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Ameresco Inc (AMRC 3.41%)
Q3 2019 Earnings Call
Nov 5, 2019, 8:30 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Ameresco, Inc. Third Quarter 2019 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Ms. Leila Dillon, Vice President, Marketing and Communications. Ms. Dillon, you may begin.
Leila Dillon -- Vice President, Marketing and Communications
Thank you, Chris and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for today's call. Joining me here are George Sakellaris, Ameresco's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Doran Hole, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Mark Chiplock, Vice President, Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer.
Before I turn the call over to George, I would like to make a brief statement regarding forward-looking remarks. This call contains forward-looking information regarding future events and the future financial performance of the Company. We caution you that such statements are predictions based on management's current expectations or beliefs. Actual results may differ materially as a result of risks and uncertainties that pertain to our business. We refer you to the Company's press release issued this morning and to our SEC filings. These documents discuss important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the Company's projections or forward-looking statements. We assume no obligation to revise any forward-looking statements made on today's call.
In addition, we will be referring to non-GAAP financial measures during this call. These non-GAAP financial measures are not prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. A GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation as well as an explanation behind the use of non-GAAP financial measures is available in our press release and in the appendix of the slides, which can be downloaded from our website.
I will now turn the call over to George. George?
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Leila and good morning everyone. Third quarter results were marked by record Smart Energy Solutions Awards resulting in record total project backlog. We also had significant growth in the Ameresco assets development pipeline resulting in a record asset backlog. Sample versions or awards to contracts expected in Q3 were delayed, shifting approximately $30 million of revenue out of the quarter. I will point out that the number of these contracts have already been signed since September 30. We expect the remainder to close in Q4, and most importantly, the overall trends in our business remain very strong.
Our robust asset development pipeline will allow us to more than double our megawatts in operation in the coming years, significantly increasing our base of recurring revenues and earnings. At the same time, we have continued to build our technical expertise to address the increasing complexity of our customers' projects and Company-owned assets.
As we have indicated during the last year, we have made investments in order to develop significant domain knowledge in areas such as battery storage, microgrids, smart controls and other advanced energy technologies across all of our regions. As you can see, the success of this strategy is resulting in our record awards.
We are also leveraging our expanded platform to grow our Ameresco asset business at much higher rates than in the past. We are at a point where all regions are capable to compete and have begun to contribute to this advanced markets.
The Company's assets were traditionally developed out of the North East offices, we have now expanded our local capabilities into all regions. Our 70-plus offices in North America afford us a unique competitive advantage for traditional smart energy solutions work and asset ownership opportunities. At the end of Q3, total assets in development more than doubled year-on-year, reaching 287 megawatt by quarter's end. We expect our assets in development to continue to exceed the number of megawatts in operation.
Our asset development opportunities are increasingly getting larger and more complex. In fact, we recently announced our largest energy asset project, a 25 megawatt solar plant in DePue, Illinois. Construction is expected to begin the summer of 2020. This installation highlights multiple benefits as it will help the state of Illinois meet its renewable energy goals, while at the same time providing income for the local community, and of course a good return for Ameresco.
During the quarter, our Canadian team held a ribbon cutting ceremony for our first company owned grid type battery energy storage system. The 16-megawatt hour system has been used in Ontario to store power during periods of excess supply and deliver it back into the grid when demand is high. These types of systems are an integral part of a grid stability and given the intermittent nature of renewable energy generation, we are confident that the success of such projects will lead to much wider reduction and greater opportunities for Ameresco.
As you are aware, California's largest utility PG&E has been shutting off power to large portions of its territory to prevent potential wildfires. These blackouts have impacted millions of residential customers, along with numerous municipal, institutional and manufacturing facilities. It is estimated that to date the blackouts have caused over $2.5 billion in economic losses to the state. We believe that these historic events are creating unprecedented demand for resilient distributed energy resources, which are relevant to our smart energy solutions in Ameresco asset business as well as our integrated solar distribution business.
For many quarters, we have been selling off grid, stand-alone, solar and energy storage systems into California for applications such as cellular towers, solar pumps and supporting local electric utility operations. Years of utility under investment are growing and growing where the volatility increase the likelihood that such proactive blackouts will become more frequent and will spread to other geographic areas. PG itself believes that it will take up to 10 years to address this issue.
