a lot of you on this call, being sensitive to factors that are a part also of our current growth phase of the company. We're turning over first projects. We're gonna be starting more projects the second half of the year. This is the first year we're turning over projects and systems.
There are certain things we outlined that I encourage you to think about and hopefully appreciate as that's reflected in the current forecast we've given. We feel very, very good about the low end of that forecast because it's made up of what's already contracted and booked, and we feel very good about where we are in that execution. Thus, we feel very good about executing for the higher end of that forecast. As we mentioned, there are certain things that are not included in that forecast, like the potential benefits which we believe will be positive of the IRA legislation. Finally, I just wanna always thank the employees of this company where our days begin and end every day. I could not be more humbled and excited about continuing to support this team.
We do not limit our thinking because of the talent that we attract to this company, which is why in Q4, you saw us continue to add at a little greater rate to set ourselves up well for good execution here in 2023 to deliver on our goals. We will continue to make strategic adjustments and strategic additions to the team as we evolve the company. With that operator, we're now ready for questions.
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. The confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. We request to limit one question and one follow-up. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. We'll take our first question from the line of Thomas Boyes with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Thanks so much for taking my questions. You know, great to see the progress, especially on the gravity storage front with the additional licensing agreements. I just wonder if you could dig a little bit deeper there on just how they're structured. Is this gonna be similar to the agreement that you used in China? I think I remember, you know, a $50 million licensing payment that was associated with that agreement. Could you just kinda walk us through some of the mechanisms there? That'd be great.
Sure. The structure of those agreements, number 1, varies depending on a few factors, some that would include exclusivity. Some of them are structured over years that could be as short as 7 and a half years, as an example, and up to 10 years+. They'll vary both in length of time, inclusion of certain terms like exclusivity and also in payment structures. Generally, what is common across them is there is a license component that is paid that is typically tied only to the right to deploy the technology. That is not tied to volume deployment. Typically that license, and it would be the case here, would involve an exclusivity for these regions.
That exclusivity comes though with commitments on volume to retain that exclusivity, regardless of, you know, the license payment, so that's required in any event. Following that, as deployments get started in those regions, comes a royalty stream. We've been public with the royalty percentage as a part of our first deal, which is 5% on total project revenue on volume deployments. You know, essentially from these new agreements, you can expect that they would be in that same range.
Perfect. No, it's very helpful. Maybe just as my second, you know, it sounds like obviously to a certain degree you're still gonna procuring battery storage hardware for some of your customers. Can you talk about the sourcing strategy there? Are you know, how far are you looking to contract supply? Are you contracting throughout for 2020 and 2023 for projects that you are being required to deliver on now? Are you even looking further out?
Sure. We have a few different approaches relative to working with our customers on battery deployments. First of all, like with everything we do, we seek to innovate and differentiate around how we think about deployment, integration, software performance, and optimization around the economics for our customers. Fundamentally, it really starts there. If you look at the first deals we've won, they were not because we had the lowest price. In one of the cases, it was because we were able to achieve an energy density that was not able to be achieved by any competitor. This was specific to the Wellhead deal in Stanton, where they needed to generate a little over 68 MW, but current solutions would only allow them to generate 50 MW over a 4-hour period.
That's one example. Another example is PG&E, where we integrated and responded to a proposal that didn't envision a renewable solution to solve a problem that could have only been solved with natural gas, for example, for multi-day storage. We developed a solution to integrate batteries with green hydrogen in that case to provide a renewable solution. I would say, first of all, we from a battery and sourcing perspective, we work on ways to innovate with our hardware architecture and unique designs for optimization, whether that be with energy density, that could be with performance, that could be with safety. Ways that with our specific architectures, if there is a shutdown, for example, we can enable ongoing performance of a system, even if some specific modules may be shut down.
That's not the case in a lot of battery systems where if there is a fire or a safety problem, the entire system shuts down. There's a level of differentiation we look to achieve in implementation and that impacts our sourcing. Our team is led by Akshay Ladwa, who's based on the East Coast with our Energy Vault Solutions team, spends significant time with Battery suppliers and looking at qualifying even new and upcoming suppliers to focus on differentiation of their specific cell development in batteries with our hardware design and our software design to deliver potential performance benefits that don't exist in the market. Our sourcing strategy will involve some of that in direct engagement with suppliers that may not be, for example, some of the largest names in the world.
