SOLV Energy (MWH) Q2 2026 earnings call transcript

Thank you. You may begin. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for SOLV Energy's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Before we begin, we would like to remind you that this conference call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Save Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements, which are subject to various risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements. These risks, uncertainties, and assumptions are detailed in this morning's press release, as well as our filings with the SEC, which can be found on our website at investors. solvenergy. com. We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements or information except as required by law.

During our call today, we will also reference certain non-GAAP financial information. The presentation of this non-GAAP financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. Gap. Reconciliations of Gap to non-Gap measures can be found in this morning's press release and in our SEC filings.

Joining me on the call today is SOLV Energy CEO George Hirschman and CFO Chad Potkin. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for your questions. As a reminder, there will be a replay of this call posted on the IR website.

With that, I'll turn the call over to George.

Great. Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. I'm very excited to report that we are executing more work today than at any point in our company's history, with our largest project to date underway and more employees working safely across the country than ever before. That is a reflection of both the scale we have achieved and the incredible strength and dedication of our teams. I'm proud of where we are and even more excited about where we are going.

Now let's walk through our highlights for the second quarter. I'll start where we always do, with safety. Our trailing 12-month safety metrics continue to outperform industry benchmarks. A safe project is a profitable project, and the most importantly, our number one responsibility is to get our people home safely every day. That commitment is embedded across our organization, and it shows across all of our results. So let's turn to financial performance. We delivered record results for the first half of 2026. Revenue was $1.63 billion, up 72%, with adjusted EBITDA of $210 million, up 75%. These results reflect strong execution across the business and a backlog that is continuing to convert according to plan.

The market environment remains very favorable. We are in the middle of a step change in the U. S. power demand, driven by growth in data infrastructure, industrial reshoring, and electrification. Solar and battery storage remain the most cost-competitive and fastest-to-market solution for adding new generation capacity, and we believe SOLV is well-positioned to reap the benefits of the accelerating infrastructure build-out.

We also continued executing on our M&A strategy with the closing of the Roberson-Wayt electric acquisition on July 1st. Roberson Weight Electric expanded our utility infrastructure capabilities and strengthens the range of services we can provide to our customers. We ended the quarter with approximately $8.9 billion of backlog, representing 44% growth year over year. Importantly, 100% of the projects in our backlog are safe harbors. Recognizing our strong performance in the first half of the year and the continued momentum in the business, we are raising our full-year financial guidance. Chad will discuss this in more detail later in the call. Overall, SOLV is in a strong position. Our backlog continues to grow, our teams are executing at the highest level, and demand across our markets remain extremely healthy.

So let's turn to slide five. I want to spend a moment here on the market because it supports the long-term opportunities we see for the business. First, U. S. electricity demand is expected to increase approximately 28% over the next decade, compared to only 5% growth during the prior decade. We believe that this growth will be driven primarily by data infrastructure, electrification, and the continued industrial reshoring trends.

Second, we expect approximately $518 billion of investment in solar and battery storage projects between 2025 and 2034, supporting roughly 430 gigawatts of new capacity, with battery storage expected to grow approximately 26% annual growth rate. I also want to highlight the domestic manufacturing build-out, because I think it is an underappreciated part of this story. The United States now has over 70 gigawatts of domestic module manufacturing capacity, up from roughly 8 gigawatts just a few years ago. Cell, wafer, and ingot capacity are growing quickly behind it, not to mention the numerous factories supporting steel fabrication, tracker, inverter, batteries, and electrical components. A stronger domestic supply chain helps reduce risk, improves resiliency, and supports long-term investment in the industry.

The more we build domestically, the more durable the demand environment becomes for our services and the SOLV ecosystem. And finally, operating solar capacity is expected to increase approximately 3.8 times over the coming decade. Importantly, every gigawatt constructed creates decades of recurring revenue opportunities in operations, maintenance, repowering, upgrades, and other lifecycle services. Taken together, these market dynamics continue to provide a compelling long-term tailwind for SOLV's lifecycle services platform.

