Transcript: Enlight Renewable Energy Q1 2026 Earnings Conf...

Enlight Renewable Energy (NASDAQ:ENLT) released first-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Tuesday. Read the complete transcript below.

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Summary

Enlight Renewable Energy reported a 54% year-over-year increase in revenues to $200 million, with adjusted EBITDA growing by 58% to $154 million.

The U.S. became the largest geographic segment, contributing 37% of total revenues due to new projects and supportive market conditions.

The company is reaffirming its 2026 guidance with projected revenues of $755 to $785 million and adjusted EBITDA of $545 to $565 million.

Enlight Renewable Energy's U.S. portfolio expanded significantly, with key projects passing system impact studies, and construction started at the Cobar 3 complex.

The company highlighted its strategic focus on energy storage and renewable energy expansion in Europe and the Middle East, with significant growth in agrivoltaics in Israel.

Management emphasized strong financial positioning with significant cash reserves and credit facilities to support growth plans beyond 2028.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Thank you for standing by and welcome to Enlight Renewable Energy's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to Lamor Zohar Meir, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Lamor Zohar Meir

Thank you Operator Good morning everyone and thank you for joining Enlight Renewable Energy's first quarter 2026 earning conference call. Before beginning this call, I would like to draw participants attention to the following certain statements made on the call today, including but not limited to statements regarding business strategy and plans are project portfolio, market opportunity, utility demand and potential growth discussions with commercial counterparties and financing sources pricing trends for materials progress of company projects including anticipated timing of related approvals and project completion and anticipated production delays expected impact from various regulatory development, completion of development, the potential impact of the current conflicts in Israel on our operations and financial condition and company actions designed to mitigate such impact and the company's future financial and operational results and guidance including revenue and adjusted EBITDA are forward looking statements within the meaning of U.S. federal securities laws which reflect management's best judgment based on currently available information. We reference certain project metrics in this earnings call and additional information about such metrics can be found in our earnings release. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from our expectations. Please refer to our 2025 Annual Report filed with the SEC on March 30, 2026 and other filings for more information on the specific factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our forward looking statements. Although we believe these expectations are reasonable, we undertake no obligation to revise any statements to reflect changes that occur after this call. Additionally, non IFRS financial measures may be discussed on the call. These non IFRS measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from our results prepared in accordance with ifrs reconciliations to the most directly comparable IFRS financial measures are available in the earnings release and the earning presentation for today's call which are posted on our Investor Relations webpage. With me this morning are Gilad Yavets, Executive Chairman and the Co Founder of Enlight, Adila Vayatan, CEO of Enlight, Niryahuddas CFO of Enlight and Jared Mackey, CEO of Clenera. Adil will provide a summary of the business results and turn the call over to Jared for a review of our US Activity and then NIR will review the first quarter results. Our executive team will then be available to answer your questions. I will now turn the call over to Adile Vaiaten, CEO of Enlight.

