Capstone Green Energy Holdings, Inc. (CGEH) Q3 FY2026 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Capstone Green Energy Earnings Conference Call and Webcast to report the Financial Results for the Third Quarter of Fiscal year 2026 ended December 31. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Alfredo Gomez, Capstone General Counsel. Alfredo, please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Capstone Green Energy Holdings, Inc.'s third quarter fiscal year 2026 earnings conference call. On the call with me today are Vincent Canino, the company's President and Chief Executive Officer; and John Miller, the company's Interim Chief Financial Officer. On February 12, Capstone Green Energy Holdings, Inc. issued its earnings release for its third quarter fiscal year 2026 financial results, which ended December 31, 2025. During today's call, we will be referring to slides that can be found on the company's website under the Investor Relations section. This conference call contains forward-looking statements representing the company's views as of today, February 12, 2025. Other than as required by federal securities laws, the company disclaims any obligation to update or revise these statements to reflect future events or circumstances. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements because they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are, in some cases, beyond our control. Please refer to the safe harbor provisions set forth on Slide 2 of the accompanying presentation in today's earnings release and in Capstone's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Please note that as Mr. Canino and Mr. Miller go through the discussion today, when they mention EBITDA, they are referring to adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-GAAP financial measure and the reconciliation to net income can be found in the earnings release and the appendix to the presentation slides. I would like to now turn the call over to Vince Canino, the company's President and Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Alfredo, and good afternoon, everyone. I appreciate you joining us today. Turning to Slide 4. The third quarter was another strong period for Capstone Green Energy. Our results reflect continued momentum across the business with revenue growth, margin expansion and improved profitability driven by disciplined execution of our 3-pillar strategy. For the quarter, revenue was $26.8 million, up 33% from same period prior year. Year-to-date revenue reached $83 million, a 42% increase over the same period last year. This growth was fueled by higher demand for our larger capacity products and strong performance in our service businesses. Our strategy is working. The operating leverage created by our straightforward and executable 3-pillar strategy continues to show up in our results. Our strong revenue growth leveraged by the discipline from our financial health pillar and the systems, tools and processes deployed under our sustainable excellence pillar continue to create strong delivery in adjusted EBITDA. Q3 marks our seventh consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA as well as our best adjusted EBITDA for a quarter at $5.1 million, contributing to a year-to-date adjusted EBITDA of over $12.3 million, which outpaced all of fiscal year 2025 by over $4 million. Let's move to Slide 5. Our trailing 12-month revenues are now running at $110 million, up $7 million from prior quarter's trailing 12-month revenues of $103 million. We continue to see a shift in product mix from our smaller high-volume C65s to larger big box units and at power blocks of multiple megawatts. Today, it is estimated that power outages in the United States alone have increased by approximately 93% over the past 5 years. According to a recent EIA or Energy Information Administration report, the frequency of power interruptions has been the highest than any year in the past decade with the average outage duration being over 11 hours. The EIA data indicates that the major contributors to those outages are due to weather and grid disturbances. Simply put, businesses are realizing that in order to maintain steady operations, power is becoming a problem, and they are crossing the chasm to making either an OpEx spend through rentals or a CapEx spend for permanent installation of behind-the-meter combined heat and power solutions. The Department of Energy released a report in July of 2025, warning that blackouts could increase by 100x in 2030 as a result of the retirement of existing generation and delays in adding new firm capacity beyond solar and wind. The report goes on to state that if the U.S. continues to shutter reliable power sources and fails to add firm capacity, this will become a major problem beyond the needs of AI-driven data center growth. Allowing 104 gigawatts of firm generation to retire by 2030 without timely replacement could lead to significant outages, especially when weather conditions limit the output of wind and solar. Even though the 104 gigawatts of retired generation is planned to be replaced by 209 gigawatts of new generation by 2030, only 22 gigawatts of that generation comes from firm baseload generation resources. This is where distributed generation now enters center stage. Moving on to Slide 6. In this quarter's cost-out corner highlight, we want to showcase an example that directly aligns with one of our core values, the little things matter. At first glance, decals may seem insignificant in the grand scheme of bill of materials. But our philosophy is simple. You can't do extraordinary things unless you get the little things right. And when you consistently execute small, low effort cost improvements, those savings compound into something meaningful. For many years, we outsourced the manufacturing of decals across our entire product line. That arrangement proved to be highly restrictive as our needs evolved. More importantly, if even a single decal was damaged, we were forced to reorder an entire set, driving unnecessary cost from what could have been a simple isolated error. When the supplier was unwilling to offer flexibility, the team ran the opportunity through our DFMA program, which produced a should cost that was significantly lower than what we were paying. As the team evaluated alternative options, it became clear this process should be brought in-house, not only for cost reduction, but also for greater flexibility and expanded capability. The results speak for themselves. This project delivers a 71% cost savings while also giving us a multipurpose tool that supports future needs. It's another example of how focusing on the little things doesn't just reduce costs, it helps us future-proof the business. Now I would like to turn the call over to John Miller, our Interim Chief Financial Officer. Over to you, John.