Moving to slide six, one of the questions we get asked most often is how we are able to consistently execute large, complex projects while maintaining strong margins. The answer is a multilayered risk management process that has been refined over almost two decades of building solar projects. Our process begins with disciplined pre-construction procedures. Where cross-functional teams collaborate to develop project-specific pricing and execution strategies.

We then utilize multiple LNTP agreements to validate site conditions, test foundation systems, and advance engineering and equipment procurement. All to further de-risk project execution for us and for our customers. Once a project is underway, performance is monitored closely through our proprietary sunscreen platform and through daily, weekly, and monthly reviews with project teams and senior leadership. Most importantly, our regionalized workforce brings deep knowledge of the markets where we operate. This includes local permitting requirements, labor availability, weather conditions, and other factors that influence project execution. Those insights help us make better decisions before construction begins and throughout the life of the project. Consistent execution isn't the result of any one process. It's the result of applying this framework across every project, every customer, and every region we operate.

Let's talk a bit about strategy. Turning to slide seven, acquisitions remain an important part of our long-term growth strategy. When we evaluate opportunities, we're looking for businesses that strengthen our platform, expand the services we can provide, and create additional value for our customers. Every acquisition must fit strategically, complement what we already do well, and support our vision for the future of the business. When you look at this timeline, each acquisition represents a deliberate step in building that platform. CS Energy expanded our EPC capabilities. SDI Services strengthened our foundation expertise. Spartan Infrastructure expanded our transmission and distribution platform. And most recently, Roberson Weight Electric adds highly complementary utility infrastructure, substation, and battery storage capabilities.

Individually, each of these businesses brings talented people, strong customer relationships, and specialized expertise. Together, they have expanded our capabilities and strengthened our ability to support customers across a broad portion of the energy infrastructure value chain. Our most recent acquisition of Roberson Waite Electric closed on July 1st. Roberson Waite Electric brings deep, longstanding relationships with California utilities and specialized expertise in substation construction and urban battery storage deployments. These capabilities complement what we've built through Spartan and further strengthen our utility infrastructure platform. We are really excited to have them as part of the SOLV family.

Looking ahead, we'll continue to evaluate opportunities across several targeted categories to support the SOLV ecosystem. Our approach remains disciplined and focused on opportunities that strengthen the business, align with our strategy, and create long-term value for our shareholders and customers. The results of this strategy is the ecosystem we're building, which is illustrated on slide eight. Everything we do supports a simple goal, being the partner our customer can rely on throughout the life of their power plant.

As energy infrastructure becomes more complex, customers increasingly value partners that can support multiple phases of an asset's lifecycle. They value partners who can help solve challenges reduce complexities and deliver consistency over the long term When you look at this slide what you seeing is the ecosystem we building Today, our capabilities span generation, delivery, and services, allowing us to support customers across a broad portion of the energy infrastructure value chain. From solar and storage construction to transmission and distribution, high-voltage services, foundations, O&M, And repowering, we're continuing to expand the way we can service our customers.

Importantly, the value isn't in any single capability. The value comes from how these capabilities work together. Our customers don't think about their needs in terms of individual services. They think about execution, reliability, and finding partners they can trust with a proven track record.

The ecosystem we're building to meet those needs of their assets. As more energy infrastructure gets built, we see opportunities not only during construction, but also throughout the decades that follow through O&M, upgrades, repowering, and other lifecycle solutions. That's the one thing that differentiates our business model. Our objective is straightforward. Continue strengthening our relationship with customers, expand the value we provide, and continue building the preferred lifecycle services platform in our industry.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Chad to discuss our financial results in detail. Chad?

