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DATE
Tuesday, July 29, 2025 at 12:00 a.m. ET
CALL PARTICIPANTS
Chief Executive Officer and Founder — Daniel Shugar
President — Howard Wenger
Chief Financial Officer — Chuck Boynton
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TAKEAWAYS
Revenue: $864 million in revenue for Q1 FY2026, up 20% year over year.
Adjusted EBITDA: $215 million in adjusted EBITDA for Q1 FY2026, reflecting 23% growth in adjusted EBITDA.
Adjusted EBITDA Margin: 25%, an increase of 100 basis points from Q1 FY2025.
Adjusted Gross Margin: 33%, including a 150 basis point benefit from 45X related to historical shipments, resulting in a $10 million+ impact in Q1 FY2026.
Backlog: Over $4.75 billion in backlog for Q1 FY2026, a new record and marking fifteen consecutive quarters of sequential backlog growth through Q1 FY2026.
Cash Flow Generation: $70 million in adjusted free cash flow in Q1 FY2026; The company projects annual adjusted free cash flow to exceed $450 million for FY2026.
Balance Sheet: $743 million in total cash as of Q1 FY2026 with no debt at quarter-end.
Product Sales Momentum: HalePro and XTR tracker systems saw quarter-over-quarter sales increases of 43% and 22%, respectively, in Q1 FY2026.
Market Share: Global market share increased to 26% in 2024, with leadership in North America, Latin America, Oceania, and Europe.
Full-Year Guidance: Revenue is expected at $3.2–$3.45 billion for FY2026; adjusted EBITDA is projected at $750–$810 million for FY2026; adjusted diluted EPS is expected at $3.96–$4.27 per share for FY2026.
Strategic Acquisitions: Completed three transactions in robotics and AI fields, integrating autonomous inspection, robotic cleaning, and 3D site mapping into the core technology platform.
U.S. Manufacturing Capacity: More than 25 manufacturing facilities now operating across the United States.
Safe Harbor Proportion: Management stated that "a very high percentage" of the U.S. backlog qualifies as Safe Harbor under existing rules as of Q1 FY2026.
New Product Launches: EVOS solutions initiated sales during the quarter, with management expressing optimism about scaling production.
Recurring Revenue Model: Robotics and automation solutions are moving toward a robot-as-a-service structure with recurring revenue.
SUMMARY
Nextracker Inc. (NXT -9.32%) delivered double-digit revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth in Q1 FY2026, supported by record backlog and margin expansion. Quarterly adjusted free cash flow decreased due to increased capital expenditures and working capital, but full-year cash generation is projected to remain strong. The company advanced strategic initiatives, adding robotics and AI technologies aimed at full life cycle value for customers and transitioning the platform toward recurring revenues. U.S. policy developments, including OBBBA and pending Treasury clarifications, are cited as manageable by management, with flexible supply chain positioning touted as a core advantage. Guidance for FY2026 was provided across all major financial metrics, reflecting robust demand from global solar markets.
President Wenger described the company as the "number one tracker provider worldwide for the tenth consecutive year" during 2024, highlighting increased penetration and flagship projects in every major market.
Chief Financial Officer Boynton noted the 45X credit benefit was "a little more than a $10 million incremental benefit," tied mainly to historical vendor reconciliations, and expects future 45X impact to represent "10% of total revenue."
Management indicated that no projects dropped out of the backlog, attributing this backlog durability to "safe harboring" by tier-one U.S. customers.
Daniel Shugar emphasized that Nextracker Inc.'s platform diversification is accelerating through acquisitions, with operational and sales integration already generating customer traction in the U.S. and pipeline expansion planned internationally.
INDUSTRY GLOSSARY
Adjusted EBITDA: Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, excluding certain non-recurring or non-cash items, as used by the company for operational performance benchmarking.
Backlog: The value of contracted future orders yet to be fulfilled.
Safe Harbor: Provisions allowing project developers to qualify for investment tax credits under existing rules based on project milestones such as the purchase of equipment.
45X Credit: U.S. advanced manufacturing production tax credit for domestic clean energy manufacturing, referenced as directly impacting gross margin.
