Operator: Please note this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Nitin Dahad, CFO. Please proceed, sir.

Nitin Dahad, Chief Financial Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, for joining us today, and welcome to Energy Vault’s second quarter 2026 financial results call. Our earnings release and investor presentation are available on the investor relations section of our website, and we will refer to the presentation throughout today’s call. Before we begin, I want to remind everyone that today’s discussion contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may vary materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. Please refer to our most recent SEC filings and the safe harbor language in today’s earnings materials for a discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ. We undertake no obligation to update these statements except as required by law. We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings materials.

On a personal note, this is my first earnings call as Chief Financial Officer of Energy Vault. The combination of our differentiated power infrastructure platform, growing contracted asset base, strong execution, and disciplined approach to capital creates a compelling opportunity to build long-term shareholder value. I am excited to join the team at this important inflection point in Energy Vault’s journey. Joining me today is Robert Piconi, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Robert will take us through the strategic and operational update, and then I will take you through the quarter liquidity backlog and our increased full-year guidance. Robert, over to you.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Great, Nitin. Thank you, and I would like to welcome everyone to our Q2 earnings call. Also up front, Nitin, a pleasure to have you here. We are all very excited. Nitin just joined us just last month, and excited for the contributions here and at this very important phase in our company’s growth profile. Welcome, Nitin. I also want to remind everyone that we have posted an investor deck out to the investor website. It would be helpful, I think, for those following through, if you would like to follow through that. I will be referring to some of those charts as we go through and before turning it back to Nitin on the results. Hopefully, everyone has had a chance to take a brief read of our earnings announcement. As I think the results reflect, I would say two main things up front.

I think number one, the execution of our strategy. If you have been following us, that execution means delivering for customers. That shows up in revenue, it shows up in profitable revenue and gross margins, and it shows up in the quality of the availability of the power solutions we provide. Secondly, I would say it also reflects a commercial execution in capturing the demand being driven by AI compute infrastructure. This is something we have talked about strategically, if you go back the last 6 to 12 months, about positioning our company with our grid expertise, with our strong execution capabilities with customers. That is not just here in the U.S., but that is globally, as we have demonstrated.

Very excited to see not only that begin to show up in the results this quarter, but as we will talk about in our improved outlook, both for this year and for next. The strategy we have been describing is now in full translation mode into some of the results we have just seen. That means stronger growth, higher margins, increasing cash, a substantially larger backlog, and importantly, greater visibility into both near-term revenue and long-term recurring earnings. If you turn to chart 3, which is the first page of the deck, three main messages there before I jump into some of the numbers. First, I think the 2026 and 2027 outlook has strengthened materially, as you have seen in the backlog. The backlog increased by about $650 million to roughly $2 billion.

That is a strong 40% increase just quarter-over-quarter, let alone more than doubling that on a year-over-year basis. What we see there is expectation also to convert that revenue over the next 12 to 18 months at attractive margins for about 40% of that backlog. This gives us substantial and greater visibility into the delivery ramp ahead of us, and that is both, I would say, this year and into a very strong Q4 we are going to have, just as we did last year. But also as we look at 2027. Second, we are converting the AI data center and high compute platforms demand into real contracted wins. We have talked about the Crusoe win that was mentioned about 6 months ago as we began to enter the module data center space.

In addition, we recently announced a 1.25 gigawatt agreement, which is our largest contract in the history of the company, to support an integrated power generation and storage solution for hyperscale data centers. Again, all of these efforts have given us substantially greater visibility into the delivery ramp ahead of us now. Third, we have strengthened the capital formation and the project financing capabilities now of the company. We have mentioned Nitin Dahad’s appointment here as our new CFO joining from BlackRock, where he had built a strong career, also in the energy infrastructure in addition to other sectors. Also, I will mention Cory Magnuson’s appointment as President of Asset Vault in Q2. All of these things, adding the deep capital markets, the structured finance, the IPP and project finance expertise at exactly the point where the scale of opportunity is accelerating.

That matters because the next phase of growth is not simply about winning more projects. It is about financing the right projects efficiently, protecting our returns, bringing those assets online predictably and at the quality levels we have done to date, and converting that execution into cash flow and long-term shareholder value. If you turn to chart 4, we will jump into just some of the numbers at a high level. Nitin Dahad will be covering them in more detail in a minute. I think you will look at numbers we refer to immediately on the number of megawatts. We have discussed the 1.1 gigawatt over the last three months, is the last time we were together in May. That is important because those gigawatts are under our control. Some of them are operating, some of them are under construction, and some of them are now in a ready to build state.