Thank you, George, and good morning, everyone. Turning to slide 10. The second quarter marks a continuation of the strong execution across the company, resulting in record first-half results for SOLV. Revenue was up 77% year-over-year to $951 million, bringing first-half revenue to near $1.63 billion, or up 72% as compared to the first half of 2025. This performance was primarily driven by a significant increase in new construction and the contribution from last year's M&A activity.

Notably, in another example of our project team's strong execution, we also pulled forward revenue from the second half of 2026 at certain projects accelerated ahead of schedule with approximately 75% of new construction revenue in the second quarter from projects at less than 50% complete.

Moving to adjusted gross profit, year over year, we saw an increase of 28% in the second quarter to $145 million, leading to an increase of 56% in the first half of 2026 to $269 million.

On a percentage basis, 2025 adjusted gross margin in the second quarter and first half benefited from the contribution of higher margin repair work in our O&M business and the sale of some legacy development projects. Additionally, in 2026, we now have a perspective change in how we present our accrual for incentive-based cash compensation expense. Beginning in the second quarter, a portion of our annual incentive expense, previously reflected in SG&A, is now reported in cost of revenue. We believe this change is a better presentation for the business going forward. For context, while this modification did reduce planned adjusted gross margin by over 60 basis points through the first half of the year, as reflected in the 16.5% of adjusted gross margin, it has no impact on adjusted EBITDA, net income, or cash flows, as there was a direct offset in SG&A expense.

For adjusted EBITDA, second quarter results were $117 million, bringing first half adjusted EBITDA to $210 million, an increase of 75% year-over-year. This brings adjusted EBITDA margin to nearly 13% through the first half of 2026, a great reflection of overall profitability performance for the business.

Turning to slide 11 to discuss our backlog. Backlog at the end of the second quarter grew to approximately $8.9 billion, representing 44% growth over the last 12 months. Over this time, the scale of project continues to grow as the average project size originating into backlog during the second quarter was approximately 450 megawatts, as compared to just over 200 megawatts in the same period of last year. Additionally, in providing evidence of further market momentum, we now see approximately $2.5 billion of the reported backlog relating to projects associated with storage, either on a hybrid or standalone basis.

This compares to $1.9 billion at the end of the first quarter. Now let's turn to slide 12 to discuss our outlook. Based on the strength of our first half execution, we are increasing our full-year 2026 financial guidance. We now expect full-year revenue of $3.87 to $3.97 billion, adjusted gross profit of $620 to $660 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $485 to $505 million. This update reflects the expected contribution from the Roberson wage acquisition, which closed on July 1st, and our current plan for project pacing and costs, including new conversions not in our original assumptions.

On adjusted gross margin, our updated range is now 16 to 16.6% versus our prior range of 16.4 to 17%. This modification is primarily driven by the perspective accounting change related to the geography of certain cash compensation expense. Therefore, this update to adjusted gross margin guidance should not be construed as a signal of overall portfolio performance, but rather a signal that results are tracking better than previously forecasted, as evidenced by the strength in our current outlook for adjusted EBITDA margin, which is now forecasted at 12.5% to 12.7% for the full year. And with that, I'll turn it back to George for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, Chad. Let me wrap with why we're so confident in the opportunities ahead. First, the market fundamentals remain strong. Demand for power continues to grow, driven by data infrastructure, electrification, and industrial expansion. We believe solar, battery storage, and grid infrastructure will continue to play a critical role in meeting that demand, creating significant opportunities across the markets we serve.

Second, our competitive position is strong and getting stronger. We have constructed over 22 gigawatts of capacity across more than 500 projects since our founding. And we currently manage over 23 gigawatts under O&M contracts.

As projects become large and more complex, fewer providers have the ability to execute at the scale our customers require. And third, our teams are executing at the highest level. We delivered strong growth in the second quarter, our backlog continues to expand, and we're raising our full-year financial guidance. At the same time, we maintain a strong balance sheet with no long-term debt and remain focused on disciplined growth.