EVOS: Nextracker Inc.'s product line for electrical balance-of-system solutions for solar power plants.
Full Conference Call Transcript
Daniel Shugar, our CEO and Founder, Howard Wenger, our President, and Chuck Boynton, our CFO. Following brief prepared remarks, we will transition to a Q&A session. As a reminder, there will be a replay of this call posted on the IR website, along with the earnings press release and shareholder letter. Today's call contains statements regarding our business, financial performance, and operations, including our business and our industry that may be considered forward-looking statements, and such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. Those statements are based on current beliefs, assumptions, and expectations, and speak only as of the current date.
For more information on those risks and uncertainties, please review our earnings press release, shareholder letter, and our SEC filings, including our most recently filed quarterly report on Form 10-Q, and annual report on Form 10-K, which are available on our IR website investors.nextracker.com. This information is subject to change, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, or changes in our expectations. Please note, we will provide GAAP and non-GAAP measures on today's call. The full non-GAAP to GAAP reconciliations can be found in the appendix to the press release and the shareholder letter as well as the financial section of the IR website.
Now I will turn the call over to our CEO and Founder, Daniel Shugar.
Daniel Shugar: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I am pleased to report our strong start to fiscal year 2026, building on the momentum we established last year. Nextracker Inc. continues to deliver consistent growth and strong financial performance, driven by technological leadership, operational excellence, and relentless focus on customer value. We delivered robust financial results across all key metrics. Q1 revenue grew 20% year over year, to $864 million, and adjusted EBITDA increased 23% to $215 million. Our backlog hit a new record of over $4.75 billion, reflecting healthy global demand and an increasingly strong competitive position. We also continue to generate solid cash flow and strengthen our balance sheet.
We are particularly pleased with our strong Q1 considering the evolving US policy environment. Our ability to consistently execute in challenging conditions speaks to the strength of our team, differentiated products, and the quality of our customer relationships. One of the most impactful developments in the quarter was the passage of the OBBBA reconciliation bill, which addressed a significant portion of the uncertainty surrounding solar manufacturing and investment tax credits. While further clarification is expected, particularly from around treasury and safe harbor provisions, we believe Nextracker Inc. is well positioned by virtue of our deep backlog and highly flexible US supply chain.
We have worked tirelessly with our suppliers to open and expand over 25 manufacturing facilities across the United States. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reported solar accounted for more than 80% of new US generation capacity in 2024. Globally, solar contributed more than twice as much incremental electricity as the next largest energy source. Looking forward, the International Energy Agency predicts that solar will become the largest source of global electricity supply within the next decade. These powerful trends reinforce our conviction that solar and Nextracker Inc. in particular, will play a central role in the future of energy.
We are scaling our platform to address this rapidly expanding opportunity and announced this morning three strategic acquisitions in the fields of robotics and AI. These technologies, from autonomous inspection and robotic cleaning to 3D site mapping, integrate directly with our control and monitoring systems to help customers optimize performance, reduce O&M costs, and lower risk. This initiative exemplifies our strategy of combining breakthrough engineering with digital innovation to deliver more value across the full life cycle of the project.
As we move beyond being the global leader in solar trackers and evolve into a broader technology platform for utility-scale solar, we are excited to provide a more detailed look into our strategy at our upcoming Capital Markets Day on November 12 at our headquarters. With that, I will turn it over to our President, Howard Wenger, to go deeper into our Q1 performance and the exciting developments across our technology portfolio.
Howard Wenger: Thank you, Daniel. Q1 was another great quarter for Nextracker Inc., marked by strong customer bookings and backlog and excellent operational delivery. This forward momentum continues to be driven by a flight to quality in the market. As Daniel noted, our performance is especially encouraging given the ongoing US policy dynamics and further underscores the strength of our global leadership position. According to Wood Mackenzie, Nextracker Inc. is now the number one tracker provider worldwide for the tenth consecutive year, increasing our market share to 26% during 2024. We are in the leading market position in North America, Latin America, and Oceania, which includes Australia.