That 1.1 gigawatt is what is translating, and I will share out a chart and a few more charts here to look at the timeframes that they will be coming online. That will be translating into the $180 million of the recurring annualized EBITDA, which has been fundamental for our strategy the last two years. Importantly, as you shift to the right, the backlog, and we will spend more time, and we have a few charts here where we are actually going to share the composition of that backlog between what is the long-term recurring versus what is our more near term revenue conversion opportunities. That has increased now to $2 billion, a large increase, quarter-over-quarter, doubling on a year-over-year basis, as you see, and gives us a lot of visibility. On the revenue side, we have doubled the revenue on a year-over-year basis.

Again, reflection of strong execution of the backlog we built last year and projects both in the U.S. and Australia. I think one of the most impressive performances as we looked at Q2 was our gross margin. Gross margin is fundamental because those are the dollars and the cash that get generated from the revenue to cover the operating expense as you go forward. The fact that we have improved that both on a quarter-over-quarter basis and on a year-over-year basis, from an adjusted gross profit up to 38.6%. The reason we talk about adjusted gross profit, because it is the cash gross profit that does not include some of the non-cash depreciation elements associated with our build, own, and operate portfolio. Even the GAAP gross profit, even growing to 31% this quarter. Again, just a strong result.

What that means is we are executing well. We are executing well in the field to avoid any issues that can come up when you are building large energy projects, and doing it in a manner with high quality and with high safety. I think ultimately here, this has to show up in cash and increasing our cash. I think if you look at what we have done the last six quarters now, so this is our sixth straight quarter of increasing cash. I think a great reflection of the focus, and some of the discipline of the company to ensure that we are building that cash book. We are improving the balance sheet as we have a lot of attractive investments that we would like to invest in. It was a 26% increase on a quarter-over-quarter basis and more than 150% on a year-over-year basis.

I’d like to turn now to the backlog. If you turn to charts 5 and 6, we’ve provided a little more detail here to give people some color into not only the existing backlog, but even as that’s going to evolve into the end of the year. As well as on chart 6, we have broken down that backlog and characterized it between our build and transfer and our build and operate. Slide 6, I think, is particularly important because it provides a more detailed composition, showing how that 40% of that backlog is the build and transfer that supports more near-term revenue conversion and cash generation, while about 60% is the build, own, and operate component creates that long-term recurring revenue and earnings visibility. Standing at $2 billion today, that’s roughly three times where it stood at the end of 2024.

But more important is that composition, where we have about 60% of it tied to that long-term recurring revenue from our owned and operate assets, while 40% now, which has grown since last quarter, is supporting that near-term project delivery and revenue conversion over this next 12 to 18 months. I’d say that’s exactly what we wanted to see while we’re making this transition by building and transferring and operating some of these assets on the build, own, and operate strategy. That means we give up revenue as we do that, and that’s where we wanted to see good conversion on our build and transfer business to continue to build that revenue and cash growth as we did that. That’s exactly what we’re delivering and showing you today. Together, they give us a much more balanced, more predictable, and ultimately a much more valuable earnings model.

A little bit of time on chart 6, because that is a new one. You’re looking at our build and transfer breakdown of those megawatt hours. These are storage projects where we talk about them in megawatt hours instead of megawatts. You see there on the revenue side, the total in that backlog is about $700 million of that $2 billion backlog. But in particular, we are also showing the advanced contract negotiation, which represents about another half a billion that we’re expecting to execute and close on those. If you look at then the revenue for both this year and then into 2027, there’s a total of about $1.2 billion that we have underway. So very excited about that. That’s a reflection of some of the growth we’re capturing and the execution on our commercial teams.

The other thing I’d point out there, if you look to the right, are the gross margins associated with that revenue. As you saw in the earnings release, and we’ll be talking more in a minute, we are increasing our gross margin or lifting that to the upper end of the range. Again, this is driven by strong demand, but also speed. So you hear the term speed to power. If you can execute quickly in this market and with a high probability of strong execution and predictable execution, that’s going to buy you not only winning contracts, but it’s going to buy you the ability to also drive that growth and impact profitable growth here with our margin profile. The second piece of this chart on page 6 is the build, own, and operate side, where we’ve segmented that.

