All of Water Tower's research is available to everyone. A recording will be made available on our website soon after this call. We will be taking questions from the audience, and those can be submitted via the webcast. Hopefully, we'll have a chance to get to all of them, but our apologies if time does not allow. With that, John, welcome, and tell us what's going on down at Project Dorothy. I see the windmill in the background.
Absolutely. I am here on location at the groundbreaking location of Dorothy 2. As you can see, perhaps behind me, heavy machinery moving some dirt. Just earlier, we completed the ceremonial groundbreaking activities. You can see the golden shovels behind me there. Essentially, we're kicking off Dorothy 1, our doubling of our flagship site. So we're taking Dorothy 1 from 50 MWs to a 100-MW facility. Exciting times. Another 48 MWs of Bitcoin will be added, and we have plans for a 2 MW AI facility here as well. We had a whole cadre of guests from the community. The local mayor was here, our utility partners. Rob Day from Spring Lane Capital is also here and joined me in the groundbreaking ceremony. Just lots of fun.
I also brought members of my family. I brought my 10-year-old daughter and my older brother to see for themselves the exciting things that we're doing here and the future we're creating for the planet here.
What's the temperature down there?
Great question. Last year, this time was approximately 116 degrees Fahrenheit, give or take. Today, we have been fortunate to only experience in the mid-90s, high 90s degrees Fahrenheit in this location. It's a little windy, so the turbines are spinning. Should see them spinning behind me here. But it's not nearly as windy as it could be. This is the summer season, so there's less wind here in Silverton and in the Panhandle, and it gets a lot windier in the cooler months going forward.
Great. So Dorothy is your flagship project, but is it fair to say it's almost sort of like a blueprint or a microcosm of what Soluna has transformed into over the past year or so with you at the helm, in terms of doing hosting, doing proprietary mining, and then also AI?
Absolutely. Absolutely. Dorothy is our flagship, and we call it our flagship because this is the blueprint of our business, right? Where we have computing based at these renewable energy power plants that have a specific purpose: to consume the curtailed energy of these power plants and then convert them into global computing resources. We started out with Bitcoin mining, and we've evolved over the last year to these sites playing a more expanded and diversified role in not only our business model, but a blueprint representation of the future. So we have, as I said, proprietary mining happening here. We have hosting for Bitcoin miners, happening here.
This site is also a grid demand response services asset for the grid, where we curtail the data center to allow more power to go to the grid in emergency situations. And it's also the site of our next phase of business, our next innovation, if you will, the AI part of our business, where we plan to expand what we do into new forms of batchable computing. AI is not only the future transformation for business, enterprise, and just about every vertical in the world, but it also can play a role, just like we've used Bitcoin mining to play a role in the future of renewable energy.
The AI part of our business is going to be housed in Soluna Cloud, and it's sort of a next exciting and important component of our future growth. So as we continue to convert our pipeline of 2 gigawatt-plus renewable energy projects with Project Kati, the next in line, hint, hint, some additional projects coming down the line, we're going to take this blueprint here and replicate it across those different projects. The difference, the key difference will be that the AI portion will get bigger over time and essentially help us to exceed our goal of converting these pipeline projects and these renewable energy projects into global computing resources.
And staying on Project Dorothy, so you closed the financing, you got crews on site. Give us an update in terms of what still needs to be done there and what investors should be thinking about in timing.
Dorothy is still a fully shovel-ready project. As you can see behind me, there's plenty of shoveling taking place. We had our groundbreaking today. Over the next several months through to the end of Q1, Dorothy II will be under construction. We will be doing the civil work, ultimately, the construction aspects of the site, the electrical work. The goal would be to energize the first 18 MWs of the 48 MWs, the Q1 of 2025, with the facility essentially becoming fully operational shortly thereafter. We'll have three phases of 18 MWs coming online over the course of next year.
... Got it. And then turning to Project Kati, what's the latest news was the signing of the PPA with EDF Renewables. And I know you're working with ERCOT, there. Can you give us an update on the next things happening there?