California has always been a leader in renewables and energy technologies for their environmental benefits. We now believe that California will become a leader in advanced technologies for power resiliency. The state recently passed SB 1339 and the [Indecipherable] should bring much more certainty and urgency around deployment of technologies such as microgrids. This will lead to increased adoption, not only in California, but of course the country as the use of these technologies become more accepted by customers and begin to make more economic sense. We believe Ameresco is exceptionally well positioned to benefit from these emerging markets.
As we have discussed in the past, our customers are requiring that resiliency be incorporated into more projects. Our core client base of the federal government, municipalities, universities, hospitals and other institutional clients are leading the charge in investing in resiliency programs such as microgrids, CHP and battery storage.
A great example of such a project is our recently completed Fort Leonard Wood project. This installation utilizes the latest and advanced energy technologies. It's powered by 2.5 megawatt natural gas fired engine with advanced emission controls and the heat recovery system. Utilizing microgrid controls, the system can operate as part of the function in grid or in an island mode thus providing continuous power for mission-critical systems.
Our existing customers continue to provide us with additional work. For example, we signed our third United States plus the service contract this year, one of which includes distributed energy generation with solar. The other two were focused in design build built in modernization. This design build wins are in part due to the expertise brought to Ameresco from a recently completed acquisition. We are optimistic for the potential of design built work as an additional and complementary revenue stream from our existing customer base. We will continue to pursue similar complementary acquisitions.
In summary, market conditions are very strong and we believe our position is excellent supporting our confidence in a very strong finish to 2019 and solid growth for 2020 and beyond. I will now turn the call over to Doran to review the financials. Doran?
Doran Hole -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, George, and good morning, everyone. As I review the Company's third quarter financial performance, I ask that you please refer to our press release and supplemental slides for more complete financial information. The record growth in project awards and another solid quarter of adding assets to our pipeline highlight the early successes of the investments in strategic resources and advanced technology we decided to make this year. We achieved record project awards in the third quarter of $343 million, up 72% year-over-year and in large part reflecting the increasingly complex projects that George spoke about earlier.
Our Smart Energy Solutions project backlog at quarter end was $2.2 billion, comprised of $787 million in contracted backlog and $1.4 billion in awarded projects. Our Ameresco asset development pipeline reached a record 287 megawatts at the end of the third quarter. This represented 61% year-to-date growth and was more than twice the size of our pipeline at the end of last year's third quarter. We added 37 megawatts of assets to this pipeline, including another earlier stage RNG plant that we have been talking about for a few quarters.
The rest of the awards were solar, including the large DePue, Illinois project that George mentioned. We placed 8 megawatts into service in Q3, bringing our year-to-date total number to 29 megawatts. The rapid growth of our Ameresco asset business reflects our ability to leverage the Company's geographic footprint, customer relationships and technical knowledge to win additional asset opportunities.
During the third quarter, we transferred 15 megawatts out of our assets in development metric into project awards. These solar projects are for a large national corporate account where during development the customer decided that owning these systems outright versus entering into a power purchase agreement with Ameresco made more sense given its tax strategy and cost of capital. While we do have the resources and balance sheet to build and own assets, I want to remind everyone that we are a customer-first organization and we have the flexibility to pivot our energy savings offerings based on customer needs. We are pleased to be developing our C&I book of business with this new marquee national account and will be talking about it more in the future.
Third quarter revenue was $212 million, reflecting modest growth across all of our lines of business. While a positive year-on-year comparison, the push out of several project contract conversions impacted revenue results by approximately $30 million. As you know, these projects have already been awarded to Ameresco, but start dates are a function of client schedules and can slip from one quarter to another.
Net income attributable to common shareholders was $8.9 million. Net income per diluted share was $0.19. Non-GAAP net income was $8.5 million and non-GAAP EPS came in at $0.18. These metrics are below the comparable 2018 figures, representing the increased investment in people and technology that we had anticipated for 2019 and in support of what we expect to be a very strong 2020.
Adjusted EBITDA was $23.9 million, cash flows used in operating activities were $11.5 million and adjusted cash generated from operations, a non-GAAP financial measure was $21.3 million during the quarter. Our liquidity remains strong. The Company is well positioned to execute on its asset build out through a combination of cash on hand, cash generated, non-recourse debt and the ability to monetize existing assets and recycle the proceeds into additional opportunities.