That represents the other $1.3 billion of the backlog. These are revenue streams that are going to be anywhere from 7-15 years. It’s a substantial portion of the backlog, which you want to see that grow and you want to see that continuing to growing. That allows us to have a lot of visibility going forward. Remember, these are streams that are anywhere from 70%-80% growth margins. As we build these projects and they come online, we’ve mentioned the $180 million annualized EBITDA that you’re going to see out of this. I think fundamental to our execution, to our longer-term strategy of owning and operating energy infrastructure. We’ll continue to update this chart to give you that visibility, both in the near-term revenue on the build and transfer, and as we execute on the build, own and operate.

If you go to chart 7, as you saw, I think in the headline of our earnings release, we are increasing and raising the ranges of our guidance, starting with revenue, where we’re increasing from the $225 million to $300 million to the upper end and even above the high end of the range, $270 million to $310 million. Just like last year as we executed in Q4 in a very large way to over $150 million last year in Q4, we’re going to have another large ramp this year. That supply chain is secured. It includes batteries. It includes some of the other high voltage equipment driven off of some of the recent contract announcements. Expect to have that margin range then also, you see there we’re raising to the higher end there and lifting that range up to the 20%-25%.

I think as you just saw in the Q2 results that I just reviewed, we’re continuing to execute well. I would say that those numbers, and if you look at our Q2, represent over 2x the market in terms as you’re executing EPC contracts across the board. If you look at any of the others in the space that are executing, we feel very good about that range and our ability to continue to execute to the upside of that range. Very importantly on the cash side, reiterating but narrowing to the higher end of the guidance. So we’re lifting our guidance on cash there to $160 million to $200 million. These near-term revenue contracts are going to be very helpful to that. We continue to manage that well.

I think the additions of Nitin and Cory between the project financing and the broader capital formation expertise and network they bring to the table will continue to keep us with a healthy and growing balance sheet. Turning to chart 8 from the deck. We’re reflecting both revenue here and its growth over the last three years, but also reflecting that backlog growth. We are showing what we expect to be a backlog growth, even with some of the revenue recognition we’re expecting in Q4, that’s going to be approaching almost $3 billion. Again, that’s a number we don’t take lightly. We’re executing with a lot of contracts underway that give us a lot of confidence, and that should give investors a lot of confidence. That’s both some of the near-term revenue for recognition.

But more importantly, we’re going to expect an increasing percentage of that backlog on those recurring revenue streams in our build, own and operate portfolio. I’m going to jump everybody to chart 11 because I want to spend a little time on our powered land portfolio. We’ve summarized some of our existing powered land projects. One of them underway, our Calistoga Resiliency Center. That’s the two-day, the 48-hour backup to the city of Calistoga, Napa. That is supporting Pacific Gas and Electric Company. So we have a 10 and a half year agreement with them. That project is operating as planned and is there to secure the city in the event of wildfires or any other events where that would cause the grids to shut down. Shifting to the right there, an update on Sawyers and our AI campus.

We recently announced just two months ago an update on breaking ground with our Crusoe project. That’s the module data center project. It’s starting with 8 MW and heading up to 25 MW for the initial deployment. And very excited. We also announced plans for an expansion of that site up to 500 MW. So that’s going to involve a series of both generation renewable as well as storage as we expand our new AI campus there. That is a wholly owned facility and excited as a showcase center as well with multiple storage technologies already operating there today. For Mesa del Sol and our New Mexico campus, we mentioned this powered land opportunity. We actually had a single page on this in the last deck where we got right up to the 75 MW, which is the next milestone. So we’re starting with that as an update.

On track to start with that in our Q1 there in the state of New Mexico. We have a lot of expansion planned given our ownership rights on the surrounding land. We had mentioned we had acquired 225 MW of also of gas generation and reciprocating engines capability and also would complement that with storage and solar over time up to the 1 GW in that area. We have multiple locations in and around that area as well that we’re advancing and having multiple discussions with hyperscaler off-takers, and expecting to be announcing some things here in the coming months as we get to the second half of the year. So excited about these larger opportunities. They do create the 15-year plus revenue streams. We’re investing for them in the right infrastructure and the assets.

And as we’ve seen with the 1.25 GW announcement of power generation and storage together that’s behind the meter, work adequately and I think very quickly advancing our knowledge and our execution here in the space. Page 12 is a chart that we’ve also showed for the first time last time that shows the details of the projects that make up the $180 million of annualized recurring EBITDA. So these are the 1.1 GW of projects, and essentially all operating within the same time frames we outlined before. The first two there on the left are already operating there for the 2025. They went online. That’s Calistoga and Cross Trails. We’re expecting to hear more about SOSA Energy Center here in the coming months. We also already talked about the Crusoe deployment.

