Acorn Energy Q4 2024 Earnings Report

Acorn Energy EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.31
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Acorn Energy Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $3.53 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Acorn Energy Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 3/6/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, March 6, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 11:00AM ET

Acorn Energy (NASDAQ:ACFN), Inc., through its subsidiaries, develops and markets wireless remote monitoring and control systems for various markets in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments, Power Generation (PG) Monitoring and Cathodic Protection (CP) Monitoring. The PG segment provides wireless remote monitoring and control systems, and services for critical assets, which include stand-by power generators, compressors, pumps, pumpjacks, light towers, turbines, and other industrial equipment; and Internet of Things applications. The CP segment offers remote monitoring of cathodic protection systems on gas pipelines for gas utilities and pipeline companies. The company was incorporated in 1986 and is based in Wilmington, Delaware.

Acorn Energy Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Acorn grew full-year 2024 revenue by 36% to $10.99 million and reported net income of $6.3 million (EPS $2.51), driven in part by a $4.35 million deferred tax benefit.
• The company secured an initial ~$5 million contract with a leading cell-phone provider for remote monitoring of backup generators, with the customer increasing hardware orders by 40% and shipments set to accelerate in 2025.
• Cash on hand rose to $2.3 million and stockholders’ equity turned positive at $5.5 million, clearing the key $5 million threshold to pursue a NASDAQ Capital Markets uplisting in 2025.
• Hardware sales jumped 69% in 2024 while monitoring revenue rose 7%, delivering gross margins of 57% on hardware, 94% on monitoring, and 72.8% blended.
• Management highlighted demand drivers including more frequent severe weather, an aging grid, and emerging demand response programs as catalysts for long-term growth in backup power monitoring.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning and welcome to Acorn Energy's fourth quarter and year-end 2024 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After some prepared remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. Now I will turn the conference to Tracy Clifford, CFO of Acorn Energy and COO of its OmniMetrics operating subsidiary. Ms. Clifford, please begin.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining today's call. Let me first remind everyone that the following remarks, as well as answers to questions, may be forward-looking. These statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. The operating and financial performance of the company in future periods is subject to risks associated with potential disruptions to business operations and customer demand, risks related to the company executing its operating plan, maintaining high customer renewal rates, and growing its customer base, as well as from changes in technology, the competitive landscape, or in the financial or economic environment. Forward-looking statements are based on management's beliefs and assumptions using currently available information and data pursuant to safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. There is no assurance that the company will achieve its goals.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

The company undertakes no obligation to revise or disclose revisions to forward-looking statements made as of today to reflect future events or circumstances that occur after today's call. A full discussion of risks and uncertainties that may affect the company is included under risk factors in our 10-K, filed this morning and available on sec.gov and on our website. Now I'll turn the call over to Jan Loeb, CEO of Acorn and OmniMetrics. Jan?

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Thanks, Tracy, and thank you all for joining us today. I am incredibly proud of the progress the Acorn and OmniMetrics teams achieved in 2024. We were able to grow our revenue by 36%, and net income increased to $6.3 million, or $2.51 per fully diluted share, from just $119, or $0.05 per fully diluted share in 2023. Our 2024 results include $4.35 million, or $1.77 per fully diluted share, of deferred income tax benefit. This tax benefit was the result of our outlook for sustained profitability and reflects only approximately 28% of our total deferred tax assets. Following the valuation allowance release, Acorn still has approximately $11 million, or 72% of our deferred tax assets, remaining in reserve. As you may know, our operating results in the second half of 2024 were bolstered by initial revenues from an approximately $5 million contract with a leading cell phone provider.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