Turning to our outlook. Based on contract signed after the end of the third quarter and those expected to be signed shortly, we are reaffirming our 2019 full year guidance, namely, for revenue to be in the range of $845 million to $885 million, adjusted EBITDA of $95 million to $103 million and net income per diluted share of $0.77 to $0.85. We expect our tax rate to be between 12% and 15% for 2019 and we now expect to place approximately 40 megawatts of assets into operations this year.
Now, I would like to turn the call back over to George for closing comments.
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Doran. I will summarize with three points. First, we expect to have an outstanding fourth quarter. Second, we are already seeing tangible results from the investments that we have made in people and platforms. And third, we expect to have a strong 2020 thanks to our fast growing asset development pipeline and substantial contracted project backlog. We look forward to seeing many of you at our upcoming investor conferences.
And now, Chris, we would like to open the call to questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Chris Van Horn with B. Riley FBR. Your line is now open.
Chris Van Horn -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my call.
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Chris.
Chris Van Horn -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst
So you mentioned way off the bat that 2019 was going to be an investment year and it's obviously translated to some really robust award activity. I'm curious where you are in terms of those investments. Do you see more coming and do they go into 2020 and what's kind of your thinking around that?
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. Basically, I will say that the -- we're pretty much essentially done with the investment that we made for 2019 because that was the plan, what I will call one shut basically right sizing all units of the Company for the particular market that we want to address, otherwise the advanced market opportunities. As we go forward, I think you will see as the more opportunistic and trying to add additional talent, but it will be matched into what we forecast in the past that we want to grow the bottom line at a faster rate than what we do the topline. So the operating expenditures, we will be more carefully monitor going forward. And we're pretty much done with the investments that we wanted to make, but what I would call -- want to shut a deal for 2019. [Indecipherable]. And that's why we started seeing the results, the impact, basically the talent that we brought aboard has some early successes and not only in North East, but it's in the federal group, in the Southwest as well as in the Central, as well as well in Canada. So we feel very good where we are.
Chris Van Horn -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst
Okay. Got it. And then you mentioned in your outlook accelerated growth entering 2020. Could you -- would you be able to elaborate a little bit on that and are you talking in terms of topline growth or EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA expansion? Any more detail there would be great.
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, we will give guidance in the next call, and maybe even a little bit before that -- after the fourth year announcement, but I think it's important to note that basically where we are to date, we think that by the end of the year, we will have record contracted backlog, otherwise the project contracts we will be at a record level based on where we are as of today. So that's why I feel very strong that next year is going to be a very strong year.
In addition to that, we have a great pipeline of the assets in development that we have, so a good chunk of us will come into play next year. So that will contribute a lot. The operation and maintenance looks very good. So even though we are not giving actual guidance, but I think historical though trend otherwise growing the top line at the high single digits, I think is very, very doable. And the EBITDA line going to close to 20% with historical trend for the last five years, again, it's very doable. So I hope that gives you a little bit more color, but the fact that we would end the year with record project contracted backlog, we will be in good shape.
Chris Van Horn -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst
Got it. Got it. And last one for me, if you don't mind. Could you maybe talk about the competitive landscape? Obviously, you're seeing a lot of award activity and I'm just curious what you're seeing from a competitive standpoint, our competitors rising and you're seeing more small players kind of starting to emerge, or are you guys just benefiting from just taking all the share because of the lack of players in the space, maybe?
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
I will say, we are taking a little bit share from the largest competitors like the Johnson Controls, the Honeywells, the Siemens of the world because we have more of the focus and broader strategy than they do across all these advanced technologies. The flexibility we own the system, we let the customer own the system and so and approach our solution from the customer perspective. And the fact that we've made the investments over these last years to be broad and deep technical expertise is helping us a lot and we take market share from the big guys.
But on the performance contracts on a smaller scale, the contracts, I will say 2 million and below where you have some mechanical contractors or local engineering firms, you will see that they're picking some of the small contracts and some of our units they focusing on the smaller contracts than the less complex contracts, they have some challenges, where the units that they focus on the broader technologies and more comprehensive projects they have some great wins.
Chris Van Horn -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst
Okay. Great.
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
The overall market is evolving on these larger projects, and the fact that I think we pivot the Company over the last three years to take advantage of the emerging markets. We are very, very well positioned.