There’s a set of other listed projects that’s both in Australia and in Japan, where we announced the acquisition that was closed in a more near term, two projects in particular, of the 350 MW there that you’ll be expecting to hear more of in the coming months. Then our New Mexico Powerland project here. All was in line, I think, with what we reported before, and good execution of the team to stay on track in various phases of the planning, the construction, and a lot of the financing efforts underway there. We also provided on page 13 a level of detail that walked through each of the years and how we expect those megawatts to come online. These are annualized numbers.

With the way you can read this chart is looking at the number of megawatts and gigawatts we bring online and the associated EBITDA that’s an annualized number as we bring them online. That’s where, in this illustration that we have here, we have the walk year by year that we expect to achieve getting up to roughly an almost 5 GW by 2030, and approaching a number of about $2 billion on an annualized basis of the EBITDA. Again, this is another one we’ll continue to keep investors updated about, and I think important to continue to look at the megawatt adds as we announce new projects here for the second half of the year.

Finally, just to finish and wrap up now before I turn it over to Nitin, talk about some of the focus areas on page 15 for this second half of the year. I think primarily, and as job number one with us as you continue to hear, it always starts with execution, and that’s for the second half of the year, we’ve outlined some additional revenue growth and upside on that revenue and margin that we expect to deliver. That’s going to come through how we always do things in a very disciplined way, a very passionate way in serving our customers. We see even upside to some of the projections we have here that we’re expecting to close on now in the next coming months, and we’ll be sharing more as we give additional updates in November.

I think converting on this owned and operate pipeline to the megawatts under control is another key one to watch. We have multiple projects to add to that 1.1 GW. This is fundamental, I think, to continue to build and execute on our strategy to build a recurring and annualized EBITDA streams. Thirdly, as you saw in the announcement in executing around the large behind the meter modular generation and storage platform that we announced, again, this deal was all about speed to power. Recently executing it has a large amount of revenue for both the second half and in particular Q4 this year, but also for 2027, as we announced. We’re hoping to expand this platform and this relationship into many parts of the U.S., given the demand we see, and in particular, given some of the wait lists and the waiting lines you have to power.

With this behind the meter solution, we believe we can get customers to power much more quickly. Fourth, we are working on the further optimization around the capital structure of the company and essentially reducing our overall cost of capital. That involves not only strengthening the balance sheet, but we are also building our own team and a self-financing team as opposed to paying a lot of fees and costs to outside advisors. That is fundamentally to some of the leadership announcements that we have announced in the last 3 months. Then finally, as we look globally, you can expect to see continued footprint expansion in these key growth markets. We have been very focused on only the largest and I think the most attractive storage markets, most recently adding that acquisition in Japan, continuing to expand in Australia will be important.

Right here at home in the U.S., continuing to build and expand given the tremendous demand we see in the AI compute infrastructure. With that, I am going to turn it back to Nitin to go over some of the details of our financial results.

Nitin Dahad, Chief Financial Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Thank you, Robert. I will cover the second quarter financial results, liquidity and capital discipline, backlog, and then our updated full year outlook. Revenue for the second quarter was $17.4 million, compared with $8.5 million in the prior year period, an increase of 104%. This increase was driven by progress on our Australian projects. GAAP gross profit was $5.4 million compared to $2.5 million a year ago, an increase of 116%. GAAP gross margin came in at 31%, up 140 basis points. Adjusted gross margin, which excludes depreciation and amortization associated with owned and operated projects, was up almost 900 basis points year-on-year. The gross margin performance is important because it demonstrates that the growth we are seeing is not simply volume driven. The gross margin was exceptionally strong this quarter, and project mix and execution continues to support healthy economics as the business scales.

Adjusted operating expenses were $23.7 million compared to $16.2 million a year ago. The increase primarily reflects commercial support, project development, and legal expenses associated with scaling the owned and operated and AI infrastructure platforms. We expect to see the benefit of this higher OpEx over the next 12 months in contract activity. As such, we remain focused on managing controllable OpEx while investing in growth where warranted. GAAP net loss for the quarter was $29.7 million from $34.9 million in the prior year period. The GAAP EPS was a loss of $0.17 compared to $0.22 last year. Adjusted net loss was $24.6 million compared to $18.4 million a year ago. Coming to adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $17 million compared to a loss of $13.6 million in the prior year period, with higher operating expenses partly offset by higher gross profit. Turning now to liquidity.