Absolutely. Project Kati is our next project that will become, again, the next phase of the company. It's a 166 MW facility that is co-located with a 300 MW wind farm in the southeast part of the state of Texas. Kati has gone through a series of development activities, and we've been keeping the market up to date. But to remind folks, we signed a definitive power purchase agreement with EDF Renewables and Masdar, the partners in the site. We have completed the majority, if not all, of the ERCOT approval process that would allow Kati to exit planning.
In fact, we expect the site to exit planning any moment now, because we just received word that the final study that we needed to do on the site had been approved by ERCOT. So we're also in the process of designing and siting work. We actually had to move the site for Kati from its original location to a location further away, and the reason is we needed more land size because of the plans that are taking shape these days around Kati. We want to incorporate not just Bitcoin mining in this particular location, but we also have some grand AI plans for Kati, and so moving the location was important.
And that needed us to update some of the studies that we had done because the difference in distance between the substation and the data center increased. And so those studies had now been completed and approved by ERCOT. And the next phase essentially is to finalize the land leases with the landowners who are working with us to make sure we have the right siting, the right studies done to look at the land and so forth to support these new facilities. And then the next phase would be to kick off the EPC process to get bids, complete the designs, and so forth.
There's a lot of activity happening at Kati that we're not necessarily putting out there every day, but as you can see, a lot has materialized over the course of the last few months at that particular project. Once those elements are done, we'll then open that project up to investment partners who will support us both on the Bitcoin side and the AI side. And so that's. Those are the key focus areas for us.
And that's a much bigger project. I mean, it's 166 MWs. It's basically 3X, more than 3X what the Dorothy one is.
Yep. That's right. It's twice the size of Dorothy. Dorothy, the original Dorothy 1 was 50 MWs. Dorothy 2 will make it to 100 MWs. Kati will be at least 166 MWs. We plan to build it in two phases, depending on the mixture of AI and Bitcoin at that particular site. But our goal is to get started with that project in the tail end of this year.
Got it. Turn to a question that came in. You recently reported a really strong Q2 results, which I think highlights a stark difference from a year ago.
Yep.
So it's been an amazing turnaround. Walk us through where things stand in terms of where you guys are financially, in terms of your outlook. I know you've put up the earnings power presentation, but that still doesn't have some new projects that can come into it later on. But then also, can you give us a sense of where things stand on the balance sheet in terms of the reduction in converts and the preferred?
Yeah, absolutely, so Q2 was a strong quarter for us. You know, we were comparing it to 2023, which was a very challenging year for the company. I like to say that we were filling in the leaks in a boat that was listing, and also rearchitecting the boat and pointing it in a new direction. The recent financial results that we posted for Q2 are a culmination of the work that we've done over the last year. We've been focused on diversifying the business. Today, you can see four key quadrants. If you remember the slide that I typically put out in our earnings power that shows how we make money, there are now four key areas, if you will, for the business, right?
There's prop mining, as I mentioned, through joint ventures, Bitcoin hosting, which is becoming a big part of our business. We focus on the largest, most successful mining companies, we call them the hyperscale miners, and we provide a host of services to them to allow them to give their machines and equipment a second life. We provide resources to the grid for demand response, and now we're going to be providing AI, GPU-as-a-service, and co-location services in our new cloud business. So Q2 is really a culmination of a lot of that diversification. We had strong revenues in Q2, $9.7 million in the three months ending the Q2 of 2024, compared to $2.1 million in the three months ended the Q2 of 2023.
We had strong adjusted EBITDA. We ramped to $1.8 million, compared to a Q2 loss of $2.0 million. And we also increased essentially the adjusted EBITDA in that period by $3.8 million. So that's a strong example of revenue growth as well as cost discipline. As you all know, since most of our revenue in the business is still on the Bitcoin mining side, going through the halving, you know, there are mixed results across the industry as to how companies look at this phase of a post-halving environment, and we're looking pretty strong. We have a strong cash position. We went from having sort of single digits millions in the bank to approaching $10 million, and that's from unrestricted cash, which increased 50% from last year.