Overall, we believe SOLV is well-positioned to capitalize on the long-term demand for energy infrastructure. The results we discussed today reflect the hard work, commitment, and execution of our employees across the organization. I'm proud of what our teams have built, and I'm even more excited about the opportunities in front of us.

With that, operator, let's open the line for questions.

Yeah. Good morning, Julian, and thank you. The backlog is continuing to grow. As we have spoken about before, we have a large funnel above the backlog that we report. We have a lot of projects that are in, you know, later stage discussions and moving into LNTP, which is when we show them as backlogs. So we are seeing a significant, you know, portfolio of projects and opportunities. And so those are continuing to move in, getting executed really on plan. So I think this will continue to see our backlog grow as we move through this cycle. So I don't think there's anything unique to this other than there's a large subset of opportunity out there that sit above our backlog, really in our overall project funnel.

Now, to your point on energy storage, we're just seeing a lot of energy storage opportunities, both in standalone opportunities and hybrid. The majority of our projects are solar plus storage now, and that is driving the backlog number specific to energy storage.

Yeah. Well, first on 232, we are working with our customers as we work through the implications of it. Early on, we see that, you know, not a lot of near-term impact, as most of our projects are in, you know, late-stage development, module secured, and moving forward. So, we'll continue to work on that and update it as we work with our customers who procure the actual modules.

And then, you know, to your point on Big Rooter, that's a great project, wonderful award. And it's been in backlog for a while as we've moved the project through LNTP and into final notice to proceed. So, a great project, you know, for us and our customer, and we're excited to move it forward, but it has been in backlog for a while as we've moved through the pre-construction and LNTP process.

So our backlog traditionally is about a 24 to 30-month look. And so that has stayed pretty traditional over the years. And so I think that gives us good visibility into 27 and into 28. I think that, you know, a large portion of 27 looks really strong based on backlog and signed awards. And so, you know, we're optimistic on 27's outlook, but I think from a percentage basis, you know, we're comfortable.

Hey, Michael, it's Chad. It's a great question. I think as you can see, we did increase the megawatts we have under contract to 23 gigs as of the end of the second quarter. It's important to note that unlike traditional EPC, if you do have an attachment, that the revenue lags because you don't start getting paid for O&M services until the projects are in operation.

I think our attachment rates, as we've talked about in the past, they do tend to oscillate subject to who we're working with.

But we're seeing that attachment, you know, for certainly a subset of the project, and we've seen some continued incremental growth. And that which is contracted quarter over quarter. So that part of the business is certainly materializing. And as we stated in the past, it also then begins to present a lot of optionality for us as it relates to sort of less routine preventative maintenance contracts, other non-recurring type of activity that also can come with attractive economics.

Well, we have been, well, first, good morning, Phil. We've been reaching out with our customers and working very closely with our customers through this process, and I think that a number of them have, kind of all of us have recognized this was coming and have worked through it. So, we're seeing that there's no real impact into near term, but as this continues to unfold and we recognize how challenging the price increases are to customers, then we'll get more insight into understanding their contractual relationships upstream.

You know, obviously, because the module procurement is all handled directly with our customer and not us. So, we're having those discussions. We're not seeing project schedules slip. We're not seeing any direct discussions with our customers regarding that yet. And don't expect the projects that we have in, you know, late term or signed contracts to slip.

Thanks, George.

Yeah, so hey, it's Chad. Maybe on your first question on the backlog, you know, as you think about additions to backlog as you move through the course of the year, as you move to sort of the second half, a lot of the backlog we will sign obviously starts with LNTPs. So direct revenue generation tends to be smaller until you actually get to notice to proceed. So when we looked at the revenue raise relative to our visibility, part of that, as we said, we did pull forward and we've seen some additional pacing come in from some acceleration.