We are pleased to report we are also the top provider in Europe, highlighted by flagship projects like the 550-megawatt Auricchio solar power plant in Greece, one of the largest in the region. Moving to pricing, cost, and project timing, in Q1, pricing for Nextracker Inc. was generally stable, and the company continued to manage costs well. Project timing was also stable and manageable on a portfolio basis, with some projects accelerating and some pushing out consistent with previous quarters. Our backlog and large project portfolio provided excellent visibility and helped reduce uncertainty. On the product side, we continue to experience strong demand for our core NX Horizon tracker systems and TrueCapture technology.
Our recently introduced HalePro system and expanded XTR tracker series are seeing rapid adoption with quarter-over-quarter sales up 43% and 22% respectively. HalePro is winning in the market due to its ability to reduce both hail damage risk and insurance costs. This is yet another example of innovation driven by customer feedback and, in this case, the insurance industry. We are pleased by the positive traction we are seeing as our technology platform expands to a more complete solution, including adding foundations in EBOS to our industry-leading tracker systems. Our foundation products and services continue to gain momentum, with cumulative sales of NX Earth Trust now over one gigawatt.
We are also excited by customer reaction to our new EVOS solutions, which we began selling during the quarter. We are optimistic about our ability to significantly scale our EVOS production. As Daniel mentioned, we recently executed a series of strategic technology acquisitions, extending our platform and capabilities in robotics, automation, and AI. This includes acquiring the company's on-site technology, Amir Robotics, and the IP from Sensehawk. These acquisitions complement our own internal efforts by incorporating ground-based robots and drones to provide incremental customer value across the full project life cycle. On-site's autonomous inspection robots and field-based detection technologies are already in use and available for immediate sale to US customers.
We will be providing detailed global rollout plans for these new products at a later date. To lead us in this rapidly emerging area, we have appointed Dr. Francesco Varelli as our new Chief AI and Robotics Officer. Dr. Varelli is a globally recognized leader in AI and predictive model-based control systems. He brings decades of experience in autonomous technologies, and he played a key role in developing our TrueCapture program. We are very excited about the potential of AI, robotics, and automation to further enhance the full customer experience and help drive project life cycle value.
With that, I will now turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Chuck Boynton, to go over our financial results in more detail.
Chuck Boynton: Thank you, Howard, and good afternoon, everyone. I am pleased to share our financial results for our first quarter of fiscal year 2026. Q1 revenue was $864 million, representing year-over-year growth of 20%. Q1 adjusted EBITDA expanded to $215 million, a 23% increase year over year. This translates to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 25%, which was an increase of approximately 100 basis points compared to the previous year. Our adjusted gross margin was 33%. We recognized a 150 basis point benefit in Q1 for 45X related to historical shipments. We continue to believe that our gross margins should be in the low thirties with OpEx in the 9% to 10% range, yielding operating margins in the low twenties.
On the cash side, we generated $70 million in adjusted free cash flow during the quarter, down from the same period last year, primarily driven by growth investments in capital expenditures and working capital. We see strong cash generation throughout the year with over $450 million of free cash flow. We exited the quarter with $743 million in total cash with no debt. Our strong balance sheet and cash flow generation remain competitive advantages. Moving on to our outlook, looking ahead, our outlook assumes that the current US policy environment remains in effect and, in addition, that permitting processes and timelines will remain consistent with historical levels.
As Daniel mentioned, we are closely monitoring potential updates to Safe Harbor provisions and other regulatory actions which could impact project timing, customer investment behavior, and our financial results. For the full year fiscal 2026, we expect revenue to be in the range of $3.2 to $3.45 billion, with relatively balanced quarterly revenue for the remainder of the year. Adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $750 to $810 million, and adjusted diluted EPS to be in the range of $3.96 to $4.27 per share.
Our increased outlook is grounded in several key factors, including the strength and diversity of our backlog, a continued flight to quality among solar developers, and the deep capability and commitment of our global team. With that, we are happy to answer any questions you may have. Operator,
Operator: Our first question is from Dimple Gosai with Bank of America. Your line is now open.
Dimple Gosai: Thank you. Thanks for taking the question. Can you please discuss what conversations have looked like with developers post the OBBBA? Are they kind of in wait-and-see mode? And maybe you can also just expand on bookings momentum. I know you have grown from what you previously described as significantly higher than $4.5 billion to $4.7 billion this quarter. But, you know, is that pace of bookings picking up or any commentary there would really be helpful. Thank you.