Adile Vaiaten

Adi, please begin Good morning and good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us to review Enlight's first quarter 2026 results we are off to a very strong start to the year, delivering excellent financial performance and continued execution momentum across our global platform. Our results this quarter clearly reflect the strength of our operating assets, the scale and quality of our development portfolio, and our ability to consistently convert projects into cash generating capacity. Before diving into the numbers, I want to briefly address the broader environment. The first quarter once again demonstrated the resilience of Enlight's diversified platform. Despite ongoing geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty, our assets continue to operate reliably, our projects advanced according to plan, and our financial performance remains strong. This resilience is the result of geographic and technological diversification and the fact that renewable energy and storage assets provide stability even in volatile conditions. Turning now to the quarter in Q1, revenues and income increased 54% year over year to $200 million while adjusted EBITDA reached $154 million, representing 58% growth year over year excluding the impact of the sell down of the Sunlight Cluster. This growth was driven primarily by new projects entering operation in the US alongside strong wind conditions in Israel and Europe, increased electricity trading activity in Israel and supportive foreign exchange effects. Importantly, this was organic operating growth and reflects the continued expansion of our income generating portfolio and the future potential of advancing projects in our development portfolio. Over time, the U.S. became our largest geographic segment this quarter, contributing 37% of total revenues following the ramp up of Roadrunner and Quail Ranch. This marks a meaningful milestone in scaling our US platform. Beyond the financials, Q1 was another strong execution quarter. During the quarter we grew our US portfolio that successfully passed system impact studies by approximately 2 factored gigawatts, reaching a total of 20 factored gigawatt, significantly increasing interconnection certainty. More than 60% of our advanced Development and Development portfolio completed the System Impact study. We expect additional projects to be Safe harbored in 2026, bringing the total to 15 to 17 factored gigawatt or about 80% of our U.S. advanced Development and Development portfolio. Our U.S. portfolio expanded by 2.6 factored gigawatt more than 10% sequentially and expanded in additional demand areas outside of WECC, supporting our medium to long term growth in the market. Last we started construction at Cobar 3. The 475 megawatt PV phase of the Cobar complex fully in line with our execution plan. These developments further reinforce our ability to deliver large scale solar plus storage projects with speed, discipline and attractive economics and supports our growth potential beyond 2028. In Europe, the opportunity is equally compelling. While renewable generation continues to expand rapidly, energy storage deployment has not kept pace, creating a systemic need for flexibility and balancing capacity. According to Wood McKinsey, this need amounts to 1.4 terawatt of storage capacity by 2034. Globally, this gap is structural, not cyclical and supports attractive long term economics for well positioned storage projects. During the quarter, we continued to advance our European expansion and are now in advanced negotiations to expand our business in additional markets including Finland and Romania as part of our strategy to deepen our presence in high potential storage markets. Energy storage remains a core growth pillar for Enlighten Europe with a vast portfolio of 14 GWh of which 4.9 GWh in the mature portfolio fully aligned with our focus on disciplined capital allocation and attractive returns. In Middle East North Africa, we're deploying the full scope of Enlight's capabilities, leveraging our position as a leading and trusted energy player. Israel remains a core market where we are active across utility scale, wind and solar and energy storage agrivoltaics and high voltage infrastructure. Enlight's position in Israel, combined with our unique expertise in different energy generation applications enable us to significantly grow in Israel and develop new and innovative growth engines in agrivoltaics. Specifically, we continue to scale rapidly with dozens of land agreements signed over the past year representing approximately three factor gigawatt of future solar capacity while strengthening synergies between energy generation and agriculture, enhancing food security and energy security at once. The agrivoltaics opportunity in Israel is huge. We estimate more than 120,000 acres will be needed to meet renewable energy targets by 2050 with a market size estimated at several billion dollars. At the same time, we're advancing high voltage storage projects in Israel totaling more than 2 factor gigawatts which enhance grid flexibility and resilience while enabling us to optimize revenue generation. Looking ahead, we believe Israel is on track to become one of the countries with the highest energy storage capacity per capita globally and we are well positioned to take advantage of this opportunity. Across the portfolio, execution continued at a strong pace. We advanced half a factored gigawatt into construction during the quarter, mostly attributed to phase three in the Cobar complex advancing to construction, and expanded our total portfolio to over 41 factored gigawatts, a sequential increase of 8%. Looking ahead. We expect approximately 7 factored gigawatt to be under construction during 2026, with over 90% of our mature portfolio either operating or under construction by year end. This level of visibility is the outcome of years of disciplined development, extensive grid interconnection work and proactive risk management. Stepping back to the demand environment, we continue to see structural growth in electricity demand driven in part by the rapid adoption of AI and data intensive applications and the resulting expansion of data centers. Industry forecasts indicate that U.S. data center electricity consumption could triple by the end of the decade, requiring more than 300twhour of new capacity that is fast to deploy, scalable and cost effective in this environment. Solar combined with storage stands out compared to other generation technologies. It offers shorter time to market, meaningfully, lower LCOE and the flexibility required to support modern grids. Enlight is well positioned to capture this demand, leveraging our large grid ready sites, proven execution capabilities and deep experience delivering solar plus storage at scale. The business environment in which we operate remains extremely favorable with rising demand, constrained supply and attractive equipment costs. Recent geopolitical disruptions together with the sharp increase in oil and gas prices have underscored the strategic importance of renewable energy as a reliable and competitive source. Turning to outlook, we are reaffirming our full year 2026 guidance revenues and income of 755 to $785 million and adjusted EBITDA of 545 to $565 million. More importantly, we continue to stand firmly behind our long term growth trajectory with approximately seven factored gigawatt expected to be under construction in 2026 and the vast majority of our mature portfolio either operating or under construction. We see a clear and credible path to more than $2.1 billion of annual revenue run rate by the end of 2028. This growth is anchored in projects already in hand, supported by strong and increasing returns and executed with discipline. Before I wrap up, let me summarize the key takeaways. We delivered a strong start to 2026 with excellent financial performance and execution momentum. We continue to expand and de risk our US portfolio, advancing key milestones including system impact study completion, safe harbor progression and the start of construction. At Cobar 3 we see utility scale growth opportunities in Middle East North Africa, a market in which we have a significant competitive advantage. We are well positioned to capture structural demand growth and systemic grid needs, leveraging the speed, cost and flexibility of solar and storage and we remain focused on disciplined growth and long term value creation while not compromising on returns, profitability and the strength of our balance sheet. With that, I will hand the call over to Jared.