The contract is for remote monitoring equipment and the initial year of monitoring services to support thousands of the customer's backup generators deployed at cell tower sites across the United States. The rollout has been progressing well. The customer recently increased the number of hardware units that they plan to order by 40%. We currently expect to fulfill shipments of hardware under the contract during the next few quarters of 2025. We remain focused on executing this project with the highest level of customer retention and premium service delivery, knowing that ensuring success with this customer could position us for additional opportunities with this customer and others of a similar profile with substantial remote monitoring needs. Of course, we expect to benefit from ongoing monitoring service revenue from this customer as a result of the annual renewals on the respective anniversary dates after the first year of monitoring services.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Importantly, our strong 2024 performance enabled us to substantially improve our balance sheet, positioning us to pursue an uplisting to the Nasdaq Capital Markets in 2025. Our cash increased to $2.3 million in 2024 from $1.5 million in 2023, and stockholders' equity improved to $5.5 million in 2024 from a deficit position in 2023 of $838,000, reflecting our improved operating results and the impact of the release of a portion of our available valuation allowance. Nasdaq's $5 million in shareholder equity listing criteria had been the principal obstacle to our pursuing an up listing. We are excited to pursue this next step in expanding the visibility and liquidity of our common stock to reach an even broader base of institutional and retail investors. Looking forward, we see a range of factors that should increase commercial and consumer demand for backup generators and our industry-leading monitoring and control services.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

We outlined some of these demand drivers in today's press release, and I'd like to touch on a few in more detail. First and foremost is the increasing frequency of severe weather and natural disaster events such as storms, floods, and wildfires that can disrupt electricity access for extended periods. The increasing incidence of power disruption raises the urgency for commercial and individual users to invest in reliable backup power. Adding to these woes is our nation's aging electric grid infrastructure, which is being increasingly challenged by growth in current and forecasted electricity demand to support a variety of energy-intensive use cases, as well as mission-critical applications in healthcare, food storage, security, etc. Our solutions provide substantial efficiency, value, and expanded capabilities that support backup generators with remote control functions, actionable data, risk mitigation tools, regulatory compliance, and general peace of mind benefits.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

We have also positioned Acorn to play a pioneering role in enabling the use of standby generators to support electric grids in meeting peak power in what is called demand response. We are still in the early days of building out a broader base of demand response support from standby generators. It takes time to formalize the relationships and to build out customer awareness and engagement, but we believe demand response has the potential to become an important long-term profit driver for our business. We have received our first two payments from ERCOT, though they are relatively small. While these factors support our business outlook, we also continue to invest in research, engineering, and product development to maintain our market leadership, as well as to develop new solutions. Tracy will provide some more detail on these efforts in a moment.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

While we believe our solutions can really sell themselves, we are actively pursuing new revenue opportunities by supporting our network of approximately 600 generator dealers across the U.S. and Canada. In addition, our internal sales team is focused on identifying and pursuing large commercial and industrial customer opportunities that are similar profiles to our large cellular customer, as well as government opportunities like state colleges and universities. Of course, the sales cycle is much longer for these larger enterprise opportunities, which involve more formal and tiered procurement processes. We also continue to work at forging strategic relationships with power generator manufacturers and other industrial equipment providers to expand our market reach. Moreover, our growth strategy includes an ongoing M&A process to seek out complementary and accretive opportunities that are well aligned with our business operations and objectives.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

In summary, as we have said in prior quarters, we believe that Acorn continues to be exceptionally well positioned for long-term growth and increasing profitability. Our solutions provide high ROI benefits that help customers achieve their operational, financial, environmental, and risk mitigation goals. We have a promising outlook for this year and are hard at work developing growth opportunities for the years to come. Let me now turn the call to Tracy Clifford, our CFO and COO, for her financial review and operational insights. Tracy?

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

Thanks, Jan. In addition to our earnings release, we also filed our 10-K this morning, which are both available online. Now I'll provide a brief review of our Q4 and full year 2024 financial performance and operating highlights before we open the call for questions. On the top line, Q4 2024 revenue rose 57% to $3,529,000, driven by a 100% increase in hardware sales and a 10% rise in monitoring revenue. Our contract with the significant cell phone provider contributed $913,000 in True Guard hardware revenue in Q4 2024. Excluding this contract, hardware revenue still grew 22% year over year in Q4. Full year 2024 revenue increased 36% to $10,986,000, supported by a 69% increase in hardware sales and a 7% rise in monitoring revenue. Excluding the impact of the material contract, hardware revenue grew 26%, driven by sales of enhanced product versions introduced in September of 2023.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

