PLUG Plug Power, Inc.
$2.32
Plug Power, Inc. Q2 F2026 Earnings Call Transcript
Monday, August 10, 2026
AI Conference Call Analysis
Sign in or subscribe to read.Operator
Conference Operator
Greetings and welcome to the Plug Power second quarter 2026 earnings conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. You may be placed into question queue at any time by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star 0. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to the Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Teal Hoyos. Please go ahead, Teal.
Teal Hoyos
Vice President of Marketing and Communications
Thank you. Welcome to the 2026 Second Quarter Earnings Call. This call will include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements contain projections of future results of operations or of our financial position or other forward-looking information. We intend these forward-looking statements to be covered by the Safe Harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. We believe that it is important to communicate our future expectations to investors. However, investors are cautioned not to unduly rely on forward-looking statements. and such statements should not be read or understood as a guarantee of future performance or results. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or performance to differ materially from those discussed as a result of various factors, including but not limited to risk and uncertainties discussed under item 1A risk factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ending December 31st , or quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for the quarter ending March 31, 2026, as well as other reports we file from time to time with the SEC. These forward-looking statements speak only of the day that the statements are made, and we do not undertake or intend to update any forward-looking statements after this call or as a result of new information. At this point, I would like to turn the call over to Plug's CEO, Jose Luis Crespo.
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our second earnings call of 2026. And also thank you for your continued confidence in the PLAC team. Q2 was a strong step forward and is giving us real conviction about the rest of the year. We are executing, our numbers are moving in the right direction across the board, and today we're raising our full year revenue growth guidance as a result. Paul will walk through the financial details in a moment, but let me start with why we are excited. Revenue was $178.3 million in the second quarter, up approximately 9% sequentially from the first quarter. This is continued proof that our commercial engine is accelerating. Gross margin improved to approximately break-even. It was about negative 0.9%. compared to a negative 30.7% a year ago and a negative 13% just last quarter. That's a meaningful step in a single quarter, and it's the direct result of the operational discipline we have built into Quantum Leap, which is our restructuring program, combined with improving service margins and better plant utilization in hydrogen production. But just as important, our breakeven revenue thresholds keep on coming down, which puts positive EBITDAs in the fourth quarter squarely within reach. Operating expenses declined approximately 50% year over year to 62 million. Again, a direct reflection of the discipline we have driven through Quantum Leap and our continued asset monetization efforts. and on the cash side, net cash usage improved to 61 million this quarter, a reduction in cash usage of about 58% compared to the first quarter. Our cash burn is coming down and the trend line matters enormously as we head towards profitability. Our priorities for 2026 are clear and they haven't changed. Discipline execution, Profitable Growth, and Continued Improvement in Cash Utilization and Operating Leverage. What has changed is our confidence in how the year plays out. On our last call, we guided full-year revenue growth of 13 to 15%. Based on our first half results and the visibility we now have into the second half, we are raising that guidance today to 15 to 16% for the full year. Our business has historically been second half weighted, with the fourth quarter benefiting from year end deployment cycles. And everything we are seeing tells us that pattern is expected to hold again this year, with even more strength behind it. Material handling continues to be a genuine bright spot, and the growth story here just keeps on building. We deployed 1,666 GenDrives units in the quarter, more than double the 739 units we deployed in the second quarter of last year. Service revenue grew 82% year over year to 29.8 million, with service margin of 27%. As improving reliability lets our technicians cover more units and drive real overhead leverage. and we're not just growing, we're building a durable recurring revenue base. Two of our largest material handling customers are planning to refresh more than 20,000 yen drives units over the next three years. This is a multi-year revenue opportunity sitting right in front of us and it's exactly the kind of embedded growth that gives us confidence well beyond this year. Our electrolysis business continues to build real commercial momentum. We announced the FID of the 30 megawatt Barrow Green hydrogen project for Carlton Power in the UK. This is part of the 55 megawatts we were awarded in November of 2025, and we expect the additional 25 megawatts to reach FID in 2026. In Q2, we were also selected for the 275 megawatt feed on the H2Gen current project in Quebec. and on July 7th, we