But these backlogs are really setting us up for beyond 26 into 27 and 28, as George had mentioned. I think on your margin point, we're obviously continue to be quite disciplined on project execution. The stage of projects matter as we move through the lifecycle of a project. As we've stated before, in the early part of the project, you tend to start more at budgeted margins and as execution increases over time, that's when we'll see, you know, the outperformance subject to being executed. We continue to also be very focused on building the operating leverage in the business. I think it's important to note from my prepared remarks in the second quarter, the average project size that came into the business was 450 megawatts versus what we had in prior periods.

So revenue growth is heavily driven by size of project. And on that point, we see a lot of sort of fixed cost operating leverage because we don't need to add as much in the way of incremental support costs to support revenue growth, given the project sizes have gotten larger. So this is something we obviously work on across the board, both at efficiency within the projects and how we can bring in permanent efficiency within our fixed cost structure.

Thanks, John. So the movement on the TRA and that revaluation measure is primarily driven to the secondary transaction. As far as disbursements under the TRA, the answer is no. The provisions under the TRA kind of drags out until you would get past the first period of a corporate tax return. So actual TRA payments probably don't really manifest until 2028 because you'd have to get through the 2026 filing, which I think after you think about the timing of when you would do your tax returns, it ends up being in like late 27. And then the provisions under the LLC are later. So there is time under the payments for the TRA.

You bet.

Yeah, we didn't provide that specifically. It's embedded in the number. I think one way to think about it is the revenue guide. If you look at the increase, there's a portion that was pulled over, and you can see that the range increased a little bit. So there is part of that in there. I think given the relative size of RWE, you can assume that, you know, the EBITDA contribution is sort of at the margin, but it is embedded in our number, but we didn't disclose that specifically.

I think, you know, we're continuing to look at areas where we can add additional expertise, whether that's in electrical, direct labor work in certain regions, as well as continuing to enhance our services. Through expansion of our O&M business and kind of direct services business. So I don't think there's anything outside of that diagram that we're looking for specifically. I think that really highlights the areas of focus for us. And obviously, the closer we can hit areas in the center that allow us to optimize across all three sectors, the more valuable those acquisitions would be to us.

I will now turn the call over to management for the SOLV Energy, Inc. I think that our business model being unique in that we have the EPC and O&M side of the business allows us to really optimize if there is a slowdown in one sector or the other.

We're obviously not seeing any near-term or even kind of short, long-term slowdown in our EPC business. So that is actually providing more growth opportunity in our O&M services business. But we absolutely have the ability to flex more into O&M services. One of the things that we see on a very regular basis is that large equipment repair happens We have the resources and expertise to be able to do those projects and we seeing those come in on a very kind of random period where they sorry we getting some feedback But those come in and we able to deliver with our services and EPC resources So we continue to expand in those areas and focus efforts on O but we don see any slowdown in our EPC business Great, thanks.

Thanks, George.

You know, normally, Nick, I'd say we always look at the fourth quarter as a quarter where you would generally see a lower amount of revenue, simply because you have less work days because of the holidays, and that's even independent of potential weather, etc. So I would definitely say that we would expect the third quarter to be a bigger lift on the realization of that through, you know, what ideally is an optimal time for our teams to work.

So I think it's a little – you might see a little bit of lumpiness between the third and fourth quarter.

Yeah. Mark, it's a great question. You know, I think with the CS Energy deal, because that was done under a merger under Common Control, that one's a little bit of a different dynamic, because there we saw the ability to really scale up and deliver on larger projects up in the Northeast. I think it relates to the other two acquisitions. Without getting into the specifics, I think what we'd say is they've performed very well relative to our underwrite. And I think what we've seen across both, which has been a really big focus, and you can actually see it aligned in George's or on slide nine on the schematic, what's really we've seen the value is the ability to not just look at these businesses on a standalone basis, but to actually use these businesses within the construct of our self-performance.

And that is really what's allowed us to see some strong, you know, candidly strong returns above our underwrite. So we've been really excited about the performance of these assets. And I think it sets us up well, because while each acquisition on a standalone basis, I wouldn't necessarily say is material relative to the size of our business. It does set up a great operating model for us as we think about scaling up to larger transactions.