The enhanced hardware feature functionality that allows the equipment to operate independently of our monitoring services. As a result of this functionality, hardware revenue and costs are recognized upon shipment rather than being booked to deferred revenue and subsequently amortized. For the hardware shipped under the material contract, the revenue is recognized when the units are accepted by the customer according to their terms. Monitoring revenue is booked to deferred revenue until the units are installed and then recognized ratably over the service period, which is typically 12 months. Gross profit grew 55% in Q4 2024, while gross margin declined slightly to 72.4% from 73.2% in Q4 2023, reflecting an increase in hardware revenue, which carries a lower gross margin than monitoring. Similarly, full year gross profit increased 33% to $7,999,000, while growth in hardware reduced our blended gross margin to 72.8% in 2024 from 74.5% in 2023.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

Gross margin on hardware was 57% in 2024 versus 54% in 2023, and gross margin on monitoring was 94% in 2024 versus 93% in 2023. Going forward, we anticipate our blended gross margin to fluctuate depending on our mix of hardware and monitoring revenue. Total operating expenses rose to $1,711,000 in Q4 2024 from $1,570,000 in Q4 2023. However, as a percentage of revenue, operating expenses declined to 48% from 70%. For the full year, operating expenses were held to a 2% increase to $6,062,000. SG&A remained flat as the consolidation and elimination of the VP position in our sales organization offset higher wages and commissions across our employee base and increased IT spend.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

We have plans to add another high-level role in our IT department to provide additional internal resources to continue to expand our data tools available to our customers, respond to custom requests, innovative ideas at a rapid pace, and continue our focus on cybersecurity, all of which we will leverage to enable us to outpace our competitors in the IoT space. R&D expenses increased 20% in Q4 2024 and 16% for the year, reflecting higher engineering, personnel, and consulting costs associated with developing next-generation monitoring products. Our continued investments in redesigning and expanding our product line are aimed at driving innovation, strengthening our competitive position, and exploring new market opportunities. While on the topic of R&D, our focus remains on expanding our product offerings and enhancing our existing monitoring solutions, particularly in the power generation segment, which now accounts for 90% of our business and is our primary growth driver.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

We are very excited about the work that our engineering team has been doing for the last year and a half, which has culminated in our plans to launch our next-generation line of products in the second quarter of 2025. We will talk more about this in our next quarter conference call in May. During 2024, we introduced significant enhancements to our user interface with the launch of OmniView 2, which we call OV2. This update features a modernized, more user-friendly design and new functionalities, including Air Quality Index, or AQI, data to help customers comply with air quality regulations. Another area of focus for development is on high-performance data collection and automated prognostic solutions. Most generator failures stem from consumables such as batteries or fuel, which exhibit predictable usage patterns.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

By closely monitoring these data trends, we can proactively identify potential failures and empower our customers to take preventative actions to ensure backup power is available when needed. Acorn's strong 2024 results and outlook for ongoing profitability required the release of valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets, resulting in a $4,355,000 deferred income tax benefit in Q4 2024. Reflecting our strong operating performance and the income tax benefit, Q4 2024 net income improved to $5,233,000, or $0.0208 per diluted share, compared to $84,000, or $0.03 per diluted share in Q4 2023. The deferred income tax benefit contributed $1.77 to diluted EPS. For the full year, net income rose to $6,294,000, or $2.51 per diluted share, including the $1.70 impact from the income tax benefit, compared to $119,000, or $0.05 per diluted share in 2023.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

From a cash flow perspective, Acorn generated $905,000 from operating activities, invested $56,000 in technology and equipment, and received $28,000 from stock option exercise, resulting in a net cash increase of $877,000. Our cash position, therefore, improved to $2,326,000 as of year-end 2024, up from $1,449,000 a year earlier, and our accounts receivable increased to $1.9 million from $540,000 as of year-end. As of March 4, our cash position improved to $2.8 million, with no debt outstanding. We are proud of our growth and operating discipline and believe that our strong team, sound financial position, and ongoing investments will enable us to build on our industry leadership, particularly given the favorable trends we see in substantial underpenetrated markets. That concludes my comments. I appreciate your attention, and I'll look forward to updating you on our Q1 call in May. With that, operator, please prepare for our Q&A session.