Howard Wenger: Hey, Dimple. This is Howard Wenger. We are in touch with our owner developers closely. Let me just start out by saying we are really happy with the company's performance and pleased with the quarter and the outlook for the year. What we are hearing is that they are feeling good about their portfolios. As you know, we team up with tier-one developers who are quite sophisticated. They are able to safe harbor their projects and perfect their projects, and we feel what we are hearing and what we are seeing is that our backlog is solid. No projects are dropping out. We are looking forward to continuing to execute. The sales team did a great job in the quarter.
We had another sequential growth in our backlog, quarter over quarter, fifteenth quarter in a row. We are seeing a good set of demand signals across the globe. So feeling very good about where we are at this moment.
Dimple Gosai: Thank you for that.
Operator: Our next question is from Praneeth Satish with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.
Praneeth Satish: Thanks. Good afternoon. Maybe I will touch on the new business here, the venture into AI and robotics. I know you will probably offer more details at the Analyst Day, but just generally, are you planning to offer these solutions as a service with a recurring revenue stream, or will this be primarily an equipment sale model? And then how do these robotic acquisitions integrate with your existing TrueCapture software? Are there any synergies here given that you will have all these extra data points, and can this all be wrapped up as one service?
Daniel Shugar: Hi, Praneeth. Daniel Shugar here. We are so excited about the suite of robotics technologies that we have just launched. In terms of the go-to-market, there is a range of solutions that we brought in today. For example, we have drones. We actually completed the acquisition of this technology multiple quarters ago. That is already being used. That is integrated into our existing TrueCapture technology. We are using the technology from Sensehawk that we acquired to actually create a complete as-built digital twin of the site being used in our TrueCapture technology that has been implemented for a very long time, already in use. That goes with our TrueCapture.
We have these other technologies with robotic cleaning and with the on-site technologies where we have both a ground-based robot and a stationary camera that detects a fire and other parameters on-site. How that is integrated in, we will be getting into greater detail later. But these technologies are either being offered commercially today or they are in a fairly advanced stage of productization. Thanks.
Operator: Our next question is from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.
Brian Lee: Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Just had two. One, Howard, going back to the comment around backlog, you said it did grow quarter on quarter. I know you changed kind of the language semantics a bit, so I wanted to confirm that was the case. It did grow, and I guess that implies, you know, bookings were $900 million, maybe close to a billion again, and curious if anything in the quarter you saw pauses from customers due to policy uncertainty or vice versa, any pull-forwards to try to get ahead of, you know, the bill passage and had a follow-up.
Howard Wenger: Got it. Hi, Brian. So, yeah, I want to confirm our backlog grew quarter over quarter. Your math, you can do the math in terms of, and you just did it, in terms of what we booked. At least, you are in the ballpark. We did not disclose that number, but yes, our backlog grew quarter on quarter for the fifteenth consecutive quarter for the company. Happy about that. What we are seeing is the pipeline is actually growing for the company. As you know, we have a global business, and we are still, you know, roughly tracking on the one-third, two-thirds as growth. Two-thirds being North America and one-third rest of the world.
But we are not seeing pull-ins per se when we talk about North America and the US in particular. We are not seeing pull-ins on projects in a very broad systematic way. We are seeing some pull-ins. We are seeing some push-outs, and those are, I would characterize those as normal. Because we have a broad portfolio of projects, and just that is the way project schedules are. Some can pull in from one quarter to the next, some can push out. It is a very normal fact pattern with respect to operations. Now, we expect clarity on the treasury guidance coming up in a few weeks. That could change some customer behavior.
We do not know, and we will know then. We are seeing some limited amount of safe harbor interest, and we are prepared to address that with our very robust supply chain and flex capacity. So, hopefully, that gives you more color, and you had a follow-on, Brian.
Brian Lee: No. That is great. Appreciate all that color. Very helpful. And if you could bear with me just one more math question, and then I will get out of here. On the IRA credit impact or the vendor rebate, I think it was 11 percentage points on gross margin this quarter. That was up significantly, like, three to four hundred basis points incremental versus what you have seen in prior quarters. What is kind of driving that? Because I did see international revenue growth was better than the US this quarter.
