Earnings Labs

Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. (OPTT)

Q4 2008 Earnings Call· Tue, Jul 15, 2008

$0.35

-4.07%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+7.58%

1 Week

+9.07%

1 Month

+10.31%

vs S&P

+3.24%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Ocean Power Technologies fiscal year 2008 audio webcast. (Operator Instructions) At this time for opening remarks I would like to turn the call over to the Chief Financial Officer of Ocean Power Technologies, Charles Dunleavy.

Charles F. Dunleavy

Management

Welcome to Ocean Power Technologies audio webcast for the fiscal year ended April 30, 2008. Yesterday we issued our yearend earnings press release and we have filed our annual report on Form 10K with the Securities & Exchange Commission. For access to our public filing you can view them on the SEC website at www.SEC.gov or you may go to our website, www.OceanPowerTechnologies.com and click on the investor relations tab then click on SEC filings. I will be joined on today’s webcast by Dr. George Taylor, Chief Executive Officer and Mark Draper, Chief Operating Officer. During the course of this conference call management may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or financial performance of the company within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. As indicated in the Slide, these forward-looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions made by management regarding future circumstances of which the company may have little or no control that involve risks and uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. We refer you to the company’s Form 10K and other recent filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission for a description of these and other risk factors. I will now turn the call over to George Taylor, our Chief Executive Officer.

George W. Taylor, Ph.D.

Management

It has been a little more than a year since our IPO and listing on NASDAQ and we are encouraged and pleased by the progress OPT has made over the past 12 months. Before we discuss the financial results, Mark Draper and I would like to take a few minutes to highlight OPT’s business, our strategy and the progress we have made through the past year. We expect that this will enable us to capitalize on our worldwide opportunities. OPT is a leading wave power company and is the only pure play public wave power company. I co-founded this company with a vision of generating electric power from ocean waves at costs equal to or superior to what can be achieved from fossil fuels. We began operations in 1994 and since then have had successfully developed and begun to commercialize the technology. With the management team I’ve put in place over the past years, OPT is poised to take advantage of the favorable political, regulatory and social environment that exists internationally for renewable energy and to accelerate our growth. At OPT we pioneered the development and commercialization of proprietary systems that generate electricity by harnessing the renewable energy of ocean waves. The energy in ocean waves is predictable and electricity from wave energy can be produced on a consistent basis at numerous sites which conveniently are located near major population centers worldwide. Meanwhile global demand for electric power is expected to more than double over the period 2003 to 2030 according to the Energy Information Administration. To meet this demand the international energy agency estimates that investments in new generating capacity over this period will exceed $4 trillion. $1.6 trillion of this will be for new renewable energy generation equipment. Recently the GH Summit set a goal to reduce carbon emissions by 50% by the year 2050. We plan to leave reach these global drivers of demand for renewable energy by using OPT’s proprietary technology. We offer two products as part of our PowerBuoy system, a utility PowerBuoy system and an autonomous PowerBuoy system. Our technology is based on modular ocean going buoys which we have been ocean testing for more than a decade. The rising and falling of the waves moves the buoy like structure creating mechanical energy that our proprietary technologies then convert in to electricity. I’d now like to turn the call over to Mark Draper our Chief Operating Officer who will discuss technological advancements, key commercial milestones and provide you with an update on some of our recent projects.

Mark Robert Draper

Management

This slide shows views of the PowerBuoy built in Spain under our contract with Iberdrola as displayed at a recent VIP visit. I’ll say more about the status of that project very shortly. As announced in yesterday’s press release, we have made substantial progress in the design analysis and the initial production of what we believe to be the first utility grade underwater substation or POD for wave power. We’re very excited about this development. The POD will serve as the point where energy generated by several PowerBuoys is aggregated and the voltage increased for transmission to shore and connection to the local power grid. The required switching and protection circuits within the individual PowerBuoys are also included in the POD. In July 2007 we announced that our PowerBuoy grid connection system had been certified as compliant with designated national and international standards. This is a major milestone for OPT as it qualifies our technology for connection to utility grid systems. We are also focusing our product and engineering efforts to increase the outputs of our PowerBuoy system from 40 kilowatts to 500 kilowatts. Consistent with comments made during our last quarterly webcast we are on target to complete the design of our 150 kilowatt utility PowerBuoy system in 2008 and to complete the design of our 500 kilowatt PowerBuoy by the end of 2010. The power conversion and control systems is substantial complete for the 150 kilowatt PowerBuoy system and we expect to commence land testing in 2008 and ocean testing complete for the 150 PowerBuoy in 2009. The present schedule for development of the 150 and 500 kilowatt PowerBuoy reflects management’s decision to take a conservative position to enhance the system design to allow for improved survivability in a 100 year storm wave conditions and also to work…

Charles F. Dunleavy

Management

Our revenues increased by 89% in fiscal 2008 to $4.8 million as compared to $2.5 million in fiscal 2007. The increase in revenues was primarily attributable to the following factors: first of all, our ongoing work on the Hawaii project for the US Navy; our work on the first phase of construction of a 1.39 megawatt wave power station off the coast of Spain; the design, manufacture and installation of a 150 kilowatt PowerBuoy in Orkney, Scotland; and the autonomous PowerBuoy system to be provided to the US Navy for a program for deep ocean data gathering and communications. Cost of revenues increased to $8 million in fiscal 2008 as compared to $4 million in fiscal 2007. This increase reflected the higher level of activity on revenue bearing contracts as well as the recognition of an anticipated loss at completion of our contract for a wave power station off the coast of Spain. Product development costs increased by 33% to $8.3 million in fiscal 2008 as compared to $6.2 million in fiscal 2007. This increase in product development related to our continuing efforts to increase the PowerBuoy output of our utility PowerBuoy system and worked toward the introduction of the 150 kilowatt PowerBuoy. We expect our product development costs to increase over the next two as we continue to focus on increasing the output in efficiency of our PowerBuoy systems. Selling, general and administrative costs increased 58% to $7.7 million in fiscal 2008 as compared to $4.9 million in fiscal 2007. This increase is due to the expansion of our sales and marketing efforts, expenses related to becoming a public company in the United States and payroll and incentive based costs related to company growth. We expect that our selling, general and administrative costs will continue to increase as we…

George W. Taylor

Management

As we wrap up the call I would like to discuss how we anticipate growing the business as we move forward in our commercialization plans through the upcoming year. First as you heard from Mark we are working towards increasing the utility PowerBuoy system output to 150 kilowatt and thereafter to 500 Kilowatt. We believe this improvement in system output with our expected growth in production volume will greatly improve the economics of both capital and energy costs. Second we are focusing our sales and marketing efforts over the next three years on coastal North America, the west coast of Europe, the coasts of Australia and the east coast of Japan. We believe that each of these areas represents a strong potential market for our PowerBuoy wave power stations because they combine favorable wave conditions, political and economic stability, large population centers, high levels of industrialization, and significant and increasing electricity requirements. Third our demonstration wave power stations will allow us to prove the viability of our PowerBuoy systems in selected regions. By enabling customers to experience our technology firsthand and with unfettered access, we believe we will be able to facilitate our entry into our target markets and encourage market adoption. In addition demonstration wave power stations will provide us with the opportunity to test and refine our technology in actual operating conditions and will serve as test beds for our operating and maintenance procedures. Fourth we intend to build on existing commercial relationships by expanding the number and size of projects we have with our current customers. We also plan to enter into new alliances and commercial relationships with other utilities and independent power producers. By leveraging these customer relationships we believe we can expand commercial acceptance across the globe. We also expect to increase revenue streams through…