Jared Mackey (CEO)

Thank you adim in the US Clenera continues to execute on its long term growth strategy and remains firmly focused on disciplined construction execution focus while at the same time expanding our portfolio and customer base. This quarter we have continued to grow and advance our development portfolio across US markets. Led by significant progress in PJM. We submitted interconnection applications within PJM for an additional 2,500 factored megawatts across five projects. PJM is a market with exceptional opportunities for new solar and storage and characterized by sustained utility demand, tight capacity dynamics and attractive power pricing that supports long term profitability. Our operating assets continue to demonstrate the quality and durability of our portfolio. Energy generation across operating projects has been stable and predictable. We continue to monitor uptime closely. Clenera is currently constructing six projects totaling 3.4 factored gigawatts. Our construction portfolio reflects deliberate investments in our internal processes, targeted hiring and retention, and long standing relationships with Tier one suppliers and contractors. It also demonstrates our ability to consistently deliver approximately 2 factory gigawatts annually. As a result, the construction progress we are reporting today reflects our expected baseline delivery level and our confidence in achieving commercial operations and year after year. At the Cobar complex in Northwest Arizona, ground clearing and other site construction activities are underway on the third phase of the project. Phases one and two are in full construction and making steady Progress. Combined, these three phases include nearly 1.5 factored gigawatts. Initial CODs are on track for the second half of 2027, with CODs for the following phases in first half of 2028. For the final two phases of the Cobar Complex, Cobar 4 and 5, we have secured a domestic source for the batteries totaling 3176 megawatt hours. Our sourcing strategy mitigates tariff and supply chain risks for these critical phases. In Northeast Arizona, progress is steady at the construction of the Snowflake Complex. The first phase, Snowflake A, includes 594 megawatts of PV generation and 1,900 megawatt hours of energy storage. We are near the halfway mark of installing both the PV and battery components and remain on target for cod in the second half of 2027. The Country Acres project outside of Sacramento, California remains on schedule for a COD at the end of this year. This project includes 403 megawatts PV and 688 megawatt hours of energy storage. When operational, it will generate enough energy to power over 85,000 California homes. Finally, work is underway at Crimson Orchard Project, located in Elmore County, Idaho. This project includes 120 megawatts of PV generation and four 400 megawatt hours of energy storage. Spring weather has allowed us to make significant progress on the project's substation work and prepare the site for major equipment deliveries. Foundation work has begun for the batteries in switchyard. Our market strength has once again been confirmed with the closing of the Construction Financing Package in March, totaling $304 million for the Crimson Orchard Project. This clears the path for the project's successful commercial operation in 2027. Taking a step back from specific projects, I want to offer an update on our supply chain. Despite global disruptions in shipping due to geopolitical conflicts in the Middle east, we have seen limited exposure to availability or pricing of our materials. Looking ahead, we may see ripple effects on the supply chain and logistic inputs. Nevertheless, we continue to enhance our diverse pool of supplier resources, including U.S. domestic manufacturing, to give us flexibility and resilience in the face of uncertainty. With one of the largest US Solar and storage construction pipelines, we are well positioned to be a preferred counterparty for our suppliers and vendors to close. Clonera remains firmly focused on what matters most to our investors, executing large scale construction projects on schedule, maintaining reliable operating performance, advancing a deep and diversified development pipeline, and expanding our customer base thoughtfully and strategically. I will now turn the phone over to Nir.