So I am curious how that worked out this quarter to be such a higher impact and then how we should think about that number in relation to gross margin maybe going forward. Is it going to stay at that level? Is it flatline? Does it go down? Thanks, guys.
Chuck Boynton: Yep. Thanks, Brian. This is Chuck. So we did have a really strong quarter. 45X was a little higher than normal. I mentioned in the prepared remarks about 150 basis points. That is a little more than a $10 million incremental benefit, and that is really relating back to kind of vendor reconciliations going back the last couple of years. Looking forward, we expect it to be, call it, 9% to 10% of total revenue. That is a little higher than it has been. That is partially driven by US demand for US-made products.
So we are actually delivering more US product to our customers, and with that, the costs are a little higher, but the 45X credit helps to offset that. So I do want to call out and say thank you to our operations team. They have just done a phenomenal job. Our on-time delivery has been excellent, and we are delivering locally around the world in the US, a real hallmark working with our manufacturing partners to deliver really compelling US-made content that does generate 45X credit benefit offsetting higher costs. Thank you.
Brian Lee: Alright. Thanks, guys. I will pass it on.
Operator: Our next question is from Philip Shen with Roth Capital Partners. Your line is now open.
Philip Shen: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. First one is on your backlog. What percentage of the backlog is Safe Harbor? And then, can you talk separately on what kind of, you know, how much risk there is with the Trump executive order expected to be released August 18th? And then finally, as it relates to the interior memo, where the secretary has to review all the permitting for projects that touch federal land, when you look at your backlog, what kind of impact could that have depending on how they enforce that? Thanks.
Daniel Shugar: Hey, Phil. Daniel Shugar here. Howard and I will tag team on this. We were thinking about this in the preparation for this as a run-up over the last, let us say, year, or even longer, you know, well, what percentage was safe harbored? When we ask our tier-one customers, do they feel about the integrity of their pipeline, their projects, they feel good about it because they safe harbored under the rules that exist. So I would say when you asked the question, I think a lot of projects in the United States benefit from that. But that is taking the longer view on the safe harbor. Howard, do you want to pick it up from there?
Howard Wenger: Sure. I mean, you heard on NextEra's call that they feel good about their portfolio through 2029. And that is indicative. They are one of the leading developers in the country, and we work with them and others, tier-one customers like them, who echo what Daniel said. They feel very good about their pipelines. They are able to manage it from a safe harbor perspective. So we believe that a very high percentage of our backlog that is US is Safe Harbor, to answer your question directly. Like, the vast majority of it. That is based on the information we have. As far as risk, again, I would point to the NextEra call.
We know it is early to digest what the interior department guidelines are and what the treasury is going to come out with in a few weeks. So I think the industry is still digesting it, but what we are hearing is that it is manageable. The early read on this is that it is manageable going forward and that through the OBBBA, which was the bill that was passed, that provided a good outcome, we think, based on our close proximity with customers, that is providing the bridge that is needed to beyond the incentive platform that we have been on for the last couple of years. That should give you, I think we have answered your questions, Phil.
Thank you.
Philip Shen: Great. Thanks.
Operator: Our next question is from Julien Dumoulin-Smith.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Hey. Good afternoon, team. Thanks for the time. Let me just continue on that same line of thinking here. Just first, higher-level question. I mean, how do you think about the cadence of the overall industry? If you think about both Safe Harbor dynamics that you are seeing on pull-in as well as potentially some of that same apartment material, you know, pulling off 2029, 2030. How do you think about how that squares with the timing of orders and a potential eventual pickup with Acthar? Clearly, not as meaningful here in the very near term, but how does it square with what you are expecting here at 2025 through, you know, call it the next four years? Timing-wise?
Daniel Shugar: So the connection was a little bit janky there, but I think we got the gist of it, Julien. Thank you. So we think, look, one thing that we did is under Daniel's leadership, honestly, and with the ops team, we have been having gloves for the last few years, is really sped up the US domestic supply chain. We are the first company to come out with a 100% domestic tracker. We have only increased capacity since then. We have over 25 facilities feeding US business. So we are in a really good position with a lot of flex capacity, very significant capacity.
