First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Mark Widmar: Yes. So the forecast is about 2 billion of CapEx through this year on the construction asset side of the plant. You’re going to see that on a fairly regular cadence through the year for Alabama. On the U.S. and India side, you’re going to see the remaining CapEx spend on those plants be towards the front end of the year. There’s some more R&D CapEx occurring at the back end of the year, so you’re going to see that be relatively even across the year on a blended basis, but from different areas. In terms of the unwind we don’t expect to see significant amounts of the current deferred revenue actually recognized this year. There’s about 1.2 on the balance sheet today. I think it’s going to be something recent. 100 million to 200 million of that will roll off this year and be recognized as revenue, so not a meaningful number added to that current deposit base.

As I said, we expect to add material amounts to that this year. The significant portion of that is from deferred deposits for deals that have already been signed and therefore, it’s simply a question of the timing of that posting. There is a piece that relates to future bookings and our assumptions, and that will depend a little bit on the timing of bookings, the total volume of bookings for this year. But the majority of our expectation is for deals that have already signed and that we’ll get deposits just based on the time schedule already agreed.

Operator: And next we will go to Julien Dumoulin-Smith of Bank of America.

Unidentified Analyst: Hey guys, it’s Alex for Julien. Just one quick one. You mentioned some caution at this point about announcing further expansions, I’m just curious if you can elaborate what sort of guidance or indications you’re looking for in order to think about expansion? And then would you think about possibly doing something in the U.S. as far as a produced basis to sell into other markets, thinking places like Europe specifically, if you were to announce additional expansions at this point? Thanks.

Mark Widmar: Look, as it relates to the expansion, we’d like to make sure €“ we believe we have a thorough understanding of the intent of the IRA and the policies that are applicable to domestic manufacturing in the ITC, manufacturing tax credit, excuse me, as well as the domestic components that would avail to an ITC bonus, but there’s still clarity for definitions that we want to make sure that we understand. So where we are right now is we’re actively evaluating to the point of engaging with our tool vendors, to the point of even looking at site selections and getting to a point where we can be shovel-ready as quickly as possible. But we want to get the additional clarity just so there’s nothing that pivots in a direction that we’re not envisioning at this point in time.

For us personally as well as what the criteria is going to be for crystalline silicon manufacturing as well to begin production in the U.S., we believe that the intent of IRA is to create enduring long-term supply chains, which would therefore motivate and align the incentives to true manufacturing in the U.S., more than just final module assembly with all the build material being sourced from international locations. And if everything lines up along those lines, then that sort of helps inform our view there as it relates to the inherent value of more domestic manufacturing, plus we want to make sure that, while we believe we’re fully entitled to the vertically integrated manufacturing tax credit, to the extent that we can get confirmation through guidance from IRS and Treasury, that would be very beneficial as we think about factory expansion.

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