Total cash and cash equivalents, including restricted cash, were $148 million on June 30. This was approximately $31 million higher sequentially and $90 million higher year-over-year. I want to emphasize here that we remain focused on ensuring adequate liquidity for the business as it grows. As the company move towards a larger owned and operated portfolio, ensuring adequate parent liquidity and optimizing each project’s capital structure are fundamental to creating value for shareholders. We intend to extensively use project-level financings, including tax equity, and use corporate capital only where appropriate, with clear return to thresholds and disciplined allocations. That discipline is especially important as the opportunity set expands. We intend to grow in a way that focuses capital on projects with more attractive risk-adjusted economics for the parent while ensuring a resilient capital stack.

Backlog, as we talked about previously, as of August 10, was about $2 billion, more than doubling versus a year ago. About 60% is attributable to owned and operated projects and 40% to third-party projects. The increase in third-party backlog materially improves near-term visibility across 2026 and 2027, and at the same time, the owned and operated component creates a growing base of contracted longer-duration earnings as those assets reach commercial operations. Again, as we talked about previously, the additional disclosure on slide 6 should give you a better sense of how each of these components is expected to drive future earnings mix for the company. Moving on to guidance. We are increasing our full-year 2026 revenue guidance to $270 million-$310 million, from a prior range of $225 million-$300 million. The increases in guidance reflect stronger commercial execution and stronger visibility in contract timelines.

That said, quarterly revenue recognition can be uneven because of project timing and milestone accounting. So there, I would flag that a vast majority of second half revenue is expected to be recognized in the fourth quarter. We are narrowing our full-year GAAP gross margin range to 20%-25% from 15%-25%. Year-end cash, we are currently targeting it to be $160 million-$200 million compared to $150 million-$200 million previously. Taken together, the raised revenue outlook, revised gross margin, and strong liquidity demonstrate that the increasing financial capacity of the platform as we continue to grow the owned asset portfolio. As we look to the second half, our priorities are straightforward: execute the backlog, maintain margin discipline, ensure adequate liquidity, and deploy capital against the highest return opportunities. With that, I will hand the call back over to Robert Piconi for a few closing comments before Q&A.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Great. Thank you very much. Again, I want to thank everyone for, and in particular, our employees for all their focus and execution as we delivered another solid and very strong quarter. I think it’s a great precursor as we look at the second half. Nitin Dahad just mentioned some of those key priorities, and you can continue to expect from us a strong focus on our customers, but also a very strong focus on only the most attractive and largest growth opportunities. We referenced a big milestone, a landmark for the company in the signing of what is our largest contract since inception, a little over half a billion. We liked, obviously, those types of relationships, not just for the size, but for the ability to grow that relationship over time. That’s why generally we’ve maintained being very selective with customer sets.

We don’t go out too far to really all customers, really focus on ones that can be those partners that we build a lot of trust with initial projects, and then expand over time. You can continue to expect to hear that from us as we look at this year. In particular, very encouraged for what this is yielding for next year with the type of backlog now that we’ve grown. But in particular, the size of that backlog fits in the next 12-18 months, which makes us, I think, puts us in a very, very strong position as we look at 2027. I will mention that at our next earnings in November, we’ll be sharing more about what we see in 2027 and what can be expected at that time. With that, operator, I’ll turn it back over to you for the Q&A.

Operator: Thank you. We will now conduct a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove your question from the queue. We ask that you please ask one question and one follow-up. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, that’s star 1 at this time. One moment while we poll for the first question. The first question comes from Justin Clare with ROTH Capital Partners. Please proceed.

Justin Clare, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking our questions here. I wanted to start out on the 1.25 gigawatts hyperscaler agreement, and just wondering how we should think about the $500 million-$600 million of revenue in terms of the split between 2026 and 2027, if you can share. Then just wondering if the margin profile you anticipate there is consistent with that 20%-25% that you had guided to for 2026 here, and also you indicated for the projects in advanced discussions. So yeah, if you could comment on the potential margins there.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Sure. Yeah, happy to, Justin. Regarding the split, you can assume on that split that there’ll be a portion of that $500 million-$600 million into our Q4. So that’s a recently announced deal that had been in the works for 3-4 months. So we are able to execute a portion of that delivery in Q4, and I think you can obviously assume that’s not going to be the majority of it, but there will be a portion of that, and I’d say the majority of that revenue will be in 2027. As far as margins go, we feel very good, hence the raise there to the higher end of the range of the 20%-25%. You saw the results that we just delivered that began with a 3.

I think we feel very strong about not only the range we just gave, but I think to your question, for having that continue in that range we outlined into 2027.