Thank you, Vince, and good afternoon, everyone. Turning to profitability. Let's move on to Slide 7, where we delivered gross profit of $10.4 million, more than double the prior year and expanded gross margin to 39%, up 14 points. This improvement was driven by favorable product mix, direct material cost reductions and the margin lift associated with the Cal Microturbine distributor acquisition. Our DFMA cost-out initiatives continue to deliver exceptional results and helped offset the impact of new import tariffs. We also delivered our second consecutive quarter of positive net income, reporting $1.2 million for the quarter compared to a loss of $2.7 million a year ago. Year-to-date net income stands at $1.3 million versus a loss of $7.1 million in the prior year. The continued adoption of distributed generation underscores the value of our fuel flexible, high-efficiency clean ultra-low emissions technology. By leveraging improved product mix, high Energy as a Service utilization and expanding service agreement base and strong manufacturing and operational discipline, we are translating these advantages into stronger margins, higher recurring revenue and sustainable profitability. We're also seeing the benefits of a smooth transition following our Cal Microturbine acquisition, which has further strengthened our bottom line. Our work around DFMA, even in spite of the effects of tariffs, continue to deliver margin expansion on our products and parts. Our root cause analysis processes are also helping us to mitigate failure modes due to application or site issues, which is not only improving margins in our service agreement base, but it's also helping to create greater customer satisfaction by eliminating unnecessary failures. Let's go to Slide 8. This quarter reflects continued momentum in strengthening Capstone's financial position, marked by 7 consecutive quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA. The resilience of our business model, favorable ships and power market dynamics and the dedication of our employees and distributors have meaningfully improved Capstone's trajectory. Together, we are well positioned to deliver innovative energy solutions that meet growing global power demands. Now let me discuss the company's financial results for the third quarter of fiscal '26. You'll see the summary financial results for the third quarter. Total revenue was $26.8 million compared to $20.1 million in '25, up 33%. The improvement in product and accessories revenue to $13.6 million during this period reflects the continuing increase in customer sentiment for Capstone products following the restructuring and the resilience and adaptability of the Capstone product to meet changing market demands. The decline in rental revenue to $3.9 million is due mainly to a decrease in demand for remote power in the oil and gas space, which is tracking with the decrease in the price of oil during the period. We launched a December to remember parts and services initiative for our Capstone West territory. This initiative contributed to a strong revenue delivery of $9.3 million for the quarter. Top line growth delivered a gross profit of $10.4 million for the quarter versus $5 million in 2025. The current quarter's gross margin was 39% versus 25% in 2025. The gross profit dollars and continued steady margin improvements reflect the increasing interest in our products and accessories, impacts of strategically moving to direct sales in California and ongoing cost savings from our DFMA initiatives and higher mix of high-margin parts sales. R&D expenses were 4% of revenues for the current quarter, reflecting our investments in our cost-out initiatives and new technological development. SG&A expenses of $7.4 million was up $1.1 million from 2025 and stands at 28% of revenue. Included in the third quarter was $0.6 million for incentive compensation expense and $0.2 million of customer-related intangible amortization. Nonrecurring expenses for the quarter were $1.5 million versus $1.2 million in 2025, an increase of $0.2 million. Net income for the period was $1.2 million, which is a $3.9 million improvement from the loss in fiscal 2025 of $2.7 million. The improved financial performance delivered adjusted EBITDA to a record of $5.1 million in the quarter. Now let's look at Slide 9 to review some selected balance sheet items. Cash and equivalents were $15.2 million, an increase of $6.5 million since the end of fiscal '25. The increase was primarily due to cash provided by the PIPE transaction of $3.9 million, net of the debt payment made in the quarter as well as cash generated by operating activities of $2.0 million. Accounts receivable were $11.4 million, an increase of $4.4 million, primarily due to the timing of large distributor sales towards the end of the quarter. Total inventories at $21.2 million increased $1.1 million from year-end. Lastly, accounts payable and accrued expenses were $21 million, up $5.4 million from March 31, reflecting the higher level of business activity. With that, I'll turn the presentation back to Vince.