Nir

Thank you Jared. Q1 26 delivered a strong start to the year, setting the foundation for the quarters ahead. The company's total revenues and income increased to 200 million, up from 130 million last year. A growth rate of 54% year over year. This was composed of revenues from the sale of electricity which amounted to 157 million, an increase of 47 million from Q1 2025 as well as recognition of 43 million in income for tax benefit and in case of 23 million from Q1 2025 attributed to the new operational project Roadrunner and Quail Range. The increase in revenues from the sale of electricity was driven mainly by new projects which contributed 16 million to revenues growth. It was also a strong quarter for our wind project with increased generation contributing 14 million. Electricity trade activity in Israel roughly doubled from last year contributed 6 million to revenues growth and finally the appreciation of the Israeli shekel and euro versus the US dollar contributed 12 million. The company adjusted EBITDA grew by 70% to $154 million compared to $132 million for the same period in 25, excluding the contribution of $42 million from the sale of 44% of the cyanide cluster in Q1 25 and following sale of 11% of the cluster in Q1 26 which contributed 12 million, EBITDA in Q1 26 grew by 58% or $52 million. The increase of 70 million in revenue was offset by an additional $70 million in cost of sale linked to new projects and to the increase in electricity trade activity in Israel. While GNA and project development expenses increased by 6 million. In contrast, other income increased by 5 million. First quarter net income amounted to 38 million compared to 102 million in Q1, 25 and 21 million dollars. Excluding the sunlight cluster sale contribution, an increase of 52 million in EBITDA was partially offset by an increase of 17 million in depreciation and amortization attributed to the start of operation of new project as well as an increase of 4 million in expense related to share based compensation. Additionally, net financial expenses increased by 12 million mainly as a result of the commercial operation of new projects and and tax expenses increased by 4 million net of the sunlight sale impact. During the first quarter, Enlight continued to solidify its financial position raising approximately 740 million mainly from a private placement of 6 million shares to Israeli institutional investors for 422 million and 304 million from project finance. In total, our cash and cash equivalent at the top core level increase 2,709 million. Additionally we have 270 million held by subsidiaries. In addition we have 525 million of credit facility with 360 million available and approximately 1.6 billion in LCN surety bond facility including 1 billion available, further enhancing our financial flexibility. Our solid financial position in internal resources will continue to support our growth towards the 2 billion revenue mark and beyond. I will now turn the call over to the operator for questions.

OPERATOR

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press Star 11 on your telephone to remove yourself from the queue. You may press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q and A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Justin Claire of Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open and Justin.

Justin Claire (Equity Analyst at Roth Capital Partners)

Hi. Thanks for taking our questions here and congrats on the strong results. Wanted to start out. Yes, yeah, likewise. So I wanted to start out just asking about the unlevered returns here. It looks like the expectation for under construction and pre construction projects increased to 13%. I think that's up from 12 to 13 last quarter and then 11 to 12 a couple of quarters ago. So just wondering if you could speak to what's driving the improvement. Is this better PPA pricing, lower equipment costs or other factors here? And then are you seeing further opportunity for improvement in the return profile, let's say for future projects that are moving through the pipeline today?

Adile Vaiaten

Yes. Thanks again for the question. I will give a little bit of an answer and I will also pass it over to my colleague Itay Benayan, the Chief Corporate Development Officer. So we are constantly working on improving the rates of return in our projects, the projects that are currently under construction and pre construction. We continue to do optimization work on the capital expenditure and on other aspects. Specifically in this case we did significant work to further improve the profitability or to further reduce the capex on cobars storage components of these projects, changing the sources of supplies for the batteries to different suppliers, also making us eligible in this case for domestic content. So a double win in that sense. And we did additional moves which we constantly again do to try to improve the economics of our projects, thereby reaching this 13% solidly. I'll pass it over to Itay Benayan, our Chief Corporate Development Officer.