The reason why we point that out is should the rules dictate that, let us just say the safe harbor requirement goes up from 5% hypothetically. We do not know. Let us just say it was double to 10%. We are in a position to serve our customers with additional safe harbor capability. So, yeah, there could be some, you can call it pull-in, you can call it whatever you want, but there could be additional shipments by Nextracker Inc. depending on the guidance that comes out. Yeah. I will just pile on to Howard's comment. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has maps that show last year over 80% of the power capacity installed in the United States was solar.
Lawrence Berkeley Lab, which is funded by the US Department of Energy, calculated over almost 7,000 projects are solar and solar plus storage. Now there is this incredible need for power in the United States. Period. You see it dominating the news, the headlines. People are talking about other ways to make power, and there is limited availability of gas turbines, nuclear way out there in terms of time frame. Solar is available, affordable, and has no fuel risk. We also see now storage in ERCOT and California at incredible scale, keeping the lights on.
You can look at the demand today and from last week online and see that with batteries, the solar power is available till 10, 11 PM when folks are going to sleep and the power drops. So we think that this is going to be an enduring story. We have a very compelling manufacturing and jobs made in USA, energy dominance, facts on the ground situation. We see policymakers responding to that. So we see the US market, despite a lot of fluidity, as it has been up into the right. Our backlog reflects that, our bookings reflect that, and our revenues reflect that. Meanwhile, we are continuing to expand overseas.
As Howard mentioned, we achieved leadership in Europe as the number one provider in Europe. We saw our total market share globally increase from 23% in 2023 to 26% in 2024. That is over a double-digit increase globally. So we are really focused on serving the global market. Global manufacturing provides tremendous strength.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith: If it is okay, can I still open a micro here? Just with respect to the diverse coming from last quarter about a third over five years, obviously, you guys have an analyst day target at November here. Can you speak a little bit more clearly to the different pieces that you are expecting on diversification? I know you have kind of said there are a couple of them out there in the market as part of the ten-second century, but any broader set or more specific sense, you can certainly tell the rest of the ones right here. Yeah. It has preview. My apologies. There are connections at this spot.
Daniel Shugar: Your connection is quite spotty, but we will speak to the growth in non-tracker technologies. So let us do a quick review. We acquired a machine learning company about ten years ago called Brightbox. We built a fantastic software business that created tremendous value for customers, helped with stickiness with our tracker, overall value proposition, improved the yield, trackers. It also demonstrated that Nextracker Inc. knows how to work with companies that we acquire and get the technology integrated in a way that is accretive. Then last summer, we acquired two foundation companies and we have introduced those products in a major launch. That suite of products is going very well with incredible customer uptake.
We are ahead of plan from a sales standpoint, and we are integrating the ops. Very pleased with how that is going. So far, those technologies have been focused in the United States. We do plan on launching the foundation technologies in selected international markets next year. The TrueCapture software suite I mentioned a moment ago has been offered globally for many years. In fact, it is on the uptake internationally. Now, the last quarter, we announced a suite of products. We are really focused initially in the United States, but we will be at the correct time ramping that internationally as well.
The acquisitions and new business as we announced today in robotics, both the on-site evaluation with Amir Robotics and owner asset management class, we are going to be rolling that out both geographically and from a product diversification standpoint over time. We will definitely be unpacking that further on the Capital Markets Day in November. Thank you.
Operator: Our next question is from Ben Kallo with Baird. Your line is now open.
Ben Kallo: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question, and good afternoon. Just maybe we talked a lot about safe harboring. But if you can have any color on, you know, past the ITC expiration, any kind of product development there and, you know, it is a long ways away, but, you know, how you guys think about that, you know, if how first agreements will respond in time, you know, to make projects go forward or pencil out.
And then, just maybe another question that you have talked a little bit about, but on the robotics and AI acquisitions, do you think this is, like, an add-on to the customer wallet, or should we think about it, or maybe the question is how you price it? Is it against cost or is it additional cost on top of a project? Thank you.