Thank you, John. Moving to Slide 10. Since our last earnings call, where we introduced 4 key technological developments we've been working on, I thought it would be prudent to provide a follow-up on our progress. For the 800-volt DC product, which technically is complete, we have been working on developing 2 key pieces of technology to provide a more comprehensive offering. The first is our Smart Power Switch or SPS, which provides the traffic flow of electrons between our microturbine and the data center's 800-volt DC bus. We expect to have our SPS prototype complete by the end of this month and we will move into a 5-month test cycle with our 800-volt DC microturbine. We will also be collaborating with certification agencies on compliance requirements for safe and reliable data center deployment. Combustion liner testing is 60% complete, and we are in the tuning stages of the product development cycle. We expect we will be able to offer this product within the next 3 to 6 months. To give you an understanding of the value of being able to deliver 5 ppm of NOx, this will allow end users to install more megawatts of power before triggering the need to obtain a Title V air permit. For perspective, the triggering event of Title V, also known as a major source threshold, is 100 tons per year of NOx. So a unit, let's say, that delivers 25 ppm of NOx without abatement will trigger Title V at 85 megawatts. Our upcoming 5 ppm NOx unit would trigger Title V at 380 megawatts. Even more important, those nonattainment districts that require purchasing emissions reduction credits will see significantly lower costs using a 5 ppm NOx unit. This is why ultra-low NOx modular generation is so powerful commercially. They enable behind-the-meter growth without Title V, preserve operational flexibility and reduce permitting time lines and community risk. On our C250 engine, we continue to make good progress on run hours and some exciting data where we are not only meeting our output and efficiency targets, but it does appear our emissions results are exceeding expectations. We are planning to build our second test prototype to get more operating hours. Even more exciting is how we are breaking the chains of legacy on how we will package this product, and we are hoping to see significant cost reduction on the product as well. Needless to say, our goal for the C250 package is to create a new 1-megawatt and 1.5-megawatt unit that will have a new and exciting look and feel. Lastly, our Heat Recovery Module or HRM. The prototype is built and now on the test rate. Early results are showing improved heat recovery over legacy designs, and we are on track to deliver a product that is more efficient and effective in recovering waste heat and turning it into useful hot water. This new HRM should push our total cycle efficiencies into the high-80s and low-90 percentiles. Turning to Slide 11. On this slide, I want to highlight how we think about future-proofing growth through our Blue Sky use cases, areas where energy resilience, emissions reduction and scalability are becoming mission-critical. Starting with ports. Ports are rapidly electrifying and that creates both opportunity and urgency. Ship-to-shore power, EV charging for port operations and resilient power for logistics and cold storage are no longer optional. These sites need emissions compliance without relying on the grid and often require mobile or temporary power solutions that can scale as operations grow. Moving to microgrid systems. Here, we see strong demand for integrated systems that combine renewables, storage and dispatchable power. These solutions protect transformers, enable resilient community and campus energy systems and allow industrial electrification without costly grid upgrades. Interconnect flexibility programs are also opening the door to faster deployment and better economics. Next is station power. This includes power for plant auxiliary loads and gas turbine inlet cooling as well as black start capability for heavy-duty gas turbine plants. Customers are increasingly looking for modular, low emissions alternatives to diesel that improve reliability while meeting tight environmental standards. And finally, data centers, of course. Data centers are expanding rapidly, often in grid-constrained regions. They need high availability power that is scalable, behind the meter and deployable quickly. Just as important, they are demanding cost predictable, lower carbon baseload power to support long-term growth and sustainability commitments. Taken together, these Blue Sky use cases represent step-change growth opportunities where resilient, clean and flexible energy solutions aren't just beneficial, they are essential. On to Slide 12. Before we open the call for questions, I want to take a moment to speak about the broader future of distributed generation and why we believe Capstone is positioned at the center of one of the most important energy transitions in the next decade. The future of distributed generation is being shaped by forces that are only accelerating, and they all point to the same direction. Customers want energy systems that are cleaner, more resilient, more flexible, more cost predictable than what the traditional grid can reliably deliver. Distributed generation sits at the center of that shift. Simply put, distributed generation is moving from alternative to essential. We are entering a period where energy demand is rising faster than new grid capacity can be built. Electrification, digitalization and the explosive growth of data centers are putting unprecedented pressure on the infrastructure that was never designed for this level of load. At the same time, extreme weather events and aging transmission networks are driving more frequent outages and volatility. Distributed generation solves these challenges in a way that centralized systems simply can't. It brings power closer to the point of use, reduces dependence and energy losses that come from long-distance transmission and gives customers control over reliability and cost. It also enables a smoother, more practical transition to a low-carbon future by integrating renewables, storage and ultra-low emissions technologies into a single flexible platform. What's becoming clear is that distributed generation is no longer a niche solution, it's becoming a strategic necessity. Whether it's industrial facilities looking to protect operations, commercial customers seeking predictable energy costs or data centers requiring high availability power with lower emissions, the demand drivers are durable and growing. That's why we believe the future belongs to energy systems that are modular, fuel-flexible and capable of delivering high efficiency with ultra-low emissions. Distributed generation is not just filling gaps in the grid. It's redefining how modern energy systems are built and companies that can deliver reliable, scalable and behind-the-meter solutions will be at the forefront of this transformation. This shift plays directly into Capstone's strengths. Our fuel-flexible, wide operating windows and ultra-low emissions microturbine technology is purpose-built for this new energy landscape. As adoption continues to grow, we believe distributed generation will play an even larger role in shaping how modern energy systems are designed, built and operated, and we intend to be the leader in that transition. Our results show we are capturing the shift with this disciplined execution and processes that are building a backlog, which reflects long-term demand for resilient local power. And with that, we'd now like to move into the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Eric Stine from Craig-Hallum.