announced that Black secured a 50 megawatt Gen-Eco electrolyzer order following the final investment decision for Norica's Hunter Valley Hydrogen Hub in Australia. And this is the largest renewable hydrogen project to reach FID in Australia. As an update on the business, our 100 megawatt project with GALP. in Portugal, and our 25 megawatt project with Iberdrola MVP in Spain continue progressing positively on the commissioning. But I also want to flag something bigger on the horizon here, because I think it is an important part of the electrolyzer story for the next several years. Europe continues to advance the conversion of the Renewable Energy Directive 3, it's called RED3, into a national law across EU member states. Spain is the latest country to release a draft framework establishing a 11% renewable fuels on non-biological origin, which is the RFMBOs, by 2040. This is backed by a specified non-compliance penalty and a system of tradable carbon reduction certificates. Based on our preliminary internal analysis, we believe Spain's framework alone could drive approximately 10 gigawatts of electrolyzer demand by 2030. In addition, the European Commission approved a 780 million euro Dutch subsidy scheme targeting 400 megawatts of electrolysis capacity with an option plan for early 2027. And also the European Commission plans on launching a fourth hydrogen auction in December of 2026 with a budget of up to 500 million euros. Now this is a kind of regulatory tailwind that turns a strong pipeline into a durable multi-year growth runway and we like our position to capture it. Now turning to hydrogen, our fuel business delivered approximately 15% revenue growth year over year to 39.5 million. This is driven by continued growth in hydrogen consumption across our expanding customer base. Fuel growth margin improved to negative minus 48, negative 48%, from negative 91% a year ago on improvement plan utilization, production efficiency, and network optimization across our production facilities in Georgia, Tennessee, and Louisiana. We still have work to do here, obviously. but the trajectory is decisively in our favor and we expect that progress to continue through the second half of the year. We ended the period with 161.9 million of unrestricted cash with net cash usage improving to 61 million for the quarter down approximately 58% sequentially. We're also executing on our asset monetization programs and as an update to the stream transaction we announced on July 13th, where we indicated approximately 80 million of expected near-term liquidity, we have already received 47 million. This is a step forward of our initiative to unlock more than 275 million through this asset monetization and non-dilutive financing, and we expect to keep delivering on this initiative in the coming quarters. So, put simply, this was a good quarter, and it sets up an even better second half. Revenue is growing. Margins are approaching break-even. Operating expenses are down 50%. Cash burn is falling, and we are raising our full-year guidance to 15% to 16% growth. We remain on track to deliver positive EBITDAs in the fourth quarter, a milestone that marks a real turning point for the company. We're building plug into the profitable, cash-generative hydrogen leader we set out to become. We have work to do, but Q2 is more evidence that we are getting there. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Paul for a more detailed review of the quarter, including our liquidity position and financial outlook. Thank you. Paul?
Paul
Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Jose, Luis, and good afternoon, everyone. Building on Jose Luis' comments, I want to leave you with three key takeaways from the quarter. First, the margin transformation is real and it is compounding. We exited Q2 at essentially break-even gross margin, roughly a 30-point improvement from a year ago. Second, our cost discipline is showing up everywhere it should, including improved margins and reduced OpEx, which yields reduced cash use. We believe we have the capital and the levers in place to execute the balance of the year. This stems from current cash balances, continued improvements in margins, reduced capex, and the ongoing asset monetization efforts. And diving into the details of the quarter, as Jose outlined, net revenue for the quarter was approximately $178 million, which was up 9% sequentially, bringing the first half to $342 million, up 11% year over year. The first half is slightly ahead of the range we outlined in May, so the shape of the year is playing out slightly better than the way we told you it would. As Jose Luis outlined, given our traction and pipeline, we're increasing our full-year projection to 15% to 16% growth off of 2025. We expect some growth in Q3 26 sequentially and over the Q3 of prior year. but the majority of the volume in this second half forecast we expect unfolding in the fourth quarter of 26. On margins, let me expand a bit because this is where the last two years of work really are starting to show off. Gross margin came in and essentially break even versus the 31% a year ago as I outlined. Every platform contributed. Equipment margin was positive, driven from volume leverage, continued manufacturing cost optimization, and Supply Chain Leverage. We're also recognizing benefits based on the tariff recoveries and reduced tariff spend. Service margin was 27% positive as unit reliability keeps improving. Our cost of service is down materially, and that's letting us expand the tech unit coverage and drive overhead leverage. PPA loss rates improved to roughly negative 30% from