Howard Wenger: Thanks, Ben. This is Howard. So on part one, past the ITC, look, let us just step back and take stock of where solar stands over the last thirty, forty years. Right? We first had to validate that it was reliable and technically sound. We have done that as an industry. We then had to prove that it could economically compete. We have done that to the point now where if you go to the Middle East, solar power is now fifteen dollars per megawatt hour. One point five cents per kilowatt hour. Okay. That is an unsubsidized market. Free market. Nextracker Inc. was the first company to be in the Middle East. We are there. We have an office.
We are in a great position. We can compete in that market and win. We have a differentiated value proposition that we just keep building with these acquisitions and our own internal organic efforts. What you are seeing is that solar power, as Daniel mentioned, is the fastest growing, most impactful new energy technology going in the United States and around the world. If you look past the ITC, if we are on a level playing field, the industry can compete. When you add storage to the equation, it is really an unbeatable firm power, dispatchable power company.
So we feel, you know, in our engagement with very large owner developers, who their companies and their investors are pouring billions of dollars into them. Why? Because they have a durable value proposition that can compete to provide energy to the fast-growing electricity markets in the US, and they just needed a bridge. So we are in the middle of that bridge right now. We think we are in good stead with the OBBBA. We are going to get more guidelines. But beyond that, it is durable and it is unstoppable, and we feel really good about it. That is from an industry and company perspective for solar power. Okay. AI and pricing.
So right now, the way we are thinking about it, especially when you think about on-site, who is out in the market and has robots and customers in seven states in a couple dozen sites, with real technology being deployed and being paid for, it is done. What we are migrating towards is more of a robot as a service model, where there is recurring revenue for those services, and it is in addition to services that we provide today. But it is part of our whole platform development and constellation. Daniel talked about tracker, which is core, and we are investing a lot in Tracker. We have tripled our R&D spend in the last three years.
A lot of that going to our core tracker technology. Okay? And then we are building around that with these additional acquisitions, including robotics. Thanks, Ben.
Ben Kallo: Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Operator: Our next question is from Dylan Massano with Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.
Dylan Massano: Hey. Good afternoon. Just on backlog, can you give us an update on how much of current backlog you expect to ship over, call it, the coming six to eight quarters? I think that is a metric you have shared before. And then quick follow-up on BenTech. You are talking about building out the EVOS capacity. Are you looking to actually expand the current product offering beyond the products we currently make to potentially compete more directly with some of the leading EVOS players? Thank you.
Chuck Boynton: Yeah. Dylan, this is Chuck. It really has not changed much. You know, it was a metric we used to publish. We stopped because it kind of was the same each quarter, call it, you know, high eighties, low nineties would be shipped over the next eight-ish quarters. Not much movement there, and we stopped disclosing that because it was not that meaningful. The second question on BenTech products, we will have Howard answer that.
Howard Wenger: Okay. We offer two product lines through BenTech. They cover 100% of use cases currently in the solar industry. One is based on a combiner box approach, and one is based on a truck plus approach with low break disconnects. One of the reasons why we really like BenTech was that they had a robust product development effort. They have new products in their pipeline. We are helping them bring those to the market. We expect to be adding to the products, point A, to what is offered today. Point B, we are working with them to scale so that we can better match the volume that Nextracker Inc. has.
We have an incredible footprint in the US and then first US and then the rest of the world. So there is a lot of upside to the EVOS business for Nextracker Inc. Thanks, Dylan.
Dylan Massano: Great. Thank you.
Operator: Our next question is from Ameet Thakkar with BMO. Your line is now open. Well, Ameet, your line is open.
Ameet Thakkar: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to ask you, maybe pivoting away from the executive order, but on the section 232 tariff investment case, I was just wondering what sort of kind of feedback you have got from your customers on that and kind of given your ability to kind of maybe work with a greater array of different solar modules that might be better positioned to kind of respond to that. Have you seen kind of any kind of additional interest as a result of that? Thank you.
Daniel Shugar: Yeah. Thanks, Ameet. We are flexible to work with a wide range of solar panels. Nextracker Inc. has spent a lot of, you know, contributed a lot to making these panels compatible with our tracker. If you actually pull the specifications of a solar panel, you will see that almost every panel has a 400-millimeter hole in the frame. That came from Nextracker Inc. about twelve years ago, thirteen years ago. We have a very strong product management function that closely coordinates with their counterparts at the module companies. It is great to see the growth in the solar panel manufacturing industry here in the United States.