We work, I would say, with and develop with a few suppliers to try to tie differentiation into our solutions. The other way we work with customers, in some cases, is with customers that have preexisting relationships with very large battery suppliers. In some cases, they may even dictate the choice of that battery supplier. In which case, we may choose, as we have been chosen, to be an integrator, directly and work directly with that customer-chosen supplier. We referenced this on our earnings today, we may work with that supplier, and integrate their solution, but have it directly procured by the customer. In which case, the customer takes the risk, on the working capital, on delivery, any associated liquidated damages, et cetera. As I said, we talked a little bit about that today.
The last thing I'd share about our sourcing strategy for batteries, which is very important, we are not standing by and just waiting for domestic battery production to come in the United States. We are evaluating the players that are looking to build in the United States. We are active, not just as a potential customer, but as a potential participant in the development of that value chain. We're there because we believe that can be valuable to achieve some sustainable differentiation in terms of both availability and pricing, and therefore margin, as the domestic supply chain will now be developed very aggressively given the incentives under the IRA. We'll be sharing publicly here in the very near term some of the results of some of those efforts.
I'd say across that portfolio of areas of battery suppliers is how we're currently working and developing in which in what today is 95% of all energy storage that is being deployed is shorter duration lithium-ion battery. Let's not forget that.
Excellent. No, I really appreciate the insight. I'll drop back in queue. If I could just sneak one more in. Just for the domestic sourcing that you're talking to for lithium-ion batteries, do you have a sense in when that type of capacity would be coming online? Is that a 2025 event, do you think, or could that happen quicker?
We're seeing some coming online as early as the second half of 2024. In real volumes, 2025 plus. That's from from our work in the sector and working with players who are looking to build roughly what we see.
Great. We'll jump back in queue. Thanks again.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Joseph Osha with Guggenheim Partners. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Two questions. First, I greatly appreciate the detail in terms of the composition of revenue in the fourth quarter. Looking into 2023, it kind of broadly seems like there are three buckets. You've got your BESS revenue. You've got anything that might potentially come from delivery of EVx systems and then EVx licensing. I'm just wondering if you can help us understand, you know, how 2023 revenue might fall into those buckets, assuming that I'm thinking of it correctly.
Sure. Yeah, I think you've got the right buckets there. There's a sort of a fourth bucket that I can give you a little bit of a flavor of, Joe. I think as we've announced, we have three larger shorter duration projects that are gonna be turned over in 2023, that make up a good chunk of that revenue on the battery side. When I say battery, some of those are hybrid-related systems but include lithium-ion battery. For EVx and EVx licensing, we're expecting to continue. Let me start with the licenses. We're expecting to continue to develop, in particular in the international markets. Obviously, we don't expect this in the U.S., for example. Given EVx is a primarily a building, right?
A foundation, a fixed frame, lifting systems and power electronics. Because of the local nature of that and the local suppliers that have to deploy that and local EPC companies, the licensing model is a very interesting business model for us. It also enables us to give the flexibility to the local suppliers without us having to invest in local feet on the street and infrastructure. They are the most knowledgeable in any event based on the type of construction this is. It is, as you know, primarily a local build. And that model and allowing for domestic jobs and domestic content, which as we know in the market, most countries are trying to pursue independence in energy, and that means energy storage if they're gonna use renewables.
The model we're finding is a lot of interest in this model, which is, let's say, beneficial for both sides and creates a platform for future and very high margin royalty streams to come as things get deployed. We are expecting to have a percentage of our revenue, I wouldn't say it's a large percentage. For example, it's not gonna be triple-digit million, although I never rule some, you know, some large deal that comes as we had with Atlas Renewable, for example. That will be something that most likely could be a double-digit million type of revenue stream in 2023. Let me talk about EVx.
Interestingly, our first EVx deployments, either are gonna be done through the royalty license agreement model, as Atlas is building out, or projects that we are going to own, initially, in particular in the U.S. market, where, as I mentioned, Joe, we see a lot of interesting upside from the IRA tied to gravity because it's on l ithium for all the things I mentioned on the call that I know you know very well, about the benefits of that, and the economics that the IRA can help accelerate and create. You know, our ability to develop those projects, find points of interconnection, and now I think a way to monetize EVx in an accelerated way, as long duration needs become more prevalent is gonna be very interesting.
However, for this year, for 2023, given the nature of both the licensing side as well as the ownership of systems, you know, initially, for example, we were looking at Enel as something that was gonna be our standard EPC, and that has shifted to a project we're actually gonna own for other reasons, that has a lot of benefits for us, I think, from the potential IRA perspective and because it's a first system, with and with the ITCs. What that does mean is revenue recognition obviously is gonna come later, in a tolling agreement, so after we build it. You aren't gonna see, you know, revenue impact on that in the United States this year. Those are the three questions you raised.