We also have reduced our debt. Our main debt on the balance sheet at the holding company is driven by the convertible note, and we drove the convertible note balance down from $7.7 million at the end of the first quarter to $5 million, and that continues to decrease over the past quarter as well. That's driven by strong share price momentum, momentum in the business, some announcements and catalysts we've been putting out there, and that share momentum and liquidity that has allowed us to convert that debt and reduce its balance.
And one of your big-
All in all, I think-
Oh, sorry, go ahead.
Just all in all, Graham, I you know I think the company is materially different than it was last year from a financial-
Yeah. No, it's from the investor analyst side, it's a completely different situation than it was a year ago. You know, one of your big advantages is the cheap power cost. I mean, that obviously makes a huge difference in terms of hosting, but can you talk about how that power cost helps you, both on the prop side and also on the AI side?
Say again, Graham? How the power-
Just, yeah, your low power costs and the advantage you were talking about, giving servers a second life.
Yeah. So our low power cost is a powerful resource for the company. It allows us to build a variety of businesses because of the strong margins that we can command in those different businesses. On the Bitcoin side, it allows us to deliver a fantastic service to customers, where we can give them, you know, best-in-class power costs and services costs to deploy their best miners or their recent generation miners. Think of the large hyperscale miners who have to keep growing. They have to keep scaling their exahash. It turns out that growing the Bitcoin network anymore is quite hard. It's gotten so big, so adding a few exahash here and there doesn't materially shift your position in the marketplace.
So if you're unplugging older machines and plugging in the newer machines, your exahash is probably flat, if not slightly higher. But what if you could. And then most people will put those machines in storage for some reason or try to sell them, and they usually sell them at a loss, and if they're storing them, then they're basically loading massive amounts of depreciation with no revenue. Our opportunity at Soluna Data Centers is we're able to deliver a hosting service or hosting solution to these customers with really high-touch services for a really great price, and we can give those machines a second life. They can be deployed in our facilities, allowing these companies to significantly increase their exahash and their profits at the same time.
So that's an advantage that no one else has and puts us in a very strong position as the Bitcoin network expands and evolves over time. When we're mining ourselves for prop mining, that's equally true. Our older generation machines still maintain high levels of profit because of the low power cost, that basis that we use to finance and run the business. Now, if we were to buy newer machines and place in that facility, that then gooses that profit significantly. So if we can find capital or inject capital at a reasonable cost, that return is quite high. And as you recall, all of our sites return their capital very fast, two years or less, so that power cost is really what's driving that.
If you pivot to AI and start looking at that market, we also enjoy two key factors. A, our power is very inexpensive relative to what you would pay for this type of computing anywhere in the power markets around the country. It's abundant because we are able to get hundreds of MWs to deploy to that form of computing without waiting years for interconnection studies and all that kind of stuff for new substations. We are injecting it in an existing infrastructure, and we then convert that into, you know, this AI compute, and then the second piece is that it's sustainable energy. We are pulling green electrons into the data center to support the next phase of compute.
The future of compute is now integrated or creating a convergence between renewable energy and the future of computing, and that's where we live, recreating something we call renewable computing. That's all made possible by the access to large portions of power, if you will, and also made possible by our structure, which gives us access to that power at a very low price.
Got it. Thank you. As you sit here at the end of August, what's keeping you up at night? I mean, what are the hurdles for Soluna in the next six months or so that you're really focused on or concerned about?
... Well, I can tell you now, Graham, a lot less, a lot less keeps me up at night, as compared to last year, but it's not like I get perfect sleep. You know, we're focused on growth, and growth demands, very good execution. So our current goal is really more about, doubling the size of the, MWs under operation. So we wanna go from 75 MWs spinning to, 150 MWs, you know, into 2025, and continue doing that doubling. Essentially doubling our footprint and assets under management, every single year. So that's gonna mean that we have to be really focused on, getting these projects, developed and shovel-ready. It's gonna be focused on getting us access to capital.