There are over thirty companies that have actually made and shipped solar panels in the US, which is kind of staggering from where it was five years ago. So it is great to see that and to see the expansion of both legacy players and new players. So we are very excited about that tech growth. Thank you, Ameet.
Ameet Thakkar: Thank you.
Operator: Our next question is from Joseph Osha with Guggenheim. Your line is now open.
Joseph Osha: Thank you very much. Two questions for you. First, looking at BenTech, I am wondering if we might see you start to use that platform to do completely custom harnesses without insulation piercing connectors. What the thought might be there? And then second, with the acquisitions you have just completed, you know, we do see some companies out there like you are really seeking to sort of automate the whole assembly process and all of that. Do I kind of sense that you are maybe moving in that direction with these acquisitions that you are making? Thank you.
Howard Wenger: Hey. I will do part A, and Daniel will do part B. This is Howard. So for BenTech, we are not, as I mentioned before, we are able to provide both platforms that are predominantly used in the US large-scale solar industry for wiring systems. We are not, at this time, prepared to talk about some of the development that we are doing, including the area that you discussed, which is the custom harnesses. But thank you. Thank you for the question. Daniel, do you want to talk about the second part?
Daniel Shugar: Yeah. So you asked about TerraBase, which is a great company that has a sort of field factory assembly installation process. We are supporting TerraBase 100% with everything we can do to help them. There is also another dozen companies working on the field factory or installation or automation for installation. We are supporting pretty much all the above, folks that are coming and asking for specific things to facilitate field factory installation, to make labor more efficient, safer. We think all of that is good. We think it is a hard problem. There are multiple ways to approach it. We are supporting all the leaders that we are engaged with in that particular activity.
We think that is the right approach. We have seen progress and a lot of opportunity for future progress. In our robotic programs that we have announced, these things attach basically separate buckets. We are going after things that validate, that support the EPC to validate installation quality, identify deviations to support the EPC on more efficient punch list type. We are doing it to then create a digital 3D map of the job sites that supports adaptive tracking. We think what we are doing is unique in this area, and our TrueCapture really delivers the results there and expectations we are creating. We have unique robotic technology we have acquired with Amir Robotics on cleaning.
Nextracker Inc. was a very early mover on robotic cleaning. For the last seven years, we have been supporting our customers in the Middle East to empirically evaluate how robotic cleaning technology supports work with a bunch of companies. We understand the tech. We have really leaned in. That really improves more yield gain. With the on-site technologies acquisition, it is really supporting a higher durability and reliability of the solar power assets by inspecting things like the connectors and electrical valve system. Then providing feedback on and also reducing risk on where these are going. If I could pull back for a second and just talk about why we did these robotic cleaning, or excuse me, robotic category acquisitions.
It was really customer-driven. A lot, as is a lot of our technology. We actually did not really believe in robotic cleaning if you went back ten years ago. We did not think it was very cost-effective. But we saw our customers in areas that are very dry and that have high dust storms really showed us the need. You can have a major dust storm and see array performance degrade significantly in a short amount of time. We saw the need for robotic cleaning, and so similarly, we really then worked to find who are the best teams in these areas. The Amir Robotics team is incredible, has legacy in robotics cleaning.
Fantastic domain expertise, and we really focus on the key team. Similarly, with on-site technologies, the team there really came from operations and maintenance of solar power. They have specific domain expertise. We just love how the team was thinking about it. It was not a robot in search of a solution. What they came up with was a need that was solved by a robotic technology that significantly lowered the cost, improved reliability, and reduced risk on the job site. These are our values at Nextracker Inc. Customer demand drives then how we come up with solutions to lower the levelized cost of energy, improve your building system. With that question, that concludes our call today.
Thank you all very much. As Howard mentioned, big picture, very excited about our progress. We are off to an amazing start in Q1. We look forward to welcoming you all at our Capital Markets Day in November.
Operator: That concludes the conference call. Thank you for your participation. Enjoy the rest of your day. Goodbye.