Justin Clare, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: Got it. Okay. That’s helpful. Then just on the same, the 1.25 gigawatt agreement here, you describe this as a repeatable platform. I just wonder if you could speak to, beyond the initial deployment, how would you characterize the opportunity pipeline, maybe what storage use cases you’re seeing emerge, like where you’re seeing the most significant demand? Then just wondering if discussions have kind of moved beyond the initial hyperscaler there, or are you more focused on the one customer at this stage?

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Sure. A few questions here. Let me hit just generally, as we announced. We’ve developed a solution that’s a modular platform, and this is with a partner that we have not named for confidentiality purposes yet. But it’s a large power generation EPC. We mentioned in the release that this first portion, this 1.25 gigawatt, is associated with Caterpillar gas generation. But generally, it’s a platform to be deployed, it’s all about speed to power, and these are platforms that are behind the meter, meaning we don’t have to rely on grid power for them. We deploy these and are planning to deploy them in 250 megawatt modular solutions. You can do the math on that into the 1.25. We also see quite a large opportunity to take this platform, both with this partner, but also in the market, and expand that.

You hear the term speed to power. You’ve heard me say that a few times. There’s a lot of opportunities where over the next 12, 24, 36 months, while grid investments are being made, while transmission lines have to be built, all the capacity upgrades now that are being executed, those things are going to take 3, 4 to 5 years. The fact that we’ve created a platform now integrating energy storage, gas generation, and in particular, I’ll mention the strength of our software and at that place, because that software is doing that load optimization and orchestrating how that power gets delivered for five nines quality. That’s not a small thing, as you know, given the expectations that the customers have. It’s something we are looking to the second part of your question, that is something that we can expand and deploy upon.

And we are very excited about that. As you can imagine, with the announcement we made and with some of the work we have done planning, in particular as we look at next year and the customers we are having now, we see a lot of potential to deploy the solution.

Justin Clare, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: Okay, great. Congrats on the progress. I will pass it on.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies. Please proceed.

Dennis, Analyst, Jefferies: Hey there. This is Dennis on for Julien. Congratulations again on the great results and thank you guys for taking my question.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Hi, Dennis.

Dennis, Analyst, Jefferies: The current 1.1 gigawatt portfolio underpins the roughly $180 million annualized EBITDA. As you add new projects and potentially grow that backlog from roughly $2 billion today towards $3 billion, where do you expect the highest incremental value to come from? Traditional BESS assets, powered land projects, or AI infrastructure deployments? Where are you expecting the largest share of recurring EBITDA growth and backlog expansion over the next several years?

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Yeah. Look, I’d say there’s no change in our strategy of building, owning, and operating assets over time. We believe, and still believe and have conviction that that is the best use of our capital to build longer-term recurring revenue streams. I think the segments we’re looking at to deliver the most profit on that will have a lot to do now with our powered land solutions and what we call our powered shell or the module data center solutions. We will own and operate those. We also have delivery models of delivering sets of batteries. We actually call it our ESAS model for battery delivery, where we can also own and operate those batteries as a part of firming up grid power or firming up other types of generation to customers.

It is a very interesting segment where I think owning and operating those megawatts over time, we believe, will have the longest-term value for shareholders. No change, of course, to, as an example, the 1.25 gigawatt platform that we just announced. That is actually RevREx, so that is build and transfer, and I think that may have been a little bit of a surprise that we were building out our backlog and also now increasing, let’s say, the size of the backlog with more near-term deliveries and build and transfer. That is the nature of this market.

Because we have built a very strong reputation for high-quality delivery and knowledge of the grid, I think that we see a lot of demand for customers that want to integrate different types of technologies and leverage our expertise as we have done that across multiple regions, multiple technologies, and in different business models. The last thing I will leave you with is we are being very selective in the projects that we take on and the customers we take on. We like to focus, as I said, on larger customers, one that share our culture and share our way of working and our focus on high quality, our focus on the longer-term path to sustainability. That remains, I think, front and center here with us, and we are being very selective on the most attractive projects in terms of where we put our capital.

Dennis, Analyst, Jefferies: Thank you so much for that added color. Thank you.

Operator: The next question is from Noel Parks with Tuohy Brothers. Please proceed.

Noel Parks, Analyst, Tuohy Brothers: Hi, good afternoon.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Hey, Noel.

Noel Parks, Analyst, Tuohy Brothers: Hey, how are you? A couple things. Among your portfolio, just as a reference point, what’s your sort of most active construction or installation site at the moment?