[Operator]

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. We will now pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question today comes from Kris Tuttle with Blue Caterpillar. Please go ahead.

[Kris Tuttle, Chief Investment Officer at Blue Caterpillar]

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Again, great performance this quarter. I wanted to clarify a few things on the large contract that you're executing against. The range of when you announced it, you said 5,000-10,000 units, I think, and that's a pretty broad range. In the call today, you said thousands. I'm just curious, how is that number, how is that final number going to be determined, and what percentage of that is the opportunity at that particular customer?

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Good morning, Kris. Thank you for your question. I mean, it depends what the customer sends us a PO for is what our number is going to be. We do not know for sure what the customer's total number is because the customer has, besides the cell tower sites that they own themselves, they are in co-location as well. It really depends on who is in charge of the generator at that location. Right now, we are just going on this company's own cell towers and putting monitors on their generators at that cell tower. We have said it is between 5,000 and 10,000. I think that is still the range, even though we said in our just now, our prepared remarks that they have added from the initial contract about 40% more units. I think that the opportunity is potentially double of what we have today is my guess.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Again, they have not said that. It depends on a lot of factors where they want to go. It is clear that they and many other companies that own generators have focused in on the need to monitor their generators, especially remote locations like cell towers, where it takes a lot of technician time to make sure they are working.

[Kris Tuttle, Chief Investment Officer at Blue Caterpillar]

Okay. I got it. That's helpful. Another question, again, related to this. In the press release, there's a line that says the pace of hardware shipments to accelerate in the next few quarters to hopefully complete the statement of work by the end of this year. What do you mean by the pace of hardware to accelerate in the next few quarters? Because it's already pretty high.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

When we initially announced this contract and when it was signed with this company, it was over a two-year period. The company has said to us that they would like to move quicker and have it done within at least a year. It might go a little bit beyond that. Obviously, it depends on how many they really want to order from us. Because they would like to have it quicker, we're going to endeavor to provide it to them quicker. That is why we think that over the next few quarters, the pace will accelerate.

[Kris Tuttle, Chief Investment Officer at Blue Caterpillar]

Do you have any insight into what the driver for that would be? I don't think I've ever heard of a telco wanting to do anything faster than they originally thought they were going to do.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

I can't get inside their minds. If you just think about it today, I mean, if your cell phone went out in your area for more than an hour, I think you would be very upset. Am I correct?

[Kris Tuttle, Chief Investment Officer at Blue Caterpillar]

I try to look on the bright side of things, but yes, I take your point.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Okay. They have to make sure that their cell towers are working, there's power to their cell towers. Just because there's some storm going on and the grid can't provide the power to the cell tower, they have to know that the monitor is going to be up and running, I mean, that the generator is going to be up and running, and we provide them with that information.

[Kris Tuttle, Chief Investment Officer at Blue Caterpillar]

Okay. Okay. I got it.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

If you think about it, it's a relatively small cost to make sure that it's running.

[Kris Tuttle, Chief Investment Officer at Blue Caterpillar]

Yeah. It makes sense. It's just, like I said, it's just a little unusual for that particular type of customer. They're somewhat famous for being slow. If they are having outages and they are trying to keep their service up and running, then it makes sense to prioritize it. It's not. I was just curious if you had something additional on that. The last question for me, at least, and I'll circle back in case other people want to ask questions too. In terms of your inventory level and your supply chain, given the demand for hardware this year, do you feel are your inventory levels adequate? Do you have supply chain efficiency and cycle times to replenish to meet this and other customer demands?

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

We believe so. Again, this is not like it just happened overnight. We had this contract back in June of 2024. We have weekly calls with the customer. We understand their needs and desires. As of right now, I don't see any problem. I don't know what's going to happen in six months, but as of right now, we're in fine shape.