The other thing I want to -- and may be Doran may want to comment a little bit on this, on the competitive landscape, when we go into the asset ownership, especially on the solar, it was helping us a lot in the solar business is the fact now that all units across the country, otherwise the 140-plus developers, they can develop these projects. And in addition to that in the market we address, let's say the megawatts are below, which is a local municipality clients and so on, we have the relationships. So again, it helps us. Doran?
Doran Hole -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
I think the competitive landscape in solar is obviously different than the traditional energy efficient -- efficiency business. And so I think, as George mentioned before, that flexibility to allow clients to own the assets or to allow us to own the assets is really a competitive advantage. And then furthermore, just simply the local presence, as we talked about in the call earlier, 70 plus offices around the country, we've got the penetration and then in addition to that, the technical capabilities in the regions to actually develop the projects just gives us the competitive advantage. It's a very local business. So it's necessary to have that.
Chris Van Horn -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst
Okay. Got it. Thank you so much for all that color and thanks for the time.
Operator
Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Noah Kaye with Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.
Noah Kaye -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions.
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Noah.
Noah Kaye -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Housekeeping to start with. From a segment perspective, can you help us understand where that $30 million of revenue push out happened in segments?
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Basically, Noah, I know it's a good chunk of money, but basically on all these projects, the contracts, they're very, very mature. And close to $30 million, about $25 million to $30 million is in development expense that we have already invested on those particular projects or when that project gets signed all that hits the topline, the income statement. And that's why it had a major impact on the quarter and it gets shifted -- you might say by a quarter that particular revenue going out.
Noah Kaye -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
I'm sorry. My question was on which segments, federal regions, Canada, where did it happen?
Doran Hole -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, it's mostly federal, Noah and most of that is related to federal awards.
Noah Kaye -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Okay. With the federal, I know there has been some timing issues potentially related to a large DOE project, a DOE authorization that's expiring, can you maybe kind of connect the dots here for us on some of its in-quarter timing, softness and the large awards that you mentioned? Can you help us kind of connect the dot there a little bit?
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Some of those contracts -- and you can add something to. We have a very good sign and we have very, very good visibility and feel very confident that they will be signed prior to December 16, which is the IDIQ this particular one or expiring.
Mark Chiplock -- Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer
Yeah, and I think as we said in the past, Noah, I think certainly the timing aspect, but these are really premature in the overall sales and development cycle in -- on both ends. So, although we didn't get the one sign that we had possibly expected in Q3, we're pretty confident that those will come in before the expiration of the IDIQ and as George mentioned, we've already signed some and expect to them sign the rest in the coming weeks.
Doran Hole -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
And I'll just add in the quarter on quarter.
Noah Kaye -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Sorry, go ahead.
Doran Hole -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, I was just going to add, the quarter on quarter slip in the federal business, you also had an impact just from a practical perspective of their September 30 fiscal year end, all right where -- frankly people on the other side of these contracts have a lot on their plate to get done before fiscal year end and so as a result, these things slip.
Noah Kaye -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
So I guess that will [Indecipherable] can you talk about your conviction level for the fourth quarter? I think at this point to hit the midpoint of your revenue guidance, you'd have to do $305 million in fourth quarter sales and that would be 40% [Phonetic] higher than your previous high watermark for quarter. At the low end of your guidance, you do something $285 million in sales, again, well above your previous high watermark. So just talk about, if you can, what's driving these expectations for a record quarter, get part of it may be recognizing this $30 million maybe from 3Q to 4Q. But just how much visibility you have to it coming through and maybe you've referred your guidance, but where is your bias at this point within the range or pretty close to the end of the year at this point?
Mark Chiplock -- Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer
Noah, this is Mark. I think, why we feel so confident is that 85% of the revenue we're expecting in Q4 comes from contracted sources. So either our contracted backlog or from our other revenue streams, the recurring revenue streams or integrated PV and so again 85% of that revenue, we feel pretty, pretty confident about just given the visibility from contracted sources.
And then the rest is coming from the award and as we mentioned, we feel highly confident that the awards that we did not sign in Q3 as well as the ones that we had always expected in Q4 will sign. So we feel like there is a very strong visibility to the -- to our Q4 revenue.
Noah Kaye -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Okay. So those are to take that midpoint of $305 million implies that the fourth quarter -- $260 million of that essentially is in the back. And then the rest is just what comes through. Is that correct numerically?