I would share that, as you think about systems like what we announced, for example, with Pacific Gas and Electric hybrid systems, unique things we're doing, that the PG&E system is one, as announced, that we're owning, as an example. In those cases, you know, we definitely plan to get those projects developed and built. We may convert those to where we're an EPC agreement, where we build them. In all cases, we will be the asset manager.
Which is interesting and we'll schedule another call, I think, with you to take you through a little bit of our thinking around the asset management space, but that is an area of growth and an area of that we're definitely gonna be a player in relative to operating systems on behalf of large IPPs or on behalf of large infrastructure funds. That would be just an area that I just teased you a little bit, relative to something that we've already announced, and will be developed as we, you know, as we progress the year.
Okay. Thank you. Just a quick, much shorter follow-up on the IRA. You know, one thing that we've heard some, you know, BES system integrators talk about is the idea of not making cells on store necessarily, but potentially doing pack assembly, right? There is a manufacturing tax credit associated with that. Any thoughts on whether we might see Energy Vault involved in battery pack manufacturing in the U.S.?
Okay. Sorry. I was just. Your question is specifically in and around just assembling integration in the United States versus actual manufacturing.
Well, no. pack manufacturing, 'cause there's a cell credit, and then there's a module credit, right? We've seen one of your competitors, for example, talk about sourcing cells, but actually doing module assembly in the U.S., where there is an associated credit.
Okay. Sorry about that. Yeah, I understand the question. The answer is yes, you know, in terms of our involvement. We had announced, as an example, with Jupiter Power, an agreement to work with them. It was 2.4 GWh of sourcing, that we announced to work with them on, around domestic content that, you know, it will be up to and including looking at leveraging, the energy communities aspect, but as well as sourcing, whether that be in the, direct manufacturing area or in the packaging and integration area.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the lineup. Chris Ellinghaus with Siebert Williams Shank, please go ahead.
Hey, everybody. How are you? Rob, can you talk about, you know, the change in the two-year revenue guidance and sort of how you have made that more conservative in terms of your view of revenue recognition for this year?
Sure. Yeah. There were three main factors that I tried to be as explicit as I could in the, in the announcement. One of them had to do initially with just our acceleration from what was planned in Q1 this year, and due to faster execution, went into Q4 of an amount of revenue. That was one impact that we entered the year with. Secondly, and this is the primary impact, has to do with a very large customer that is roughly about a gigawatt hour, that initially we were gonna be integrating the entire scope through our balance sheet, so as a project where we would contract directly, for example, for the battery packages in particular.
What we chose to do with that customer is have the customer contract directly for that portion of the equipment. We are still the integrator, for example, of that solution, and other aspects of balance of plant. It's still a very large deal for us. As you know, I believe, you know, the battery modules themselves typically would make up, you know, anywhere from 55% to up to 70% of these deals. If you remove that, while that's gonna reduce the revenue, what's very interesting about that for us is it means, you know, the mid to high teens in gross margins for us, which we're very happy to do.
You know, I've mentioned this on an earlier question I had about our battery sourcing strategy, but, you know, generally, if it's a certain supplier that we're working with where we're including differentiation in how we optimize the solution, which means I'll translate that differentiation, lower cost for us, and therefore generally higher margin for an integrated solution that we own all components of. There are customers that have existing relationships, and they're with very large, some of the largest battery players, where there's not a lot of value add we put on top beyond being the single throat to choke from the customer.
Specifically, the second area, back to your question of what would the revenue, the 2-year revenue, it was specifically that primary gap, I mean, almost that entire gap was just related to the choice for us to focus on an integrated and balance of plant capability and scope versus the battery aspect of it. There is a third factor that we hit on here. We have a massive second-half ramp coming in the business in terms of we're turning over almost a GWh of systems in the second half, two of those actually in Q3 planned and then a larger one in Q4. In addition, we're gonna be starting projects.
As you know can happen, especially if you have a large part of your revenue, that's in the fourth quarter, as an example, as we do this year, you know, we have a triple-digit million revenue in Q4 this year. If anything moves a little bit, you know, we just wanted to safeguard. If there was any portion of revenue that should shift from Q4 to Q1, which, you know, we haven't lost anything, it just means something shifts a quarter. We took a little more conservative approach in terms of as we looked at, you know, full revenue recognition in that quarter, even for things that are contracted.
You know, it's the second half ramp of this year that we wanted to provide a level of both visibility as I'm doing now, and transparency on that revenue, and therefore, coming up with something that, you know, I'd say we feel extremely comfortable with, you know, our low to even the mid part of our range we provided because of where we stand with visibility and where we are with customers. You know, we're also quite confident about executing well as we did last year. Just to share an example, we contracted in the summer last year in July and August last year, so actually signed deals. One of those deals that we signed in August ended up with over $80 million of revenue in Q4 last year.