[Kris Tuttle, Chief Investment Officer at Blue Caterpillar]

Okay. I actually did have one other question of general interest, I think, which is, we have had this huge acceleration in the growth rate of the hardware, and we are beginning to see a little bit of acceleration in the monitoring revenue line. Should we expect to see further acceleration of the monitoring business given the hardware installations, or is there something going on there with respect to the attach rate of monitoring relative to the hardware that you are installing?

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

No. You should see some increase in, you can see an increase in monitoring. Just remember that the hardware is five to six times the cost of annual monitoring. So you're not going to, you're always going to see a much bigger number on the hardware side than you're going to see on the monitoring side.

[Kris Tuttle, Chief Investment Officer at Blue Caterpillar]

Okay. All right. I'll step aside and let some other folks ask questions. Thank you. Thanks a lot, guys.

[Operator]

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, then one, to join the question queue. The next question comes from Richard Sosa, a private investor. Please go ahead.

[Richard Sosa, Analyst at Private Investor]

Hi, Jan, Tracy. Great quarter, great year. I'm super excited as a long-term shareholder to see the continued growth. I'm not totally surprised, but I'm very happy to see that the execution and the value proposition you're offering to your customers continues to be met. First and foremost, I had really three questions. One, I was very surprised to see the Nasdaq uplisting. We've been waiting for that for a while, and it does seem like the perfect time. You have the momentum, you're growing. The cost of the uplisting, I think, will be well justified. I know you didn't talk about it much in your release, but in the sense of timing, do you think this can be done by the end of June, or is it really still up in the air because there's multiple parties at stake?

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

First, Richard, thank you for your comments and your continued support. Again, I'm not a Nasdaq specialist, so I can't tell you what hoops they're going to make us jump through. It is certainly my and our intention that it gets done by June 30th. We'll see what the experts have to say.

[Richard Sosa, Analyst at Private Investor]

Right. I am assuming you'll keep the shareholders updated on timing as we approach that time. I know we have a call in a few months.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, and we're a fairly accessible management team. So one can expect to be kept updated.

[Richard Sosa, Analyst at Private Investor]

I don't know if I've ever asked this before, but as you uplist, have you thought about changing the name of the corporation just to kind of maybe align more with OmniMetrics? Or is that something that's not really in the cards?

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

No. We've definitely thought about it, and we continue to think about it. So far, I have not gotten a good cost-benefit by doing it. I mean, again, most of our customers know us as OmniMetrics. It's just kind of the shareholders that know us as Acorn Energy. We'll see what happens. Certainly, an uplisting or an acquisition would be a catalyst to have that name changed.

[Richard Sosa, Analyst at Private Investor]

Okay. My last question, and I apologize. At the beginning of the call, I was kind of doing multiple things. You mentioned about the contract, the telco contract, something about 40% increase in hardware. I was unsure what that meant exactly. Was it 40% in addition to what was in the initial $5 million order, or am I totally misunderstanding it?

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Tracy, why don't Tracy handle that question?

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

Yeah. Richard, the 40% was meant to indicate the percentage of units that we actually received an indication from the customer on over and above what we had on purchase orders as of the end of the year. That was.

[Richard Sosa, Analyst at Private Investor]

Okay. It has nothing to do with the $5 million. Nothing to do with it. Got it. Got it. That makes sense.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

Correct.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

That makes total sense. I did notice in the 10K that the order is already larger than $5 million. Does that include monitoring? I thought it was $5.4 million or something. Again, I might have skimmed it. I'm assuming it has grown a little bit, right?

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

The 5.4 is indeed inclusive of the monitoring as far as.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Okay. We got it.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

Everything that we have to date. Yes. The indications as of today. Now, as Jan alluded, it's very possible that they will come back to us and add more. We have an open SOW, essentially. They are able to send POs continuously. That is why he indicated there was a bit of uncertainty as to what the full opportunity might be because we already have received additional indications of the 40% increase in the units from the original POs placed in 2024. We are hopeful that there will be even more.