I'm still focusing on reducing and simplifying our capitalization at the parent company level so that our stock becomes an asset for raising capital and making accretive investments in the growth of the business, and you know, our growth rate really is constrained by the access to capital, and so a focus on getting access to that is gonna be really important. What I can tell you, Graham, is a year ago, two years ago, when I would talk to potential capital partners about investing in Soluna, it was challenging for them. They liked what we were doing, they saw the vision, but it's really hard to get through an infrastructure investor's investment committee when you're only talking about computing that's related to Bitcoin.
But now, if you talk about a business that's more diversified, you know, grid demand response capabilities as a source of revenue, AI as a source of revenue, that has kept a lot, a lot of doors open that would've been shut to us in the past. So that's creating a lot of opportunity for growth for us, as well. And I'm focused on just accelerating the pace of the development and size of our projects, and successfully growing this business over the next decade.
So we're running up on towards the end of time, and thank you. One final question. The stock's had a great run over the past few months, but what do you think investors are missing or misunderstanding about the Soluna story today?
So I would say that investors need to understand that no matter what you saw of the company last year, we are a completely different company than we were a year ago. We've successfully diversified the business. We have now moved beyond crypto. Our vision for power as a growth asset is really taking shape. Our pipeline and our relationship with our power partners is also taking hold. In fact, that relationship is probably one of our greatest assets, and we have mastered the behind-the-meter access to power. People underestimate how powerful that is. You see, today a number of companies, you're seeing the massive growth of data center facilities. They're running around looking for power sites, they're buying existing facilities and converting them to get access to their power. That's all just keeping data center status quo.
Large power consumers, fairly dirty, not very sustainable. What we're doing is we're going to a resource that is counterintuitive. We're going to existing power plants that have renewable energy power, lots of it, that is wasted, and when you pull all of that together, you get access to multiple gigawatts of energy over a long series of time. And we're able to get access to that within a year's time from the start, the point that we started, right? Because we can inject directly into an existing substation. The approval process is based on approving an existing project and an enhancement to that project, whereas a new facility or a new substation would be a completely new project that has to join the interconnection queue for ERCOT.
So we are doing something materially harder than what most things, most companies do, but that's giving us access to the most important resource right now for the future of computing, and that's power. And that's what most investors are underestimating, is that our ability to get access to power, build a vertically integrated solution to curtailment and computing at the same time, is really the future of our business and will drive the future growth of our business. Graham, there's one last thing I will say. I know that, you know, we're short on time.
Oh, no, you got-
... and that is that, you know, we don't see ourselves as this, you know, small micro cap company. We really see ourselves as a future business in the entire digital infrastructure ecosystem. You know, we're focusing on building a next-generation business. We're thinking big. We're developing strong long-term relationships with OEMs. You've seen our announcement with HPE. We're starting to develop relationships with our existing customers and new customers that are doing some of the most advanced things in the AI space. We're developing new capital partners and new capital partner providers. We're bringing in new talent with new expertise that will help us to shape the future of the business, and we're also shaping a whole new pathway and forward momentum for the company.
I can't tell you how exciting it is to be at Soluna today, and I want everybody to stay tuned to see how the company takes shape over the next few years.
Great. Well, thank you for that, John, and thank you very much for joining us. As well, thank you to all the listeners for joining us. To learn more about Soluna, please visit their website, or you can access our research on the Water Tower website. Note, the views expressed in this fireside chat may not necessarily reflect the views of Water Tower Research LLC, and are provided for informational purposes only. This fireside chat may not be distributed or reproduced without the written consent of Water Tower Research and should not be considered research nor a recommendation. WTR is an investor relations firm, not a licensed broker, broker-dealer, market maker, investment bank, underwriter, or investment advisor. Additional disclaimers can be found on our website at www.watertowerresearch.com. With that, thanks so much everyone. Have a great day. Thanks, John.
Thank you. Thanks, Graham.