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: We probably have, I guess, a few of them. There’s in Sawyers in Australia, where we’re building out and have our own build own operate side. We have Stony Creek that we’ve announced in our beginning some of the construction activity there. But in particular, on the build and transfer side in Australia, we have our first and our largest project and one of the larger projects in the country with a customer called ACIN. We are deploying 200 MW of a battery project there and already delivering 200 MW of power on that facility. So we’re finalizing now the turnover and what’s called in Australia the R2, meaning the R2 is the milestone where you’ve actually gotten the grid sign-off formally. It’s an important milestone for us there because having that now will enable us to actually bid on larger projects in the market.

That, I’d say, remains very active right now in terms of the construction side. From a pure U.S. perspective, you can imagine with the ramp we have coming in the second half of this year. If you look at our guidance and look at the revenue to date, you’ll see that we’re looking at another $250 million-$270 million of revenue here in the second half of the year. That involves some sites that we’re finalizing some of the deliveries and installations. Consumers Energy is an example from prior projects. In addition, the work that’s going on relative to what we just announced that’s been underway for the last three to five months. The 1.25 gigawatt deal, there’s a chunk of that revenue and things being delivered here for this year.

In Snyder, Texas, there’s work going on as we announced the construction start on the civil activities and a lot of the high voltage upgrade and the work with the utility there at Snyder for the module data center work with Crusoe. I’d say those three areas are the most active right now for us globally.

Noel Parks, Analyst, Tuohy Brothers: Great, thanks. You just mentioned that for the 1.25 gigawatt project, you’ve been active on it for, you said three, four, five months. I guess I’m curious about the project, assuming it’s had some considerable lead time, whether they have been proceeding along what had been an original plan for a behind the meter installation or whether it’s the sort of thing that they started development and became aware of the intensity of grid limitations, the difficulty of interconnects, and at some point along the way decide they need to pivot in a direction that also embrace energy storage as well.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Yeah. I’ll say a few comments there. This is a group, the partner that we’re working with is a partner that’s one of the larger both distributors and EPC companies in the U.S. that deploys, for example, as announced, Caterpillar gas generation. In addition, they do a lot of balance of plant design, and final integration. As you can imagine, they have a lot of customers, but in particular, they have a few very large customers. I think historically, while they may have worked with different players, you can assume this has been a relationship we’ve been building. It always starts with an initial, let’s say, a smaller project where you get to know each other, sort of culture of the companies. When you’re closing contracts and writing deals and working with attorneys, you develop a feel for each other.

That relationship just grew to the point where they felt very comfortable working with us and with their hyperscaler partner, on a very large solution and one where I have to say that our software played a very important role in the decision and some of the differentiation it enables to essentially integrate, across and with our power plant controller and other load optimization and orchestration capabilities. The fact that we can do that across not only the gas generation side, but in addition to our storage and really play a very important role to ensure delivery of five nines power and, what we called in the announcement, always on availability for the customer. I’d say that relationship, obviously, you don’t just go sign one of these things overnight.

You can assume that was in some development, starting smaller scale and then resulting in, as we announced, this was a second of a framework agreement. Something that we intend to not only execute well here on this year, but as we get into next year. As I mentioned in the prior question, we do expect to grow this solution and grow with this partner, given the tremendous demand in the market.

Noel Parks, Analyst, Tuohy Brothers: Great. Thanks a lot.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Thanks, Noel.

Operator: The next question is from Sid Ranjit with Fundamental Research. Please proceed.

Sid Ranjit, Analyst, Fundamental Research: Hi. Congratulations on the progress. With multiple projects on the go, I was wondering how the financing status of some of the near-term projects are, like for SOSA, Stony Creek, and those.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Well, from a financing perspective, and you mentioned two build, own, and operate projects that are on. They are two of the listed projects, one in Australia, Stony Creek, and the other SOSA. The project financing, with both those projects are well underway. As we’ve listed them there and as we’ve continued to even acquire some of the equipment to safe harbor them for SOSA, for example, in the U.S., we had acquired some of the high voltage equipment already. So those financing efforts are both underway and both proceeding, let’s say, in line with expectation, given both locations that we’ve selected are attractive locations. I’ll reference on Stony Creek, we did win the LTESA in Australia, so that’s the long-term energy service agreement that is a 14-year agreement with the New South Wales government.

That’s a sovereign offtake agreement that essentially enables us to have a floor every year, depending on how the project’s performing. We’re also in some final stages for additional financing for that project as well.

Sid Ranjit, Analyst, Fundamental Research: Thank you. One more question, if I may. How are Calistoga and Cross Trails operating? They are small projects, but it gives us an idea how these are functioning. Are they running smoothly?