Itay Benayan (Chief Corporate Development Officer)

Hey Justin, good to hear from you. This said and in general it's something that we're very proud of. On the same slide you see that the first 3.9 factored gigawatt that we connected to the grid over 17 years and now we are in the process of the construction and Pre construction of 7.7 so almost doubling in one year or in two years, everything that we did in 17 years. And at the same time we're improving and enjoying the economies of scale and the reduction in CapEx and the increase in the PPA's and it's a global phenomena.

Itay Benayan (Chief Corporate Development Officer)

So we're not only growing but we're constantly improving and taking a lot of attention, putting a lot of attention on profitability, on cash flows, on the balance sheet and so on.

Justin Claire (Equity Analyst at Roth Capital Partners)

Okay, great. Yeah, it's good to see the improvements in the return profile here. Maybe just shifting over to the operational capacity here. It looks like the outlook for 2027 was reduced a little bit to 7.3 factor gigawatts down from 8 last quarter and then the ARR was stepped down to 1.4 billion from 1.6. Wondering if you could just walk through that change, you know, what potentially shifted out of the 2027 timeframe and then it does look like 2028 remains intact in terms of your outlook there. So just wondering, is this a Matter of just project timing or any other factors.

Adile Vaiaten

Yes, and it actually relates to the previous point as well. For specifically the purpose of improving further the rate of return on the Cobar 4 and 5, the parts that are standalone storage in Cobar, we actually did change the suppliers of the battery energy storage system, the battery energy storage system and therefore had to do some re engineering on site, which pushed the project's COD, the commercial operation date just from the end of 27 into the beginning of 28. And similarly, one additional project, Europe, Project Bertig, which was also pushed forward just by a very short amount of time. Generally speaking, we like that these projects, we have one chance to get them right and then they're going to be producing electricity and revenues for us for 20, 25, 30 years. So to push them out by a month or by a couple of months is something that we sometimes do in order to improve them. And they are all connecting just a very short delay which is a natur normal course of the developer's life. Got it. Okay. Makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the time. Thank you, Justine.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Windham of ubs. Your line is open. John.

John Windham (Equity Analyst at UBS)

Hey, perfect. Thanks for taking the questions this morning. I guess sort of a bigger picture question, you know, through your Clenera subsidiary, going to be one of the largest customers for stationary storage in the United States over the next five plus years. I'm wondering, there's been a number of announcements of new entrants into the stationary storage market, namely LG Energy Solutions, General Motors and Ford. Have you had dialogues with any of these potential new suppliers? And how do you think that plays out in the supply, demand, balance and pricing for batteries in the future? Thanks. Thank you for the question.

Jared Mackey (CEO)

I would like to ask Jared if you are comfortable taking this question forward. Absolutely. Adi, thank you for the question and thank you for your insight into the market. We are constantly talking with potential suppliers on the battery and on the PV side. Specifically on the battery side, we welcome new domestic suppliers opening operations and manufacturing facilities in the us it both adds rigidity and robustness to the supply chain and allows us to secure both domestic sources and reduce our risk overall from any sort of geopolitical occurrences throughout the world. We are engaged with multiple suppliers on the battery side and as these battery manufacturing facilities get built out, the supply continues to grow. And so this supply is being distributed to the same amount of projects. And so we do like the supply and demand curves that this provides for us. And we expect that we will have very effective negotiations over the next period of time with our potential suppliers. It gives us the ability to leverage our portfolio. As you mentioned, we will be one of the larger customers in the United States for stationary BESS. And we intend to continue to deliver results such as those shared today, where we are constantly increasing the profile of our projects and making them better.

OPERATOR

Thank you so much for that. That was really helpful. Be well. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Corinne Blanchard of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Corinne, hi, good morning.