Within four months, we actually were able to recognize revenue on almost $80 million. We didn't contract those and book those until the summer. Now, am I saying we're gonna do that every time, or am I saying we're gonna execute ahead of plan every time? No. I'm sharing that level of detail with you so you know that while we've taken a more conservative approach, as we've outlined on this call, in particular, given the second-half ramp, you know, we're confident in our ability to execute, you know, to the mid to upper part of that range.
As I said, with IRA and, you know, given what we did in our first year, of almost $150 million of revenue and, you know, 2 GWh in booked deals and up to 5 in awards total of booked in awards. You know, we have a lot I think we're gonna be able to do in the year, regardless.
That helps a lot. Thanks, Robert.
Yeah. You're welcome. Operator, are you there?
Yes. Thank you.
Okay.
We'll take the next question from the line of Brian Dobson with Chardan Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hey, Brian. Brian, your line is unmuted. You may ask your question.
Thank you very much. Thanks for taking my question. Just returning to the guidance issue for 2023. As you're thinking about it, would you say it's fair to characterize, call it the bottom half of your guidance as a conservative approach, given that there's the potential for revenue slip into 2024 and that you're, you know, fairly confident as things stand right now that you could be at the mid to high end?
Yeah. I'd say I would say that's roughly right. We, we started with a build-up approach of a low end that is booked and, you know, we're executing toward, and as I mentioned, on track and on schedule to deliver. That we consider in the bank. You know, as you move to that mid part and even to the upper part of the range, we have things in play that are well in hand to get there. Again, leave the IRA aside. I realize that's a this may appear as obviously lower than what in some cases expectation was something up to $500 million this year as we looked at our 2-year view before.
I mentioned that one deal where we're taking a much lower part of the content but a higher gross margin, which I think is important. Yes, I think your characterization and, you know, in terms of the lower end of the range, we feel obviously quite good about given the nature of where it started from. I think a very, you know, strong confidence in getting the mid to the upper part of that range here as we progress the year. Our view on that is to also, with every quarter, we're gonna be, you know, much more knowledgeable.
We're gonna have another, you know, 60-90 days of bookings, of seeing how we're executing, and seeing things that pop in maybe that we didn't even see that could be things we could turn around for rev rec in year. We designed the forecast to essentially every quarter tighten that range up and just build that range. Obviously in an ideal world, because the nature of being conservative here, is that we're gonna be able to tighten to the mid to higher end of that range with every quarter. That's what, you know, that was the intention of how we built this forecast.
obviously, as we get into the second half of the year, you know, be executing strongly toward, ideally toward the higher end, and if the IRA things come in as planned, you know, I think we're gonna have an excellent year.
Right. Understood. You know, I understand your desire not to include IRA benefits in the guidance range, but do you think you could potentially, you know, perhaps draw a range around what that could potentially look like?
Yeah. I would say We have two projects in particular that could garner some benefits, and even in the year, depending on the way the treasury mechanics come out. You know, I would say there are some benefits that are definitely in the double-digit millions of benefit. Now how much could we get in the year versus would go into 2024? That's another question. You know, there are ways to monetize those benefits earlier. I would say if I had to tell you today, and assuming the IRA comes through, there may be more cash-related benefits this year versus revenue recognition benefits, okay? Those revenue recognition benefits may come next year.
Given, I think, some of the alternative structures we're gonna look at in taking advantage of it, we may very well see a, you know, good strong double-digit million type of cash benefit potentially this year, that we wouldn't have in our forecast. Of course, we like that. We like the cash flexibility. As I said, we're trying to be now, as we have more information and data, being more transparent and sharing with the market so people would understand that, you know, we're very happy to take the cash even if the revenue recognition may come later. You know, those benefits, anything that gets in double-digit million is significant. I think whether that's cash or even potential rev rec.
Yeah. Thanks. That's helpful. Then just stepping away from the mechanics of the guidance for a moment and taking call it a 30,000 foot view, as you look around the world at different regions, where do you see the most opportunity? Which regions are you most excited about?
Sure. Well, I have to start in the U.S. because it's definitely, you know, with the IRA, I think the U.S. has done something to keep a lot of focus here. I think that has a lot of upside and it's one of the, as you know, one of the largest storage markets. You know, I think Australia is gonna be an interesting and important market for us, specifically because of the nature of some of our investors. Two of our largest investors have significant operations there. I think the green hydrogen market, given its desire and requirement in electrolysis and running electrolyzers for long-duration storage, I think that market and where Australia is gonna play a strong role there, will be important.