Mark Chiplock -- Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer
From the revenue from contracted sources, we feel pretty good about. So yeah, your math is correct. I think we just feel -- we feel confident, because once it's in our contracted backlog, we can here we can move to recognize that and as long as we're executing we feel very good about that. The rest just comes from [Indecipherable].
Noah Kaye -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Excellent. Can you give us any color on the RNG project that you added to the asset developments pipeline this quarter?
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, it's another plant in California, and it's a very good size close to the Woodland plant. And it's an existing site that we have conversion from landfill gas to electricity and is a large plant, but we have excess gas. So we are not converting otherwise taken down the electric plant we have right now, it will be an additional plant and it will be a grid plant and the fact that it's an existing client, on the other side, that was the landfill owner and us, we feel very, very good about it. We've been working for it for some time.
And the other thing I wanted to add up because we have been talking about the other five, six plans that they are in the early stages of development, but we have not put in our pipeline. They are not going away. We're still working on them. And I wouldn't be surprised that we probably add couple of them into our backlog by the end of the year.
And in addition to that, the plants that we have in construction that we said, one will go into operation late next year and the other two, the second half of 2021, again it's on schedule. No, any delays. We are on schedule. And now we're trying to get for 2022 to have the new ones that we just signed and probably a couple more by the end of the year. We have got our visibility as to the 2022.
Noah Kaye -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
So you're continuing to backbone actually augment that RNG pipeline, which is terrific to see. Can you maybe talk a little bit about the demand environment for RNG broadly? We've seen some indications that this is starting to broaden from the transportation sector into the utility gas market. Are you seeing that impacting your opportunity set? Do you think we might like to see down the pipe, some projects for the utility sector?
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
No question about it, Noah. It's a great point. This is what is making us have feel better about this particular market segment. The fact that now, we're beginning to see the emergence, where I will call potential long-term contracts with great credit-worthy customers and it's the utilities, the gas utilities, there is because many states regulators, right now, they say, you've got to reduce your carbon footprint and anyway they can reduce it -- it's, at this time, it's with this green gas and actually we are talking to several utilities and I wouldn't be surprised that down the road, we will have some long-term contracts with them.
In addition to that, many colleges, universities and other institutional accounts, they might have a co-generation plant or whatever the case might be and they want to become 100% carbon-neutral. The only way that it will be able to accomplish that by buying green gas and we are talking to couple of colleges whereby that we will sign long-term contracts, we will buy some of these output, and Doran, do you want to add something that -- I know you've been looking at [Indecipherable].
Doran Hole -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, no, I would only say that -- look, the nature of these contracts, they are long term -- they are typically looking like fixed price contracts that clearly allows for better revenue visibility and also it improves our financing terms. So clearly that's an improvement for us in terms of what we believe the economic feasibility and economic stability of these projects, it looks like.
Noah Kaye -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Okay. I'll follow up with that offline, but thank you very much for the comments.
Operator
Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Chip Moore with Canaccord. Your line is now open.
Chip Moore -- Canaccord -- Analyst
Morning. Hey, thanks.
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Chip.
Chip Moore -- Canaccord -- Analyst
Wondering if we could go back to the $30 million push out. If you can just give us a ballpark on what still needs to get signed there and then on Q4, just to follow-up, any puts and takes as we think about just typical seasonality and your thinking there?
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I will say -- answer and then Mark might want to add something, primarily this contracts, it's about close -- the several contracts about a couple of hundred million dollars worth of contract and primarily the issues or the delays is administrative. And Doran pointed out the fact that it was because of the fiscal -- September 30 deadline of the federal government. In addition to that, not only us, but many other companies, they have other contracts that the people on the other side they are working on it and -- but we feel very good. We've have signed a couple of since that time, since the September 30, and we have great visibility actually as to the timing of the balance of them. The government give us a schedule and we feel very good about that particular schedule.
And why is the $30 million, which since in the development expense the fact that these projects are very complicated and we have spent a substantial amount of money on our sites in order to develop this projects to bring them to this point. In addition to that, you've got to think on the other side, the government -- they have spent lot of time and they're desperate, they are motivated, they do want to get these projects moving. So all the delay, that's why we feel very confident.