So curious, maybe to start, just you mentioned that you're kind of shifting or you're seeing a bit of a shift to larger units away from the C65, but I also look at the quarter, and it looks to me like you had a fair amount of -- I don't know if it's quick turn or things that might turn quicker than some of those larger units. So maybe talk about that mix shift, how you see it going forward, what it means for predictability, but also this dynamic that you do have some units in demand that potentially is for more quicker turn business.

Sure. Well, thanks, Eric, for the question. The -- and as we do see the shift to the bigger box, what this really means is the predictability of the pipeline or I should say the timing of the pipeline of when these deals get closed because the larger the deal, the more complex it gets and it ends up in -- with a lot of other eyes and decision-makers. So they tend to take a little bit longer and sometimes they get held up even though everything has been approved, you'd be surprised. So it is a little bit more of a challenge when you go from the smaller units, which tend to be more transactional to the bigger units that are more project-based, it is a bit harder for us to predict when the timing is of these deals to get closed. But that's also part of the reason why we're trying to create an agile factory so that we can respond quickly to get units out, especially for customers that are in dire need.

Got it. And I guess that's a good segue. You, I know, chasing some very large opportunities, whether it's data center or the other end markets that you referred to earlier. Maybe just an update on the facility, your ability to produce where that stands now. I believe it would be on 1 shift and potentially what that looks like and how fast you could ramp if necessary, since some of these things are out there and potentially could be in the somewhat near term.

Yes, it's a good question because -- and some of the things that we're doing, we are preparing as the data centers could be a huge opportunity. And some of these orders or some of the deals that are in the pipeline are very large megawatt type projects. So the team has been working on a new floor layout under lean manufacturing. We've talked about that, and we're almost done. And when we get -- when we're done with that, we should be able to have 7 megawatts on the floor at any given time. And since it only takes us about a week to build a C1000, if you've got 7 megawatts in 1 shift per week, you multiply that by 50 weeks, you're at 350 megawatts. And then if you go to 2 shifts, you're at 700 megawatts. So you can do the math. But with that also comes the logistics and the challenges in the supply chain. And actually, we just recently had a dry run session with some of our key suppliers to basically say, okay, if we get this 100-megawatt order, what does this look like? And how fast can we ramp up? So now the team is looking at all of those choke points, and we're working on solutions to those so that we're ready when that day comes because we're feeling pretty excited by it.

