Stem, Inc. (NYSE:STEM) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Andrew Percoco: Super helpful. I’ll take the rest offline. Thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from Julien Dumoulin Smith with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Q – Unidentified Analyst: Hey, guys. It’s Alex on for Julien. I’m just curious, I mean, congrats on the wins in the media and co-op space, definitely one of the more interesting places that we are definitely seeing, I think, storage crop up. I thought this slide where you showed your sort of the market share you guys built in ISA Northeast and then kind of what’s happening, we’ll say, beyond in the median comp space is interesting. I mean what sort of share do you guys think you could take in that space? And what sort of competitors do you run into — how do you drive differentiation? And I guess like one thing you guys have been very good at is sort of carving out niches and dominating in those niches. So just curious how far you can really push that with these announcements.

John Carrington : Yes. On the muni cost side, it’s a market that’s very well suited for our capabilities. These are typically smaller entities. So they’re not like the larger investor-owned utilities where they have — where they may have army of engineers to write software or a large balance sheet to procure their hardware. So we can really bring the complete STEM solution to these customers. And they’re very forward thinking around wanting distributed generation, wanting greater engagement with their customers. And we just hit the right part of the market at the right time. I think as John mentioned in his discussion around these, in less than a year, we run from 0% to 15% market share. We think there’s upside there, and we’ll continue to bang away at that.

Unidentified Analyst : Got it. Makes a ton of sense. Just as far as the bookings themselves as a bit of a follow-on. Obviously, this is a really outsized quarter for bookings. Your guidance is maintained on the full year basis, but car is up. I guess I’m just trying to kind of reconcile those sort of moving pieces. Were these sort of pulled forward relative to some other projects that may have shifted out that may have been in late-stage discussions. Just I guess sort of clarify, if you can, the interplay between the bookings in this quarter, the maintain full year and car going up relative to your prior expectations? Thanks.

Bill Bush: Yes. And thanks for that question. This is Bill. So I think a couple of points in there. One, of course, I mean, this was a record booking quarter for us. But you’ll also referenced that last quarter, we were a little bit lower. And so I think it kind of points to some of the lumpiness of the deals. And much like we said in the second quarter, the bookings are not revenue based and so we feel less pressure to sign a deal in a particular quarter until the terms make sense for us. And so that’s kind of how we think about that. We’ve always touted the $1.5 billion at the midpoint was a reasonable target for us. And I think the fourth quarter is going to be able to get us the rest of the way there. We’re just under $1.3 billion.

So it really is — it’s an opportunity for us to continue to sign deals in markets, which we think are interesting. There’s been a whole bunch of transactions that have happened here in the last little bit. And as Prakesh mentioned, the muni in the co-op space has been really successful area for us as well as our kind of our core markets, California, Texas and New England ISO. So I think from our standpoint, we continue to look for good deals that represent opportunities for us to place more software and services into them. And I think that one of the tenets is that, as Prakesh mentioned, that muni co-op space is really a good area for that.

Unidentified Analyst : Got it. Thanks, guys. I’ll take the rest of mine.

Operator: The next question comes from Sean Milligan with Janney. Please go ahead.

Sean Milligan : Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to go back to Joe’s question and just focus a little bit on the supplemental revenue detail. So when you look at the storage software services revenue, I think it was $5.5 million this quarter, down from 7.7% last quarter. Prakesh, I think you mentioned higher market participation last quarter, but just wanted to kind of get your thoughts if there was anything else going on there. It’s my understanding that there was some SPE, Vegas SPE revenue that was running due there. And if you back that out, that kind of implies like a 60% decline quarter-over-quarter in the — I guess, the core storage software revenue. So, just any thoughts there would be helpful.

John Carrington: Yes. So — and thanks for the question. So I think there are a couple of things moving through the quarters. One, as we — I think we noted last quarter, we had quite a bit of market participation revenue come through, the books that got reflected there. So it looks like a sequential down when it’s really kind of on the basic business, it’s really slightly up, not a lot, but slightly up. So I think that’s one thing to note. And I think as Prakash mentioned, I mean, interconnection continues to be an issue in terms of the uptick in what the software revenue is. And across the ISOs in particular, I would say, New York with the better program and in Texas, we’re really seeing significant slowdowns and how quickly systems can get turned on.

So when you end up happening is you have a hardware sale but not a company software sale in a reasonable time period. And so that’s really kind of what’s happening on the ground. The good news is there’s no cancellation. So it’s pushing software revenue out, and that’s really reflective of the CAR difference, whereas you see CAR continuing to grow, but not necessarily being reflected on the income statement line. That’s a direct reflection of what’s happening in those markets as it relates to interconnection

Prakesh Patel: The other thing I’d add — this is Prakesh is some of the apps we’ve been rolling out recently focused on this trend generally. So if you look at Power bitter Pro, as an example, or event manager, those can go to existing assets, existing customers. So we’re not as tied to just interconnections and greenfield development. And that’s a big part of our product road map generally.

Sean Milligan: Okay. That’s helpful. And then, just to build on that in the response there. If you look at CAR, I guess, the third quarter of last year, you were $61.5 million, now you’re $87.5 million. Just wanted to confirm, one, does CAR include project services business? And if not, I think if you look at kind of the implied run rate of the storage and solar, you’re kind of up $5 million on an annualized basis year-over-year. And just is there like an average time frame to turn on storage business that we should think about, like in terms of how to model unlock an additional CAR over the next 12 to 18 months? I know you haven’t given guidance on how far CAR extends. But is there something you’re seeing in the portfolio on how long it takes to turn on storage assets?