The incentive or the catalyst on the other side is there. These projects are great projects for the government and it's not just something that will just save them energy, it's something that will give them the infrastructure, upgrades in the resiliency that they need.
And Mark, I don't know if you want to add something to that.
Mark Chiplock -- Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer
I think you hit on that. I think, again, that we feel it comes back to our confidence level based on the visibility we feel like we'll get those awards converted, but that's going to happen. And then certainly with the visibility to the contracted piece, we feel very good about that, but we need to execute. We feel like we're in a position to control that and will hit those numbers. So...
Chip Moore -- Canaccord -- Analyst
Understood and thanks. We're very early days here, post public power shut-offs out West, but can you talk broader about how you think about positioning there? What are the biggest opportunities and any investments you may need to make?
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Look, we are talking to various commercial and industrial customers as well as colleges and universities. They have concern -- and municipalities and they are concerned about what's going on. And basically, you will see combined heat and power, battery storage, solar and then microgrid controllers and we have the ability to have an island mode. I have been talking for a long time that the old days of the central large power plants of the loan to transmission lines, they are susceptible to major outages and now what has happened?
The economics of the distributed generation after the point that they compete with the central power plants [Indecipherable] so they give the customer not only resiliency, but economics. I mean we're talking to some of the -- whether it's Apple or whether it's Google, they say they want 100% carbon footprint, but the first thing that they invest in solar why? Because it competes with local existing price. So it's a good -- it's a great investment, not just makes great sense environmental sense, a great investment now take some of the data centers, that they have in order to bridge the gap, because the solar is not all the time up, they need some kind of a battery storage -- they need some kind of microgrid.
So we see a huge opportunity for us down the road. And we already have started talking to the utilities, all of them in California, and some of the people that we hire in the battery storage that microgrids, they are located in California. So but that -- look, it started with the federal government with the first one we did [Indecipherable] in microgrid because they have a base that they cannot afford the interruption during the ice storms that we get in New England and we're very successful.
And then we have done four, five of them knowing the federal government, naval shipyard in Philadelphia and so on. And now some of them kind of permanent, it was one of our clients that we have and we're doing solar installation, now they're coming back and they say, OK, I guess, now we have to look at this resiliency issue. So it's beginning to get traction in the marketplace.
So that's why I brought it up. I think it's -- we made the investment in the past with the existing customers, but what's going on in the marketplace right now, it's broaden that what I would call that market segment.
Doran Hole -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, let me just touch on a couple of things. So, George mentioned, so some of the expertise on the microgrids and the battery storage stuff, those were investments that we made this year already. So, we don't necessarily need to expand that further, certainly from a processing and sales coverage perspective, there's potentially some opportunities that the demand goes on, but I would categorize this opportunity into two things. One of them is a little bit longer term. All of these customers that we have now plus the utilities thinking about microgrid applicability, they're going to be thinking about the economic value proposition differently because the economy effectively shut down, when those shut offs happen. And the money that they lost by not being able to actually work and even individuals not being able to work, not being able to communicate is going to be something, they're going to have to take into account when deciding whether it's worthwhile to spend the money to put a microgrid together.
The second piece is our integrated solar distribution business, which has already been happening and that's more immediate. These are off-site kits that can be shipped and you've got cellphone service towers that can use those. We've -- there is irrigation on the farming community. There is a variety of applications there. And so, I think that's a little bit more near term.
Chip Moore -- Canaccord -- Analyst
Okay. That's helpful. Thanks a lot.
Operator
Thank you. And our last question comes from the line of Craig Irwin with Roth Capital Partners. Your line is now open.
Craig Irwin -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
Hi. Great. Thank you. So, George, I guess I'm going to be the only one not to bug you about the quarter and maintaining the year, I guess, obviously this is construction and these things happen. My questions are about the landfill gas business in particular and the green gas business in California. So many of my clients have been looking this -- at this business as potentially a long-term driver of increased EBITDA at Ameresco in the next few years. But when we look at RIN prices, the last two years, they've come off quite a bit off the peak, right. We're now roughly $0.70 for D3 RINs, down around 75% from the peak. Can you maybe discuss for us your approach to locking in your RIN sharing agreements? How much do you typically lock away? What would we be comfortable sort of looking at as far as minimum RIN prices for projects? And how much exposure to this kind of volatility do you see translate through into your P&L?