Got it. Let's see. Maybe last one for me. Just on the parts and services line, I mean, that's -- the revenue is there, and it sounds like some of it was related to a program that you ran end of the year, but I also know that, that has been a focus of the company, and this is the highest it's been in looks like 8 or 9 quarters. So maybe some of the things beyond the program you ran in December, but some of the things you're doing on the parts side to grow that part of the business, obviously, premium margin part of the business.

Yes, I'm going to let John take that one.

Yes, it's a great question, Eric. I'd like to say that, that kind of performance is going to repeat quarter-over-quarter, but we had a couple of different dynamics there. One, as we said, our margins were 39%. Two things going on there. We had fantastic December to remember a quarter with higher volumes. So just the mix impact of that higher ratio of part sales had a substantial impact. The second piece is we had some really good news as we scrubbed our FPP liabilities and there were some liabilities sitting out there that weren't needed. So we were able to release that liability and drop right to the bottom line. So very good performance, very happy. It's great performance, but I can't say it's going to be that quarter-over-quarter.

Yes, which is why we do like the service agreement business because that is more predictable. And actually, that base has been growing. So that's been good. Our rentals business, we're going to see ebbs and flows. We love when we're above the 90% utilization, and we had a pretty good year of achieving that many of those months. But sometimes those dip down. The challenge, and this is a challenge for a lot of businesses, it's hard to forecast the parts business because on time and material, you really don't know how your customers are running their units. But the most important thing you can do for a parts business is be ready. And I think that's one of the things that the team has done a really good job on is when customers call in and they need those critical parts right away, the team is able to respond very quickly and meet those orders and demands, and that certainly helps our revenue.

Your next question comes from Orin Hirschman with AIGH Investment Partners.

Congratulations on a lot of progress. Can you -- just one follow-up. Can you quantify in terms of the gross margin, again, everybody is justified in terms of the progress of just beyond. If you had to try and take a guess or if you do have to quantify how much the effect was of those positives, those few positives for the extra few points of the 5 points maybe, 5 to 10 points, 6 points, 3 points? That's question one. And question two is, can you just take us through in a qualitative level? I mean you've mentioned a few of them, just what the pipeline looks like and if you're seeing the pipeline get bigger, especially in the data center.

I don't want to specifically quantify the margin impact of the quarter. What I will say is quarter-over-quarter versus last year in all segments, the margins are better, the gross margins. So it's not just parts and service. It was -- the product margins are better. The rental margins are solid as well. So...

And there was a second part to your question, Orin.

Yes. If you could talk through a little bit the pipeline if you've seen the pipeline to expand. I know you've mentioned some of the mega deals, the data center pipeline, just a real quickie.

Sure, sure. And one of the things we're doing is we're keeping 2 separate pipelines, what we call the C&I pipeline, and that's your commercial and industrial pipeline, the traditional distributed generation business. And we're watching that pipeline grow. But as I mentioned earlier to Eric, that these deals, as they get bigger, they take a little bit longer, especially when you're dealing with some government agencies. In terms of the data center pipeline, it's magnitudes, magnitudes above what the C&I pipeline is. And that's to be expected because these deals are so much bigger. And we're just -- we're working through it. It continues to grow, but the team is getting really good in qualifying and making sure they're not chasing everything. So is the project funded? Does it have end user signed up? They're asking all the right questions to make sure that we have a really solid and robust data center pipeline.

Do you think in the coming 2 quarters, we'll see our first data center orders?

Well, I sure hope so. Yes, there's some good deals out there. But -- and the crazy thing about the data center space is that especially right now where the currency for data centers is time to power. And so we're getting phone calls all the time, oh, we're short, somebody wasn't able to deliver. And we want to be able to capitalize on those. Now some of those might be 4, 5, 10 megawatts, and we'll take them. But there are certainly some other deals out there, too.

Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Kimberly Long to take questions from the webcast. Kimberly?

Thank you. So thank you, everybody, for submitting questions in our chat box in the webcast. I'm going to go ahead and read them out and have John and Vince answer them for you. So the first one, I'm going to ask John to answer, please. Are there any plans to reinstate the ATM at the market stock purchase program?