[Richard Sosa, Analyst at Private Investor]

That makes sense. I know the last caller mentioned about accelerating the hardware. This is just my opinion. I feel if a customer wants the product faster, either one, they're testing to see if we can deliver, or two, they're happy with it or else they wouldn't want it right away. To me, I view that as a positive. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. It's a positive. I'm assuming that there could be a lot more potential there and with competitors. I'm very excited. Lastly, just ex this order, it still seems like you really, really grew and were able to make all your other customers happy. It seemed like, I mean, I'm trying to find a negative, and I mean, I can't find one. Again, kudos. That wasn't really a question.

[Richard Sosa, Analyst at Private Investor]

I will go back to the queue and thank you very much.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

Thanks, Richard.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Thank you, Richard.

[Operator]

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, then one, to join the question queue. The next question comes from Greg Weaver with Invicta Capital. Please go ahead.

[Greg Weaver, CEO at Invicta Capital]

Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Nice job here on the quarter. Again, I'll loop back. This was one of the questions on this purchase order increase. I'm still a little unclear. You'd said the size of the original PO was not $5 million, and this 40% increase is under that umbrella?

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

No. The original was $5 million. And $5 million includes both hardware and first-year monitoring. That's how we sell all our products. Hardware plus first-year monitoring. As Tracy said, they've given us a new order for 40% more units than they ordered originally.

[Greg Weaver, CEO at Invicta Capital]

Right. You told us before that the monitoring was about 20% of the total. The other 80% would be hardware. Just doing the idiot math here, there will be $4 million of hardware and $1 million of monitoring. If that's the case, there should be 40% times $4 million as the order increased, $1.5 million, $2 million bucks?

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Right. The other factor you have to put in that we have not talked about is they have different products, and we have different products. There is a standalone TG2, then there is a TG Pro, there is mobile, there is mobile with sensors. There is kind of a whole mix of different price points that them or any customer can order from us.

[Richard Sosa, Analyst at Private Investor]

Okay. The 30-40% increase, you said that was units, right?

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

In units. Correct.

[Greg Weaver, CEO at Invicta Capital]

Go back to your price point comment. Okay. Either way, this is incremental on top of the original five that you got. Congrats on that. That's positive. The other thing was just a subtle question. Nice way to achieve your $5 million in equity by flipping part of the NOL. Generally speaking, from a GAAP perspective, that messes up your tax rate, right? Cash taxes, obviously, you're not paying. Tracy, maybe could you, what's the fiscal 2025 GAAP tax rate, and are you going to give some type of presentation that shows non-GAAP to be apples to apples?

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

We do not disclose any non-GAAP measures. That is problematic on the disclosures. There would not be a reconciliation to non-GAAP. As it relates to the future of the release of the deferred tax assets, it is going to be, as I am sure you are aware, largely dependent on how our projections from 2025 through 2032 progress with what we have currently projected at year-end to what materializes over the next four to eight quarters.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

All this is very, since this is the first time we've been able to look forward and be able to substantiate a release of deferred tax assets, we'll certainly be looking very closely at this each quarter on the projections, most specifically post-June 30, to see how the remainder of the year after all the shipments are out under the existing material contract and what other opportunities we have for the remainder of 2025 and looking into 2026 because that will largely drive any other release of the DTAs or any other adjustments that might need to be made to releases that have already been made. We'll be very focused on that.

[Greg Weaver, CEO at Invicta Capital]

Right. I totally understand that concept. The issue is when you report earnings now, right, you're going to have some type of tax rate where historically, I guess you're only paying state taxes and no federal. It will just make the EPS look smaller, even though from a cash perspective, that's not the case.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

That's correct.

[Greg Weaver, CEO at Invicta Capital]

Just asking, in the text body or something, is it, "Say, this is our cash EPS," or some indicator so that folks won't get upset saying, "What happened to the earnings?

