Leap in third-quarter revenue reduces losses in a tough year for tracker maker Soltec

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The latest financial update issued by Spanish solar tracker manufacturer Soltec indicates revenue leapt during the last quarter, with the €100 million generated in July to September representing 53% of the €187 million recorded in the first nine months of the year.

It has been a tough period for the tracker maker, which cited global logistics headaches and “a shortage of personnel in some countries” as the reason for its net loss of €20 million in the first nine months of the year. At least those losses were stemmed in the last full quarter, with the business shedding only a net €100,000 in the July-to-September window.

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The Murcia-headquartered manufacturer – cited as an exemplar of European solar technology balance-of-system production in the jobs report published by trade body SolarPower Europe yesterday – pointed to a signed-contract backlog of orders worth €397 million as a reason for optimism, and said it also had expectations of an eventual pipeline of orders worth €3.05 billion.

The better performance in the last quarter will have been helped along by an order from Florida-based construction company Moss & Associates, which has signed up for enough trackers to kit out 700 MW worth of solar project generation capacity.

Soltec was also keen to highlight the prospects of its Powertis solar project development business, which it said has a 9.1 GW order book including a 722 MW backlog, 1,369 MW of sites at an advanced stage of development, and 2,759 MW of early-stage facilities, plus a further 4,229 MW of “identified opportunities.” Powertis also secured 100 MW of project capacity in the latest Colombian renewable energy auction, the results of which were announced on Tuesday last week.

The full-year figures, however, appear unlikely to make for cheerful reading. Soltec said it expects 2021 revenue of €395-440 million but an EBITDA margin – the amount of operating cash generated for each dollar of revenue – of between 1 and -1% for the year, and that is before any debt interest, taxes and the like are deducted.

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