Well, currently, with our -- the momentum that we have financially and the 7 straight quarters of positive EBITDA, we're looking at some different options and different possibilities in our capital structure. But at the moment, we don't have any plans to reinstate ATM market stock purchase program.

Thank you. So the next one I'm going to ask Vince to answer. Is Capstone pursuing any data center exclusive power provider contracts?

When I hear power provider contracts, I'm assuming power purchase agreements. And we do have a few deals in our pipeline where we're in discussions with PPAs with some of these data center providers.

So Vince, will the C250 become the preferred unit for data centers?

Well, it certainly can. One of the things that we think it matches up really well is with the data center electrical topology in terms of block power. So right now, the C1000 can work, and we design it around a reference design of 3 to 4-megawatt blocks. And so you take a C250, maybe you just need less engines, but we think that, that's going to be a really strong fit.

John, can you give us any guidance on when Capstone could move to NASDAQ?

Sure. We hear from shareholders all the time about uplisting to a national exchange, and it's our focus as well, something we're thinking about all the time as we're hopefully going to make our first profitable year and execute at this level, moving to a major exchange like NASDAQ or NYSE American is certainly a priority for us. We're not in a position to announce a time line today, but I can tell you, we're actively evaluating the requirements of the various exchanges and working towards putting ourselves in the best position to pursue that as soon as we can.

Vince, can Capstone find its niche in the smaller sub 10-megawatt edge data center space?

Oh, absolutely. And that's the beauty of our product line. Our smaller units, whether it's a C65, C200 fit really well in those edge data center plays. And as a matter of fact, one of our distributors is working with some folks on a very interesting reference design for edge data centers. But we also see some good wins in that 10 megawatt range as well in 5 megawatts. So we believe we can play very nicely.

Vince, what is your current potential annual capacity in megawatts considering supply chain limitations, skilled labor availability, maximum output of your existing manufacturing lines and any other relevant constraints? Additionally, how do you anticipate this annual maximum capacity evolving into the future?

Well, I think I answered some of this in an earlier question in terms of what our capacity is and some of the conversations we're having with our supply chain. On the labor side, it's not hard to get to a second shift. The third shift always tends to be the difficult one. And so that's what our VP of Ops, John Toor is working on. And -- but here's the beauty of the way we do things. At this point, what we can set up is what we call a final assembly and final test facility. So we do balance our rotor groups here and build our engines, and we test those as well as our electronics, but we can feed multiple facilities. So we're in talks with a customer who wants a mobile manufacturing facility because they've got a 5-year build-out for their data center. So we can do that. And that's the beauty of the technology that we have and the way we're set up versus some of our competition. So we're not worried about running out of capacity here because we feel like we've got the flexibility to find a very simple warehouse type space. We don't need cranes or any special equipment, just some air skates and some test equipment and gas lines.

Thank you. The next one is for you, Vince, as well. In the investor presentation from December 2025, management assumes an average product revenue of $3.5 million megawatts -- per megawatt of power sold to data centers. In the last 4 quarters, Capstone's average product revenue per megawatt sold has been below 2-megawatt -- I mean, $2 million, I apologize. Why do you expect product revenue per megawatt sold to data center to be higher than what has been observed historically at Capstone across end markets?

Yes. We did a poor job on this one. We didn't clearly explain what's in that $3.5 million per megawatt. That's not just the microturbines there. We would never do that to our data center customers. In that $3.5 million per megawatt, not only includes the microturbine, but it includes an absorption chiller, a dry cooler and battery energy storage. And what we've done is we've packaged that into what we call an engineered equipment package. And data centers kind of like that because they don't want to have to piece part all of these things out. They want one throat to choke. And we feel that, that is your true energy system that matches up with their power blocks. So it's more than just microturbines in that $3.5 million per megawatt.

Great, thank you. John, can you please discuss balance sheet and the Goldman Sachs opportunity stake? Can that stake be bought back or reduced to facilitate an uplisting?

Yes. So a couple of things. It's spelled out pretty well in our footnotes, but the preferred units that Goldman owns controls 37.5% of the operating company. So it's a little confusing structure, but it's not necessary for us to either redeem or purchase that instrument for us to relist or uplist. So it's a possibility. Anybody could approach anybody and try to make an offer for their stake, but it's not necessary for us to uplist.