negative 92% a year ago, which is driven from cost reductions to service this PPA fleet coupled with the sale-leaseback buyback program, which reduces our equipment lease cost. Fuel margin improved to roughly negative 48% from negative 91%, as Jose Luis outlined, driven by the increased plant utilization, improved network optimization, and benefits of our supply agreements. Still a lot of work to do, but these are structural improvements, not one-quarter effects, and they keep lowering our break-even threshold. Just to prelude the second half in context of our target to achieve positive EBITDA in Q4, this will come mainly from increased gross margin and will stem from many factors. Driving more sales as the second half will be 40% higher than the first half, and this will mostly come from equipment volume. Driving more cost downs in manufacturing and supply chain, such as ramping our diffusion bonding process for ELX stacks is an example. Continuing our service reliability improvement trends and driving enhanced tech leverage, especially given the number of sites and gen drives being deployed in the second half. Further improving the fuel network leverage given continued growth in fuel sales and focus on network logistics costs and network efficiency. And driving even more improvements in our PPA platform by further service cost reductions and completing more sale leaseback buybacks. GAAP operating expenses were the $62 million down the 50% year-over-year, but I want to be transparent on the composition. This includes $39.7 million of recoveries of previously impaired assets, principally the $37 million gain from a resolution of a customer contract dispute we settled in June. Excluding that recovery and the IT sales transaction fees for this quarter, and excluding impairment, restructuring, and other non-cash changes and contingent consideration as an example, operating expenses continued to decrease, and we believe we remain on the path towards the roughly $75 million a quarter run rate we discussed in May. The OpEx reduction stems from continued scrutiny over headcount, discretionary spend discipline, and from reduced CapEx spend yielding lower depreciation. On the bottom line, GAAP EPS was a loss of $0.14 versus a loss of $0.20 a year ago. I'd note that the GAAP result in Q2 of 26 carries about $104 million of non-cash mark-to-market valuation charges for our convertible debt and warrant liabilities, driven primarily by our own stock price appreciation in the quarter. Adjusted EPS was a loss of 7 cents versus 18 cents a year ago, and reconciliations on these adjusted EPS numbers are in our tables. The net cash usage for the quarter was roughly $61 million, an improvement of 58% over Q1 of 26. The continued asset monetization efforts contributing to margins and overall reduced cash usage, but even setting those aside, The underlying burn continues to improve and to step down on margin improvement, working capital leverage, and reduced capex spend. Inventory is down about $28 million from year end, and we still expect at least $100 million of inventory reduction for the full year, weighted to the second half. Capital spending remains light, under $9 million in the first half. We ended the quarter with $162 million of unrestricted cash and $510 million of restricted cash, which means we have over $670 million in total cash. The restricted cash continues to keep coming back to us, more than $115 million released in the first half, and roughly $155 million of the remaining balance is scheduled to release over the next 12 months. It is effectively a built-in non-diluted funding stream, and subsequent to quarter end, we announced the transaction expected to generate approximately $80 million of near-term liquidity through the Sale of our Graham, Texas project and the stage closing in New York Great Gateway. The first phase of this program to unlock more than $275 million through this overall asset monetization, non-dilutive financing program. Out of this initial $80 million in July and August to date, we've received already $47 million, bringing the total for this endeavor so far to $52 million. For the full year, we plan for our sales growth of 15% to 16%, and we believe that the first half puts us squarely on that trajectory. We remain laser-focused on our Q4 goal of positive epitaphs. The levers are the ones that you watch us pull on all year and the ones that I've outlined today. We believe we have the balance sheet and clear, non-dilutive capital opportunities to execute. In summary, we believe we are postured to deliver on our targets. We have set for ourselves this year, and we look forward to sharing more as our progress progresses throughout the year. With that, I'll turn it back over to Jose Luis.
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Paul. So now, again, thank you for attending the call, and we'll go to the questions part of the call.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. Now, I'll be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to be placed into question queue, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to move your question from the queue. We ask you to please ask one question and one follow-up, then return to the queue. Our first question today is coming from Colin Rush from Oppenheimer. Your line is now live.
Colin Rush
Analyst, Oppenheimer & Co.
Thank you so much, guys. Appreciate the question here. Can you talk about the drivers for the service margins? How much of that is being driven by improved contracting and how much of it's being driven by better performance of the assets out in the field?