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I will try to handle the question and then Doran and Mark might want to add some more color to it. The better part, first, let's talk about the going forward. We look at all the projects, especially let's say the three in California that we have right now and that they are in development and the other one in Texas, that's in construction. Each and everyone of them even at the numbers that you see today on the RIN prices, they made good economic sense, better than the other assets that we will own. However, as I pointed out, we look in not just the RIN market by itself and then if you talk the [Indecipherable] that have gone up substantially. So the California plants will benefit from that inconsiderably and that we're going forward on some of the new plants, I wouldn't be surprised that you will see us execute some of those long contracts that we've been talking about it, so we sufficiently have.
As far as the existing ones, if you look at our overall asset portfolio, only 5% of the total output is merchant. And then as you take it one step down on the green prices, on the green gas even that we have hedged the better portion of that on a long-term contracts. So the exposure for us -- it's for this particular year, it's minimal. And on the new ones, we coming up with what I would say a strategy where not only these plants will be economic on the low market price of the rigs, but also outside the transportation and I think in the long-term that offers a larger possibility for us and more predictability on the revenues. You might take little bit lower return than the high returns when the rig prices were way up there. But on the other hand, we have more stability on the return, as well as -- and the financing like as Doran pointed out earlier, it would be even better.
The other thing I want to say that Doran, I mean, Craig, on the RIN prices where they are right now, as you probably know everybody is waiting to see what the new RVO will be set at and if that set over 600, then you will see the RIN prices go up considerably, which people are working on that for some time. So any transactions right now, they are very, very, very small, if any, so they do not reflect what the market is doing, most people -- they are holding back some of the sales.
Do you want to add something, Doran?
Doran Hole -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
I think you summarized it well. I mean, I think, the point is here that at least in their current situation, this RIN pricing, we don't expect it to have a material impact on the guidance that we gave for the year. I mean that's the bottom line.
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
And then going forward, each and every one of those projects, they pencil out [Phonetic] very well.
Craig Irwin -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
And just a point of clarification. How long do you usually lock your RIN sharing agreements in for? Are they annual agreements that you have to resign and reset every year or some of these multi-year agreements?
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
No, there was as we hedge right now, they are multi-year contracts. And I don't recall the exact date to when they're expiring, but I know they go at least through next year.
Craig Irwin -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
Okay, excellent. Then you mentioned LCFS and your three plants in California. Obviously, LCFS is doing great with, I guess, carbon prices close to $200 a ton. That translates well into supporting the economics of clean fuels and green gas. Can you maybe just confirm for us, the relative importance of LCFS versus RIN prices? Do you see RINs as a de minimis contribution on these plants? It's really LCFS driven. And is there an opportunity to maybe focus more on California and other LCFS states in the pipeline for development?
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
No, I would say this much based where they are right now, it's pretty -- I would say even contribution between the RIN prices and the LCFS and it might be a little bit more weighted to the LCFS and the other thing I want to point out, Craig, the San Antonio plant, we ship that green gas to California, so we take advantage of the LCFS as well.
Craig Irwin -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
Excellent. And then last question, if I may. Can you update us on the total fleet of plant -- of green gas plants in development? When we expect those to potentially break ground and come on line?
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I gave a little bit color. We have the three right now that they are permitting construction and we had given the schedule of those three. One will be coming on -- the one actually we're breaking ground this month. We got to all the permits that's the McCarty project in Houston, Texas -- outside Houston. So that will be coming on the -- fourth -- third -- fourth quarter of next year, then we have two more come in 2021, the second half of 2021 and then right now, we have the plant that we just announced when you do the development in California that would be coming in 2022 and I would say probably the mid of 2022. And out of the six -- five to six that we have talked remain and couple of them may show up in the development by the end of this year and I would like to see at least three plants, right now it's a goal, but by the end of the year, we'd be able to give you more color, that we will be up sometimes in 2022. So one next year to the year after, and three the year after that's the plan that we'd be trying to work on that.
Craig Irwin -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
Congratulations on the progress there.
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Doran Hole -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Craig.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 49 minutes
Call participants:
Leila Dillon -- Vice President, Marketing and Communications
George P. Sakellaris -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Doran Hole -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Mark Chiplock -- Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer
Chris Van Horn -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst
Noah Kaye -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Chip Moore -- Canaccord -- Analyst
Craig Irwin -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