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

I would imagine that it will be obvious just as we carved it out in the earnings release for the year-end and the fourth quarter. We will try to make sure that it is clear what portion is related to the DTA of EPS and what portion is related to ongoing operation activity. We will carve that out.

[Greg Weaver, CEO at Invicta Capital]

Okay. I'm assuming you're not taking any gains. Is that generally a year-end thing when you reassess the deferred tax? Okay. Either way.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

No. Unfortunately, we'll have to reassess it every quarter. The difficult part of doing that, of course, is because of the nature of our business, there can be very significant swings based on shipments and when the orders come in between quarter to quarter. We will be very careful not to react in a knee-jerk fashion on a quarterly result as we move through the year, especially if it's just based on timing. If that's what we're seeing, that it's just really based on timing. We will be very careful about it's not just a year-end. The guidance doesn't allow you only to look at it at year-end.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

Certainly, we will consider fluctuations in the quarters and how they might ultimately impact the year-end numbers and whether or not we need to make an adjustment at the quarterly period or if we believe there's enough substantiation in the projections to actual to wait until the end of the year.

[Greg Weaver, CEO at Invicta Capital]

Gotcha. Okay. It could even be a negative tax rate as opposed to.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

It could be.

[Greg Weaver, CEO at Invicta Capital]

That would be.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

It could be. I mean, certainly, we hope that's not the case, but it's always possible.

[Greg Weaver, CEO at Invicta Capital]

Right. Understood. Either way, it'll distort the EPS. That's not your cash situation. All right. Great. Appreciate it. Nice job. Thank you.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Joel Schlar, who's a private investor. Please go ahead.

[Joel Schlar, Analyst]

Hi. Good morning, Jan and Tracy. I'll just echo the remarks that others have made. Outstanding quarter and year. I'm very excited about the potential uplisting to NASDAQ. Just one question for you, Jan. Can you provide a little bit more color on demand response and what's going on there in terms of when we may start seeing significant revenue streams from demand response? Thank you in advance.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Okay. I wish I could tell you the answer. I don't know. As we're this is a relatively brand new program for everybody. Even the grid operators themselves don't know how to manage this, how much they need, how much they can commit to, what's the dollar amount. I say, and I think I said in my prepared remarks, that the demand response is in flux. We know that it's a necessity because we need to have peak power, and it's not available today. We are there already. Our software's there. Our position is there. I said, we actually got a couple of checks that are relatively small. When everybody understands how this will be priced out, we will be there. We think we will be right in the middle, perfectly positioned to take advantage of it.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Right now, it's not something that's going to impact our numbers in the foreseeable future as I see it today.

[Joel Schlar, Analyst]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, then one, to join the question queue. The next question comes from Shai Dardashti, a private investor. Please go ahead.

[Shai Dardashti, Analyst]

Hi. Good morning. Thank you for hosting this call and taking my question. I recall in November of 2024, the company discussed the possibility for white-label opportunities with generator manufacturing companies. Does this opportunity still exist? Could you calibrate any outlook for this opportunity, please?

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

The opportunity still exists, Shai. I cannot calibrate what the opportunity what it is in terms of size or anything like that. The opportunity certainly still exists.

[Shai Dardashti, Analyst]

I'd like to also please follow up on a November 9, 2023, press release that mentioned a reseller agreement with a leading commercial dealer. I'm curious if that relationship has progressed and if it has, what the contribution is. If not, if the units might eventually happen, please.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Okay. The opportunity has not panned out. The agreement was with a private equity firm that was rolling up generator dealers. Their thought was that they could do a deal with us and thereby save money for their dealers in terms of buying in bulk, monitors and monitoring services from us. The private equity firm found it more difficult than they thought to get the dealers to buy from us, mainly because some dealers were already our customers. Some dealers were customers of competitors of ours and did not want to change just because the private equity parent had this deal with us. The private equity parent was not willing to really put their foot down and say, "You have to do this." Subsequently, that private equity firm sold the group of dealerships that they were rolling up to a different firm.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Simple answer to your question is it has not panned out through no fault of our own.

[Shai Dardashti, Analyst]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Bill Jones. Please go ahead.