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
Hi, Colin. Thank you for the question. The improvement on services really is driven by several factors. One of them is the reliability of the units is improving. The stack performance is improving. and that's leading to us being able to use less techs to actually service the units. So the overhead is also improving. And adding to that, over the last couple of years, as you know, we went through a process of cautiously increasing pricing on services to be aligned to the reality of the cost of servicing the units. So all of that together has contributed to this 27% margin that you see right now. And it's actually structural. It's something that we believe is sustainable.
Colin Rush
Analyst, Oppenheimer & Co.
Excellent. Just thinking about the pipeline of hydrogen projects, you guys have made a nice dent in moving these things forward. I'm curious about urgency around some of these projects in Europe, starting construction and really starting to see some of the ramp on equipment orders. How should we think about that as we get through the balance of this year and into next year?
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
So we are already seeing, not necessarily in Europe, Orica, for example, I think it got lost a little bit in the market dynamics, but Orica is a 50 megawatt order, first FID project in Australia. And you think about it, you know, our largest order was 100 megawatts from Galt. This is the second largest order. They are a world of 55 megawatts from Galt. Carlton Power in the UK is now becoming FIDs. We saw the first FID with 30 megawatts and we are already manufacturing and getting ready for implementation in the UK for those projects. We see even our own projects that we have in Spain with our joint venture with Acciona moving towards FID with subsidies being awarded by the European Hydrogen Bank. I think those two projects have the largest per kilogram award in the market. So we see a lot of activity in the European market. We see many projects that are coming along to get to FID by the end of the year, beginning of 2027. And you will be hearing more news about those projects in the coming quarters.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. Next question is coming from Eric Stein from Craig Calum. Your line is now live. Hi, Jose Luis Crespo.
Paul
Chief Financial Officer
Hi, Eric. Hey, Eric.
Eric Stein
Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group
Hey, so I was hoping we could talk about material handling. I'm interested in these two customers, the 20,000 units over three years. As I think about how you've talked about the repowering opportunity, it's been something that you've been optimistic about, but it seems like it was off a little ways. So now you're talking about these two customers. I'm curious, I mean, is this Is it fair to say that this is kind of sped up a little bit versus previous expectations? Or is this more kind of the normal refresh versus they're just proactively deciding to do it for the next gen fuel cell system?
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
It is really being driven by the refresh timing. We are going to refresh some of those units in the range of around 2,000 of them already in 2026. And then as the year progresses, we're expecting to start refreshing with the two largest customers in the next three years to complete the total fleet. In both cases, what we're seeing is that we're reaching in many of the sites over the next three years the time to refresh the units. And as the units are becoming more reliable, and as we are basically coming with all the upgrades and all the improvements that we've done to the units in the field, the new units are gonna have that already in the production units. The customers are also interested in doing the refreshes, but mainly they are driven by the normal, natural timing of the refreshes, which is starting now.
Eric Stein
Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group
Okay. And so these are your two largest customers. Is this, did you say that this kind of completes their, I mean, this would be their footprint or it would seem like this could be a multi-year beyond the three that you were talking about for this specific opportunity with these two?
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
This would be their normal footprint for renewals or refreshes of the units that they have in the field right now. I'm not sure, maybe If I didn't understand the question correctly, please.
Paul
Chief Financial Officer
Well, if you think about it like a portfolio, there's more and more sites and they're adding sites this year as an example. So they go through a normal reset cycle, but this is kind of, you know, one of them in particular is hitting a major refresh cycle starting here now. and the other one, you know, although they've been on refresh, it's starting to grow and build on that. And as they add more sites, it'll become bigger and bigger. So we expect a pretty incremental step function in terms of this refresh activity starting from here on out just because of those dynamics.
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
So I guess it's going to be refreshes on top of the normal growth on those customers.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Sharif Amoghrabi from BTIG. Your line is now live. Our next question is coming from Chris Dendrinos from RBC Capital Market. Your line is now live.
Chris Dendrinos
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets
Yeah, good afternoon. Maybe just on the fueling margins here, and I think pretty solid improvement year on year, sequentially call it relatively flat. Just what are the next big drivers to push or to fuel, no pun intended, more fueling improvement? Thanks.