I think moving to the European theater, Scotland is, you know, ahead of the game with its offshore wind investments generally. I think there's large needs and, you know, I think a lot of, you know, opportunities that there that we see as opportunities definitely for us. I'd say also I'd be remiss if I didn't, I didn't talk about the Middle East, given what not only we've just announced with a licensed partner, but, you know, we're looking at the region very strategically for very large things. As you know, in the Middle East, nothing is done small. If it's done, it's done large, and it's done big. I think as you're aware, we have Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures on our cap table.
I think that and that relationship, and looking at now, how we're thinking about leveraging that, I think that's very interesting to us, and our company's done some, you know, more recent development, I'd say, there. I'd leave you with. I think those are the primary main regions that we're excited about. You know, we've announced some things in India that we continue to develop. We'd announced an MOU with NTPC, which is the largest public utility and one of the largest power players there, I think over 60 GW of generation, and a large coal plant infrastructure.
I think looking at alternatives for uses of coal ash and ways we can use waste materials with our EVx. We have a few interactions there right now and, you know, looking at how we could deploy and deploy quickly there and even start some initial projects this year. That's what I'd say generally on some of the new regions. I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about also our existing customers that given how we execute with them and assuming we continue to execute well, you know, we are in discussions with the, some of the same customers we've announced on follow-on projects because of how we're performing. Obviously, we need to keep up the good performance from an execution perspective.
You know, follow-on good performance will mean that we're gonna be perceived well for new deals. We're really excited about that. You know, an example is with Jupiter. We announced the first project, actually two projects with them. They're the largest in ERCOT, but we announced two projects, one in California, one in Texas. In addition, we'd announced with them a sourcing collaboration around 2.4 GWh of batteries for them together. You know, those are customers, and Jupiter is, as you know, was acquired by BlackRock's infrastructure group back in Q4. Obviously, no shortage of capital there.
You can, you know, assume that our existing customers where we're gonna, you know, execute well, there are follow-on discussions ongoing with those same customers that will represent strength and upside for us.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in. In the interest of time, maybe just one question from my end. Can you guys give us a sense of the margin differential between EVx and EVS? Are you currently profitable on EVS? If not, what's sort of the path forward to become profitable on selling EVS? Thanks.
Yeah, we don't sell EVS. Let me just clarify some things. The Energy Development Solutions is actually a group. It's not a product itself. Just to be clear, I think what you're asking is, are there any things not profitable across between, or anything not profitable? Specifically, I think when you say EVS, I think you're referring to some of the battery deployments where they've been leading with software. To be clear, everything we're doing is profitable on a unit economic basis. Otherwise, there'd be no way for us to talk about, you know, 10%-50% of gross margins. There's not one project we've done or taken with a negative gross margin.
you know, for us to forecast here with the visibility we have now of 10%-15%, given our nature of being conservative relative to, you know, as we're looking at our 2023 forecast, we're from a profitability perspective, we have unit economics across the board. We're gonna have a range of that percentage gross margin, pending, you know, on things like, for example, are we taking batteries through our balance sheet at a, like a mid-single digit, or not? If we're not, we're absolutely in the mid to high, you know, teens relative to just our own straight solutions, and that's today.
If we're, you know, on looking at EVx, for example, and solutions on where we're gonna be deploying that project as well on the initial deployment. Before we get to volumes or any optimization, you know, as an example, we're testing a lot of new cost reduction on the system in China in EVx that all the future systems will benefit from. That range of 10%-15%, I think is a good range, Brian, for you to use relative to your modeling. The last thing I'd share is it's really the use case that's the driver.
Let me give you the example of PG&E, where they it was an RFP for this multi-day, and they were thinking they were only gonna have natural gas as an option. We proactively, given we actually have expertise in hydrogen, both liquid and gas, and, or gas, because of some engineering folks that we've hired in the team. We proposed an architecture that integrated, you know, lithium-ion and green hydrogen. You can assume that because we were unique in being able to do that, you know, obviously that's gonna be something that, you know, we don't take lightly relative to our pricing expectations, and therefore, the margins.
Obviously, it's a public utility, so that means that, you know, we have to provide a certain level of value to the utility if they, is what they budgeted to deliver that. Those solutions where we're uniquely bringing hybrid solutions to the table, as we did there, you know, those are things that are gonna be a good part of our profit stream as well. Is that helpful?
Yeah, no, appreciate all the additional color, Rob. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Robert Piconi for closing remarks. Over to you, sir.
Okay. Look, just thanks everyone who joined the call today. We'll look forward to further updates going forward. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.