No, this is George. No, I think we absolutely see similar synergies and upside. Back to our slide eight, really represents kind of our ecosystem in the way that we want our acquisitions to all work together. To Chad's point, is that what we've seen is that each of these businesses and expertise have brought additional support to our core businesses, and we're going to continue down that path. We're going to continue to look at businesses that help us across all of our sectors, and so we believe that there's absolutely continued opportunity in those areas. So, I mean, our areas of focus, we still have, you know, plenty of target opportunities to fill in additional expertise, and so we would expect to continue to kind of work this playbook.

and bring in companies that enhance our overall services.

The conversations we're having with our customers are, you know, really positive on demand. And so, you know, I don't think that demand is going to slow down based on all of the, you know, all of the electrification demand and build-out. So our customers are feeling really bullish on the market going forward, and it gives us, you know, a lot of visibility into long-term pipelines. So I think that, you know, those discussions, you know, based on the way our backlog burns off, we wouldn't see projects necessarily out into those, you know, latter years anyway, because we burned through backlog projects, move in and move out fairly quickly. When you think about infrastructure projects, I think that is one of the benefits of solar and storage is the speed to deployment and allows projects to come in, start, and be fully executed within 24 or 30 months.

So, you know, we wouldn't see a project in the pipeline or in the backlog necessarily that's stretched out into 2030 anyway, but we are seeing customer pipelines that go well into the 30s.

I think it continues to expand because demand is there.

Yeah, Ben, it's a good question. I think not necessarily in the sense of if you think about bookings, even as our customers may go through how they think about their own procurement of modules, I think there's a couple things. One, there's a lot of evidence of a significant amount of modules already in the country. As George mentioned, there is domestic supply, and we work with a lot of, you know, very sophisticated and large-scale developers that have been planning for this for quite some time. And also bear in mind, you know, with the amount of demand in the market, our customers are also wanting to advance projects to secure capacity. So as we think about moving forward and getting into the LNTP phase, that part of the phase will continue to advance overall.

So we feel good about the state of the business and the ability to grow. So obviously your point, there is going to be lumpiness and originations, but there is continued to be a lot of momentum in the business.

Yeah, Ben, maybe I'll hit on the size point, and I'll turn to George to think about the strategic part. I think in kind of what I was signaling, you know, the transactions that we've done thus far, they haven't, but they've been fantastic transactions, but, you know, relative to the size of our business, they haven't been what I would deem as an overly material transaction. And what I was getting to is that we're going to continue to look at size of transactions across the board. And it was really more about the roadmap, because we've continuing to think and perfect an operating model. We've done three acquisitions thus far. So this is a process, and there's a discipline of pacing ourselves to make sure we execute, because the act of doing the deal is a lot easier than the execution and implementation of it.

So, that was the point of my comment, is we're building out an operating model for success that we're excited about.

And then George can talk about the strategy. Yeah, I think, and the strategy of these acquisitions probably outsizes their, you know, financial metric size. They really have brought expertise into areas of our business that allow us to, you know, grow and expand. And in some areas, allow us to de-risk things like foundations and other things that allow our business to be more successful. So I don't want to undersell their strategic significance over their size. But we are continuing to look at areas where we need expertise to continue to deliver our services, whether that is because of regional support or specific trade expertise. And so we're going to continue to look at those. To your point about, you know, expansion of other generation and those things, we are having discussions with our customers of what their long-term needs are so that we continue to shape our business to deliver the needs of our customers.

So as we look at hybrid generation plants that have other forms of generation, we're absolutely looking at how do we support that long term because we feel that really fits still within our ecosystem and the ability to deliver services to our customers. So we are actively involved in those conversations and looking at, you know, what are the needs of our customers in 27 and 28 so that we continue to build the preferred service provider.