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Sharif. We're going to continue operating more efficiently the plants. We have the three plants, Tennessee, Georgia, and Louisiana. So as we continue operating them, we are getting more efficient and higher utilization of the plants. On the logistics side, we're going to continue also improving our logistics. We are continuously trying to make sure that we Deploy and send hydrogen to our customers in the most effective way. And we are implementing systems to be able to do that the most effective way that's possible. And finally, we are working in each one of the sites and also in the plants to make sure that the actual efficiency of the systems is improving over time. So those are the items that we're working on to improve our margins in hydrogen.
Chris Dendrinos
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets
Thanks. And maybe just as a follow up to an earlier question on the electrolyzer pipeline here, and you had highlighted Spain being a potential, I think, 10 gigawatt market by 2030. What are kind of the key markers here? What should we be looking for in terms of, I guess, the cadence of when demand would potentially pick up for that market specifically? Thanks.
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
DREF3, which is the regulation that has been implemented as a law in the different countries, in the different European member states, mandates a certain amount of hydrogen being used in transportation and specifically for refineries to be converted as different percentages in different countries, but there is, you know, numbers for each one of the countries before 2030. So what we're going to see in 2030 is here. I mean, we are right now mid of 2026. So we have basically three years and a half to make those conversions. So we are already seeing some of those projects moving. The projects that we already have and we're implementing, Iberdrola and BP and the project with GALP, and some of the projects that we have, the smaller projects on the refinery side, is a result of this legislation becoming a reality. So as the draft in Spain, for example, gets approved, which is expected to be in the next few months. And it becomes an actual law. We are expecting that companies to start actually executing and moving forward with the projects. We have many of those projects are already in our funnel. This is the $8 billion funnel that we've been talking about. These are not new projects that we're gonna basically pick up right now. It's projects that have been, many of them we've done the engineering phase, they're ready to go and once this happens, the project will start moving forward and we're hoping that by the end of this year, beginning of next year, you will start seeing some of these projects becoming a reality by reaching FID.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Samaya Jain from UBS. Your line is now live.
Samaya Jain
Analyst, UBS
Hi, team. Congrats on the quarter. So now that gross margins have approached break even, can you provide more color on the primary structural drivers, whether it's pricing power, product mix, or lower input costs that are expected to push margins into the positive territory in the second half of the year? I'm going to let Paul take that one.
Paul
Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, I think so the first thing is sales volume. If you think about us with the numbers that we've shared and the forecast of our guidance, as I said earlier, that suggests mathematically that will be up, you know, to meet those forecasts, it's about 40% growth off of the first half. And that mostly is equipment volume. And that's where we really, you know, become very accretive because of the contribution margin since we're already covering the fixed overhead. So, that's, you know, a big driver. The second is we still got lots of opportunities on the manufacturing cost. And so, We're still very early in the electrolyzer scale and manufacturing processes and still have a lot of opportunities to optimize that cost structure. We have already driven a lot of cost out of that equipment and continue to plan further cost downs on that as an example. Two big buckets really is service. You've seen big moves on service margin. We see continued improvements in reliability, which gives us opportunity to leverage more units for tech as we continue to scale. And since we have a lot of units and sites going live in the second half, we're continuing to take advantage of that. But we continue to invest in more reliability improvement processes. And so that's continued to pay off. And then lastly, as we just talked a few minutes ago, it's about the fuel. And so as we continue to scale volume on our fuel network, drive out improved logistics costs and efficiencies of the systems, those are the themes that you're going to continue to see collectively drive margin. But in the second half in particular, it's mainly sales volume. It's just such a big, you know, big Step Function in terms and context of our targets and our forecasts.
Samaya Jain
Analyst, UBS
Okay, great. Thank you. And then with recent milestones like the order for Orica and the Carleton Power FID, what is the conversion rate timeline for turning feed scopes such as the Quebec project into FIRM FIDs?
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
In the case of the project in Canada, we're working right now on the feed, as we mentioned. and the estimated FID timeline is beginning of 2027. With these big projects, as you know, things are a little bit fluid. So that is the estimated timeline that we have right now. It could move to Q3, but we have other projects as well that are going into the same process. And we've seen projects converting into FID like, as you mentioned, the Orica 50 megawatts and the Carlton 30 megawatts and we're expecting the next 25 to become and to convert into FID before the end of the year.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. Next question is coming from Samir Joshi from HC Wayne Radio Line. Is that live?