Wonderful. John, how come Capstone doesn't articulate a book-to-bill ratio?

We've got that question several times from investors and other calls. The challenge we've analyzed the data. We've gone backwards. We've looked at it, and it's very unpredictable. Our business is lumpy. It's project-based, it's distributor -- largely distributor based in the commercial and industrial, and there's just no -- we couldn't find a useful trend in the data. So we declined to publish it.

Thank you. Vince, is PG&E or SCE a good target for your microgrids behind their Trans Mountain line grid to cover the gaps for critical services, companies and communities behind their grids and their inevitable high wind shutdowns?

Well, that's a really good question, and I think it could even go beyond PG&E and SCE. But there's a couple of things we're working on in regards to that. The first one, and we've mentioned this, and this was part of our microgrid strategy, we call the Transformer Protection Program. So that's an area that -- and we've talked to some folks at PG&E, and we've got some more meetings ahead with them. So that's an area we think is going to be really helpful, not only just on their major substations to protect against fires and those kinds of shutdowns, but also in neighborhoods and in other community centers and things like that where smaller transformers are being overloaded, especially because of EV charging. And so these utilities are getting very concerned about these transformers getting overloaded, and they don't have a huge inventory. So we've got to help them find a way to solve that problem. The other really interesting thing that's happened is the -- and PG&E and SCE actually participate in this. They call it the Interconnect Flexibility Program. And that's something that they're looking at trying to solve the problem for when they can't get power to certain customers for 1, 2, 3 years. And so we've started to have some conversations, especially with the utilities here in California, but there are some other folks in the Midwest as well that are participating in this. And our rentals business is, I think, a perfect solution for that, where we can bring in that power for 1 to 3 years until they're ready to bring in the service. So we're pretty excited with that opportunity.

Vince, why is the rental fleet income down so significantly?

Yes. That -- we don't like that, but it's the nature of the rental business. And when we look at our rental fleet right now, it's primarily oil and gas. And we all see the price of oil. And as oil goes below $60, these folks start to move units off and when they're coming up due for rent, they'll take them off until they see things are going to bounce back. And that's just the nature of the beast. It's an ebb and flow, and that's why you have to have a rental fleet that's ready to go. And we're going to get through it, and we've got a great pipeline of opportunities. But the other thing we are looking to do is diversify our pipeline of opportunities and really our rental revenue and that's why we also think that Interconnect Flexibility Program is a great way to help create some diversity in our rental program.

John, we noticed that the gross margin was 39%. Should we consider this an anomaly or to be considered a trend?

No, I wouldn't consider it a trend. And like I said, we had a pretty intense mix of part sales in the quarter. And we also had, as I said before, some good news as we found some liabilities that were on the books for FPP program liabilities that we were -- didn't need. So that -- those results fell straight to the bottom line.

Thank you. That now concludes all the questions that were submitted on the webcast. I'd like to now turn this over to Vince for his closing remarks.

Thank you, Kim. This quarter really reaffirms that our strategy is working. We're driving this business with speed, simplicity and self-confidence. I think our execution in strengthening the company's fundamentals, and it's increasingly clear that distributed generation is really shifting from selective energy solutions to an essential component of today's modern day energy landscape. So as we look at these high-growth markets, the message is really consistent. Customers need energy that's cleaner, it's more resilient, more flexible, and it has to be delivered with predictability and speed. And these are not temporary trends. These are structural shifts, and they really are accelerating. And that's why we believe Capstone is built for this moment. And as distributed generation continues shifting from alternative to essential, we believe the demand profile for our technology and our solutions will continue to strengthen. And so I'd just like to take this moment to thank our employees, our distribution partners and our suppliers for their continued commitment in the Capstone cause. And most importantly, I want to extend our sincere appreciation to our customers and many of them who are repeat customers who continue to place their trust in not only what we do and how we do it, but in who we are. So the progress we're making reflects that shared commitment and belief. We're confident in the path ahead, and we're firmly committed in delivering strong results as we execute our 3-pillar strategy of financial health, sustainable excellence and revitalization of culture and talent. And to us, we believe that's how we continue to create long-term shareholder value. So thank you for your time, and thank you for joining us today.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.