Corinne Blanchard (Equity Analyst at Deutsche Bank)

Thank you for taking my question. The first question, can you talk about the cadence that you're expecting for the rest of the year? I think Q1 is showing a little bit of better seasonality maybe than we had anticipated. So just wondering now that the rest of the year is going to shape up and then maybe second question, can you talk about the safe harbor in your portfolio and how that has evolved during Q1. Thank you.

Itay Benayan (Chief Corporate Development Officer)

Hey, good to hear from you. This is itay. What was the second part of the question? Safe harbor. Oh, safe harbor. Okay, start with A. So with the first half of the question, in terms of the seasonality, the quarter and the year indeed started very strong and exceeded our expectation. Nevertheless, we do anticipated seasonality over the year. The first quarter is usually a very strong quarter in terms of wind and it was even better than we anticipated. And in general, as Adi mentioned during the call, we are keeping our guidance for the year intact. It is only the first quarter and as I mentioned, there was some, I think there was some gap with the consensus, but our internal expectations were not that far away. And in terms of safe harboring, we do have the opportunity to safe harbor an additional two to four factor gigawatt in the next couple of months until basically the end of June. And it is completely at our discretion. Obviously, as you know, projects that are being safe harbored, we need to then maintain full activity construction activity at the site from when we safe harbor them until their completion. And we need to make sure that they are connected, that they arrive at commercial operations before the end of 2030. So we are taking our decisions to from the 2 to 4 factory gigawatt additional that we have options to safe harbor to bring the total amount to 15 to 17 factory gigawatt of safe harbor. We're taking those decisions in the next couple of months. Jared, anything to add on the safe harbor point?

Jared Mackey (CEO)

Yeah, just that we are actively pursuing the projects are being safe harbored through physical work of a significant measure both on site and off site. Adi, I think you shared the numbers most accurately and yeah, we are excited to have this large portfolio of projects to be able to pull from over the next really several years of commissioning and CODs.

Adile Vaiaten

And I will come back just to say, Corrine, that when the one big beautiful bill act came out in May last year, exactly a year ago, there was obviously concern and at the time we promised or we anticipated that we would be able to safe harbor 6 to 8 factory gigawatt of projects by the end of 2028. We're now standing here towards this 16, sorry 13 plus two 15 to 17 factor gigawatt that we would be able to safe harbor by the end of 2030. So significantly more than we predicted at the time. And we're really making the most of the safe harbor regime as long as it's in place. And we also are very confident about our ability to to successfully develop and execute projects in the United States after the end of that regime. But we have enough time for that in solar projects after the end of 2030 and for storage projects even after the end of 2032.

Corinne Blanchard (Equity Analyst at Deutsche Bank)

Great, thank you. Can I ask one more follow up question? Can you Talk about the 2028 target? Since IQ, you might be able to raise it or we kind of felt from the presentation like you have like 100 million ahead of the target. Can you just like give a little bit more thought on that one? Thank you.

Adile Vaiaten

So we give the 2028 annual run rate as we forecasted today. The component that is today the $2.1 billion of this is already today in the mature portion of our portfolio. And then there's additional projects that are currently not yet in the mature. They're in advanced development, but nevertheless they will make it to be connected by the end of 2028. Which is why there's that 2.1 to $2.3 billion range. At this point. We cannot give a more accurate number, but that is the composition of the number. But Corind, you can see that over the last couple of quarters, the percentage of the mature portfolio outside of the 2028 roadmap has increased over time. And with the start of construction of additional three factor gigawatts this year, the vast majority of the 2028 plan is going to be either operating or under construction this year and thus reducing significantly any development risk and increasing the certainty that we stand behind this roadmap. And again, you can see with all of the safe harboring that we're doing and the increase of the portfolio in the development and the advanced development that we are looking ahead at the growth beyond 28 and there is a lot of materials in the presentation and the earnings release when you analyze the portfolio to see that there is significant potential beyond 2028.

Corinne Blanchard (Equity Analyst at Deutsche Bank)

Great. Thank you.

OPERATOR

Thank you once again. To ask a question, please press Star 11 on your telephone. Again, that's Star 11 to ask a question. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Maheep Mandaloy of Mizuho. Your line is open Maheep.