Samir Joshi
Analyst, HC Wainwright & Co.
Hey, Jose Luis, Paul. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to check on the cash management strategy in terms of the balance sheet load, the interest rate load. Would you be, some of the working capital gains you are expecting from inventory reductions and, of course, gross margins becoming slightly positive, and also money coming in from these asset monetization efforts, is there any effort to reduce the debt?
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. Samir, I think I'm going to let Paul answer that question.
Paul
Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. So, you know, on the debt side, the only thing we really have is the convertibles. And they're, you know, termed out in eight years from now. There's no amortization of that. It's, relatively speaking, a low-cost interest, unsecured facility. So, you know, we'll continue to monitor that and see, you know, what makes sense if, you know, if there's, you know, and so forth. So, as we continue to show the progress that we're making in terms of improving, growing sales, growing the margins, improving cash flows, we certainly expect in the second half, as we've talked all year, our plan is that we should see not just sales growth and margin enhancement, but continued reductions in the cash burn. and so that puts us in a good position as we start approaching potentially positive operating cash flows that it opens up even more avenues for me for debt and capital solutions at lower cost options. But we're in a good position right now. We ended the quarter with a pretty sizable cash balance. Subsequent to the quarter end, as we've talked about, we've already brought in 47 million from this data Thanks for that.
Samir Joshi
Analyst, HC Wainwright & Co.
and then just one stepping back your outlook for the year I mean I guess your fuel and PPA revenues are sort of more or less predictable but is this growth I mean you did mention this growth is mostly going to come from equipment sales what kind of visibility do you have are there any takes and puts that may exceed your guidance or cause you to not achieve these levels
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
We decided to raise guidance because we feel we have good visibility and expecting to meet that guidance. The majority of the second half of the year is going to be associated with execution, which is an important piece of the business. But from a commercial standpoint, we have good visibility on what's going to make the year in terms of meeting that guidance.
Samir Joshi
Analyst, HC Wainwright & Co.
Understood. I'm going to step back. Thanks.
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Samir.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. Next question today is coming from Craig Irwin from Roth Capital Partners. Your line is now live.
Craig Irwin
Analyst, Roth Capital Partners
Good evening, Jose Luis and Paul. Thanks for taking my question. First, I should say you guys did a great job conveying how plug is clicking on all cylinders these days. So the prepared remarks, I appreciate those. Most of my questions have been answered, so I'm going to ask a bigger picture question. Over the years, many of us that have followed Plug closely have seen systems in your factory being prepped for delivery for very big technology names. Fortune 50 type names. Intel is one that jumps out to me from the last couple years. I know you don't always press release these things, but I know you've supplied electrolyzers and other Power Generation Equipment to many of the Fortune 100, Fortune 500, other than the great names like Amazon that are kings of the data center market. What do you see as a potential avenue or are you exploring the opportunity for data center participation for plugs? If you had a couple hundred million dollars in incremental capital, is this something that you would do and that you could do on a on a relatively fair timeline. What would it take for you to make the investment there, given that you do have a competitor out there with a market cap in the tens of billions range that I don't think has technology that's much better than plugs? Obviously, I'd prefer plugs.
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
Well, Craig, thank you so much for your question and for attending the call as usual. I appreciate the big picture question, and it's is a good hypothetical if we had $200 million of capital to deploy. Obviously, the data center market is a market that everybody is paying a lot of attention to. And as you said, we have many customers of Plagg that are data center customers. We did the first test with a three megawatt system with Microsoft for backup power for data centers. Right now, As Plagg, as we have said before, we are 100% focused on three lines of business. One is material handling, which is at this moment actually performing really well and is bringing a lot of the growth in the company. The other one is electrolyzers. As I went through it before, the European market is about to heat up and to bring some orders to the table. We're expecting that to happen. and then the hydrogen business which is also an area of growth. We grew 15% the top line on hydrogen and we're expecting it to not only bring growth and eventually profitability but also we're expecting and it is an enabler for our business. Without hydrogen, none of these things really run. So those are the areas of the business that we are concentrating on. We are always looking at potential opportunities that we could grab in the market. And obviously the data center market is being one that we've been looking at from different angles. One of them is to try to create a solution that using electrolyzers and using fuel cells could actually relieve a little bit the network tension that is created by data centers connected to the grid. Definitely, you know, it's something that we're looking into. It's something that, you know, we haven't made any decisions. And right now, at this moment, we're concentrating on the three lines of business that I just mentioned. And we're going to push ahead on that and making sure that with those lines of business, we bring the company to profitability.
