ESS Tech Inc (GWH)

[WeTheMarket]

ESS Tech, Inc. Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Financial Results
March 13, 2024
https://investors.essinc.com/news/news-details/2024/ESS-Tech-Inc.-Announces-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2023-Financial-Results/default.aspx

Highlights
- Lowered Q4 Adjusted EBITDA loss by More Than 50% year over year
- Exited 2023 with Cash and Short-Term Investments over $100 million; Expected to Carry ESS Well Into H1’25
- Delivered First Energy Warehouses to Honeywell
- Energy Warehouse manufacturing cost lowered by 60% in 2023
- Target 40% 2024 EW Cost Reduction to Achieve non-GAAP Gross Margin Profitability

WILSONVILLE, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- ESS Tech, Inc. (“ESS,” “ESS, Inc.” or the “Company”) (NYSE:GWH), a leading manufacturer of long-duration energy storage systems (LDES) for commercial and utility-scale applications, today announced financial results for its fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2023.

“During 2023 our team made significant progress towards our most important objectives, including securing transformative partnerships with LEAG and Honeywell, optimizing our internal operations, and pursuing design initiatives to lower production costs by improving manufacturability and scale. While we faced customer-related delays that impacted our financial results, the team’s work during the year laid a solid foundation for us to scale the business, launch the Energy Center and move toward unit profitability in 2024. In fact, our strategic decision to make fewer Energy Warehouses (EWs) and ship them to customers with the greatest long-term opportunity allowed us to conserve cash and exit the year with a cash and short-term investments balance over $100 million. Importantly, we brought down costs to build an EW by almost 60% during 2023 and successfully cut our Q4 adjusted EBITDA loss in half year over year,” said Eric Dresselhuys, CEO of ESS. “ESS continues to make tremendous progress on our strategy to build a world class, scalable company that is well-positioned to serve the immense long-duration energy storage market. The actions we’ve already taken have resonated with customers and we continue to see robust customer engagement. In 2024 we plan to further reduce EW unit costs by up to 40% as we move toward unit profitability while ramping our scale and maintaining a healthy cash balance.”

Recent Business Highlights
- Achieved record revenue of $7.5M for FY 2023.
- Delivered first Energy Warehouses™ under the partnership with Honeywell in Q4 2023 and recently cleared previously announced customer delays in Australia, - which we expect will result in revenue of approximately $2 million in Q1 2024 which was originally anticipated in Q4 2023.
- At the end of 2023, ESS successfully “lifted” its first Energy Center™ (EC), a key milestone in the manufacturing process. The EC is a utility-scale, front-of-the-meter long-duration energy storage product which provides up to eight hours of energy storage with a flexible, scalable platform to meet the LDES needs of utilities worldwide. We expect this inaugural EC system will be commissioned and delivered to Portland General Electric later this year.
- Delivered an Energy Warehouse™ system to the Burbank Water and Power (BWP) EcoCampus, BWP’s first utility-scale battery storage project. This EW will be paired with an on-site solar array where ESS technology will demonstrate the critical role of LDES in a fully renewable grid.
- Delivered two Energy Warehouses™ to Turlock Irrigation District (TID) in Central California to support TID’s Project Nexus. At TID, the EW will be paired with a proof of concept of solar panels over irrigation canals. which aims to conserve water resources by reducing evaporation while generating clean energy, reducing diesel generation and reducing energy costs.
- Completed commissioning of an Energy Warehouse™ system at the Contingency Base Integration Training Evaluation Center (CBITEC) operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. This EW has been incorporated into a tactical microgrid at CBITEC and will demonstrate the key role that LDES, specifically iron flow battery technology, can play to reduce fuel consumption at Contingency Bases such as Forward Operating Bases or other temporary use locations providing humanitarian assistance or disaster relief.

Conference Call Details

ESS will hold a conference call on Wednesday, March 13, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. EDT to discuss financial results for its fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2023. Interested parties may join the conference call beginning at 5:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, March 13, 2024 via telephone by calling [phone] in the U.S., or for international callers, by calling [phone] and entering conference ID 261003. A telephone replay will be available until March 20, 2024, by dialing [phone] in the U.S., or for international callers, [phone] with conference ID 769695. A live webcast of the conference call will be available on ESS’ Investor Relations website at http://investors.essinc.com/.

A replay of the call will be available via the web at http://investors.essinc.com/.

About ESS, Inc.

At ESS (NYSE: GWH), our mission is to accelerate global decarbonization by providing safe, sustainable, long-duration energy storage that powers people, communities and businesses with clean, renewable energy anytime and anywhere it’s needed. As more renewable energy is added to the grid, long-duration energy storage is essential to providing the reliability and resiliency we need when the sun is not shining, and the wind is not blowing.

Our technology uses earth-abundant iron, salt and water to deliver environmentally safe solutions capable of providing up to 12 hours of flexible energy capacity for commercial and utility-scale energy storage applications. Established in 2011, ESS, Inc. enables project developers, independent power producers, utilities and other large energy users to deploy reliable, sustainable long-duration energy storage solutions. For more information visit www.essinc.com.