[Bill Jones, Analyst]

Hi. This question was emailed from a private investor. The question is, "Is it correct that cash received for monitoring may still show up as deferred revenue, for example, when a customer pays for an entire year, whereas cash received for hardware will now rarely or never show up as deferred revenue? Could you share the percentage of revenue current and long-term deferred revenue current and long-term, that is, hardware versus monitoring?" Tracy, you want to take that? Tracy might be on mute.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

I'm not on mute. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

We can hear you now. We can hear you now.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

Okay. I don't know what was the problem. But the investor could refer to footnote 13, actually, in our financial statements that has a table that actually has this breakout. For ease of reference, the total deferred revenue at December 31, 2024 was $4.2 million. Of that, $3.1 million was monitoring and $1.1 million is hardware. Additionally, of that $4.2 million in total deferred revenue, $3.5 million of that will be recognized throughout 2025. It is short-term. Then $709,000 of that will be recognized in 2026 with a very small portion in 2027. Now, of course, monitoring revenue will continue to be deferred and amortized over the service period. That deferred revenue will continue to fluctuate, whereas the hardware revenue that you see in the table of $1.1 million is unlikely to change, increase, or otherwise after it is fully amortized in 2026.

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

That table is in footnote 13 of the financial statements.

[Bill Jones, Analyst]

Right. So the new sales of hardware are not deferred?

[Tracy S. Clifford, CFO at Acorn Energy]

Correct.

[Bill Jones, Analyst]

Right. Okay. I think that answers the question. Question number two, you've shared in recent or prior calls and filings that about 55% of hardware revenue drops to the gross margin, whereas more than 90% of monitoring revenue drops to gross margin. Can you discuss the relative expenses below the gross margin line needed to fulfill one-time hardware revenue versus recurring monitoring revenue? Said another way, you said before that roughly 50% of incremental revenue is likely to drop to the operating income line. Is this expectation for 50% incremental operating margin the same for hardware revenue and recurring monitoring revenue?

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Okay. In answer to the first part of the question, below the gross profit margin line, we have all of our SG&A expenses. Some of that goes to the recurring monitoring revenue as well: renewal billing, receiving the checks from our customers. That also goes for the hardware revenue. Engineering is mainly for hardware revenue, but we have some IT expense on the recurring monitoring revenue. We have tech support, again, both for the hardware side and some tech support on the recurring monitoring side. Those are some of the below-the-gross-margin line expenses that we have, obviously much more so for the hardware than for the recurring monitoring revenue. What I've said before is that I believe that 50% of incremental revenue drops to it's a combination of both the higher-margin recurring revenue, monitoring, and the growth in the hardware sales.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

Fifty percent of overall revenues, incremental revenues, I believe, can fall to our operating income line because the infrastructure is there. We have a very efficient team. I do not expect expenses to grow that much to add an incremental dollar of sales.

[Bill Jones, Analyst]

Right. The 50% is blended between hardware and monitoring. I think that makes sense. I have no further questions from email.

[Operator]

Showing no further questions, this concludes the Q&A session. Now I'll turn the call back to Jan Loeb for closing remarks.

[Jan H. Loeb, CEO at Acorn Energy]

We appreciate your support, and we're always happy to speak with investors. We will participate at the Planet Microcap Las Vegas Showcase on April 23rd and 24th. The conference is in partnership with the Microcap Club, and we'll put out details about the event in coming days. We'll be meeting with investors at the conference, or you can arrange a call with us or ask questions through our IR team. This information is listed in today's press release. As always, we thank you for your support and look forward to updating you on our progress and our plans for uplisting to Nasdaq. Take care, everybody.

[Operator]

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Jan H. Loeb, CEO
• Tracy S. Clifford, CFO

Analysts

• Bill Jones, Analyst
• Greg Weaver, CEO at Invicta Capital
• Joel Schlar, Analyst
• Kris Tuttle, Chief Investment Officer at Blue Caterpillar
• Richard Sosa, Analyst at Private Investor
• Shai Dardashti, Analyst