Craig Irwin
Analyst, Roth Capital Partners
I like that. Thank you. So my second question is positive evidence in the fourth quarter. You know, that's obviously, you know, something when you achieve it that Wall Street's going to cheer the results. Can you frame out what 2027 and 2028 could look like if maybe we continue along this positive trajectory, mid to upper teen revenue growth, continued structural improvements in gross margin? How would you expect budgeting to work on your frictional costs and your prioritization of EBITDAs over the next couple of years?
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
So we haven't given any guidance beyond 2026 except for we said that 2027 was going to be operating income positive in the fourth quarter, and we were going to be in 2028 profitable, overall profitability, EPS in fourth quarter. So I just wanted to make sure that we reinstate those, which is what we have given right now as guidance, and at this moment, We're not giving any additional guidance for 2027 and 2028. I don't know you want to add anything.
Paul
Chief Financial Officer
The only thing I would add at this point, Craig, is one thing we have said and we believe is true in our baseline is we believe we have the infrastructure, the manufacturing facilities, the things we need to do to deliver our plans. So we think there's a lot of leverage opportunity and we don't really and a number of others. All growth will be variable contribution in that regard and tremendous leverage opportunities. So I'm pretty excited about the prospects, and I'm sure as we move forward through this year, we'll be in a position to talk more and more about 27 and onward, but we're postured really well.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Sharif Amoghrabi from BTIG. Your line is now live.
Sharif Amoghrabi
Analyst, BTIG
Hi, thanks. I managed to disconnect myself, so I apologize if any of these have been asked before. But Jose Luis, you talked about this 30 megawatt project that FID and a 50 megawatt project that FID. Can you shed a little bit of light on the timeline for these bigger projects after FID? How long before they start up, you know, the commissioning process, the handover process, how long does that take? And any variation in times based on the size would be interesting.
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
So just these two examples on the project in the UK. We have already started delivering some of the balance of plan to Europe to set it up for the installation. It usually takes about, depending on the project obviously, I'm just gonna give you high level timelines you know 12 to 15 months to start installation in some cases is a little bit longer depending on the on the status of the project and then you know once the installation happens which could take you know a couple of months or or or maybe a quarter then you start with the commissioning so it is a process in terms of getting the the product out there to be installed and to be commissioned that is in the 12 to 18 months uh process now These type of projects, because they are larger projects and they require a lot of advanced manufacturing, are projects that we structure with milestone payments and we also structure with percentage of completion accounting in the majority of the cases. So we start seeing revenues and we start seeing money, cash coming in from the projects in the earlier stages.
Sharif Amoghrabi
Analyst, BTIG
Got it. And then maybe something a little different. Last week, the governor of Texas announced a moratorium on new data center construction. And I'm wondering if that affects the sale of your Texas assets given the counterparty for that transaction.
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
Last week, our understanding is that It was a letter from the governor asking to review the data center projects that were on the list of projects that want to be implemented in Texas. We believe there's going to be a review with various specific items that were outlined in the letter just to make sure that the projects are the right projects and that they are real projects and not projects that are and more speculative. We do believe that that process is gonna play out and we continue working with the stream through that process and we continue with the efforts that we have discussed about the monetization of the assets in Texas and New York. We'll go through the process, we'll go through the questions and we'll help is trying to get through everything that they need to get through and obviously going through whatever the government in Texas requires that we need to do.
Sharif Amoghrabi
Analyst, BTIG
Okay, super helpful. Thanks for taking my questions.
Operator
Conference Operator
No, thank you, sir. Thank you. Next question is coming from Skylander from Australia. Your line is now live.
Skylander
Analyst
Hi guys, just a couple on the Electrolyzer business from me. Firstly, just thinking back to your symposium last year, I think your partner Allied Green said that they were hoping to progress their projects through 2026 and potentially even be at a point where they could submit firm orders to plug before the end of the year. So just wondering if you could provide an update on those mega projects. And then second one on the Electrolyzer business, You mentioned the Axiona JV in Iberia earlier. Just wondering if you could remind us all how that JV is set up, how big the initial projects are, and then importantly, what the funding plans would be for those projects once they took FID. That would be great. Thanks.
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
Great. Alight Green, we continue working with Alight Green on the progression of the projects in Australia and in Uzbekistan. We announced both projects. And as I was saying before, these type of projects are complex and they take time. We're still expecting and hoping that we will get the go-ahead as soon as possible from Alight Green in either project. It seems like Uzbekistan is moving a little bit faster. but, you know, we keep on working on helping to try to get those projects to FID. In the Spain, JV is a 50-50 JV with Acciona Energía. Acciona is I think the largest, and I say, I think, I don't want to quote, but I think it's the largest renewable company in Spain, in Iberia, for those that don't know what company is Acciona. And this is why we partner with them, because they have access to renewables. We have several projects that we are developing with them, but the most advanced projects are a project in the region of Navarra, in a city called Sanguesa, That project got 2.5 euros from the European Hydrogen Bank. And we have basically all the ingredients to get to FID. We're hoping that it probably will happen at the end of 2021. and we will work with ACCIONA to find the funding for the projects. The same thing goes with the project in Zaragoza, which is the one that just got two euros and 85 cents. I believe those two projects have the highest per kilo subsidies from the European Hydrogen Bank. In the case of Zaragoza, that project is a little bit less developed and the project in Navarra. That project right now, we're still working through finding and getting offtake. While in the case of Sanguesa, we already have lined up a potential high probability offtaker. So that's the situation with those two projects. Behind that, we have another three or four projects that are in very, very early stages. But those two are the ones that are the main projects that we have on the table. And we will work with ACCIONA for the funding once we reach FID.
Skylander
Analyst
That's great. Thanks.
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. Next question is coming from Jason Tilchen from Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now live.
Jason Tilchen
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity
Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Apologies if this was already asked. I've been hopping between a few calls. But I believe Paul said that progress towards Q4 EBITDA profitability is going to primarily be driven by continued gross margin improvement. Notice there was such a notable step down in G&A expense in the quarter. Just hoping to unpack that decline a bit. And I'm looking forward to the right level of sort of fixed corporate cost to think about going forward. Thank you.
Paul
Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, there's always ebbs and flows and things that have been happening. And what we've been saying and projecting is that our normal run rate, if you will, we expect to be about $75 million a quarter. There was a large recovery via a contract dispute where we had previously taken a reserve against that position. and because we got a large amount of money back on that program that resulted in a gain that showed up as an offset to OpEx. There's also some nominal restructuring and other charges in that bucket. But if you back that out, 75 million is kind of our expected run rate. So we continue to be very thoughtful and disciplined on costs. for overhead and discretionary spend. And we're particularly focused in the back half of the year, given our goals there. But if you look at it just mathematically, to get to the EBITDUS target, it's mainly through gross margin in the back half of the year and in Q4. So given the forecast that we've been sharing and what we anticipate for sales, That's about 40% growth off the first half, and most of that is through equipment sales. So it becomes very creative when you sell incremental equipment when you've already covered your fixed cost at base. So that's where that comment came from, and that gives you some color on what was going on in Q2.
Jason Tilchen
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity
Very helpful. Thank you very much.
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. We've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further closing comments.
Jose Luis Crespo
Chief Executive Officer
Okay, so thank you all for the questions and for your continued engagement and support. Our priorities for the balance of 2026 are still the same and clear. We're going to execute with discipline, keep converting our commercial pipeline, keep strengthening our liquidity through non-diluted means, and deliver positive EBITDAs in the fourth quarter. Q2, this quarter, gives us a strong foundation for the second half. Margins are improving, cost discipline is holding, our backlog is growing, our cash usage is the lowest it has been all year. With our near-term liquidity outlook strengthened by the asset monetization process now coming in, and the regulatory and commercial tailwinds behind our electrolysis business, and only getting stronger. We have said that before. Now it's about consistent delivery, but with the momentum we are building, we are genuinely never more confident in where this business is headed for the rest of 2026 and well beyond it. Thank you again for your support. We look forward to updating you on the process in the next quarter. Thank you, everyone.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.