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: They are both running well, both of them well above 99% availability. With the CRC, so the Calistoga Resiliency Center, that is a standby system. It is utilized for some ancillary power and services as well, but all that is going well. And we are essentially at 99.4% availability on the Cross Trails system year to date this year.

Sid Ranjit, Analyst, Fundamental Research: Great. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.

Tyler Bisson, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Hey, guys. This is Tyler Bisson for Brian. Thanks for taking our questions.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Hey, Tyler.

Tyler Bisson, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Can you first discuss any implications from the recent data center moratorium in Texas on your business, including the potential timing of revenue recognition of the 1.25 gigawatt announcement?

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Sure. We have taken that into account and essentially in all of our planning and all the planning and the guidance that we just gave. If you look at the solution we have announced, in particular, the power solution we are announcing is a behind the meter solution. For example, that is made up of components that do not rely on the grid. From an execution perspective and what is contracted, this is all about execution as far as the second half of this year and into next year. It is something that we continue to monitor. I think that is a theme in some parts of the country, but something relative to what we have just outlined, and the backlog we have built, and what we are going to be delivering this year into next, that would be, let us say, already taken into account.

Tyler Bisson, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Super helpful. On slide 10, it looks like your powered land opportunity declined to about 1.5 GW. I am looking at 2030, and comparing this to last quarter. But it looked like powered land declined about 1.5 GW from 1.8 GW last quarter. The BESS opportunity almost doubled to 3 GW from, I think it was 1.9 GW last quarter. Can you update us on the puts and takes of what changed? I imagine the increase on the BESS opportunity is mostly a function of the acquired assets, but, any additional color would be helpful.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Sure. By the way, it is a great question, and the first thing I would say is there is a change in mix between also the powered shell and the powered land. Some of this, it is a great strategic question as well, because what we are seeing is a lot of opportunity for the edge of the grid and in around the modular data center side, hence this shift and the increase on the powered shell as a balance between the powered land. Now, if you look at, on an additive basis, we see that is the same and if not more opportunity overall there. I think an opportunity to move with a little more speed at points of interconnect that are smaller in overall megawatts, 50 MW to 100 MW, not requiring the 800 MW or 1 GW or multi-gigawatt. There are a few of those out there.

But I think if you look at the way that the sites are being deployed, the way the demand is being driven, and the economics, these powered shell and modular data center sites are becoming very attractive and potentially even higher in volume. Again, I will say this, I think this is the fourth time on the call, this aspect of speed to power. I think if you look at deploying in smaller segments with modular data centers and look at the impact on the communities, which is front and center. If you can, I think, minimize some of the larger impacts and to deploy in smaller, more modular ways at multiple points of interconnect, it can be a more integrated and holistic solution, and coexistence with a lot of the local communities in which we are deploying.

The other thing that has happened there is on the battery side as well, that you referenced, that on our battery standalone storage. In addition, we have a lot of solutions evolving where we are providing owned batteries instead of turning them over, providing as part of an integrated power generation and storage solution to firm, whether that is firming the grid, but also firming up some of the other gas generation we are providing and now looking to close here. You will be hearing more about these opportunities of us providing owned battery solutions to complement other generation and grid that is resulting in what you are seeing in that increase in what we are calling our battery energy storage standalone. But not the traditional typical IPP standalone storage projects, but ones that are being provided as an integrated part of solutions, in particular for the neo cloud market segment.

We will be sharing a little bit more and add a little more color on how that mix is evolving.

Tyler Bisson, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Appreciate that. If I could just sneak in one more question. Appreciate the higher cash and improved outlook. I believe a lot of the uplift in the quarter was related to debt issuance. So curious how you are viewing your cash burn and other potential cash inflows, such as ITCs for the balance of the year. It looks like you have only drawn about $25 million of the preferred equity from OIC. This was closed almost a year ago, so curious how you are currently thinking about leveraging this available capital and how we should expect this to trend in the coming quarters. Thank you.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Sure. A few things there. On the ITCs, we closed one of them that did get into the quarter, last quarter. So we had three of them that were outstanding. Two of them have now been closed, and the third remaining ITC, that will be about $15 million, we are expecting to be closed here in the next month. At the latest, the early part of September. So that will close out all the ITCs. The other thing to your question is on the cash and our, I think we had announced toward the end of the quarter, because of the nature of that increase in backlog, so we, I think even we are very transparent with the disclosure. We had the increase that now you see, that was $650 million in June.

Because the nature of that increase required deliveries for this second half of the year, including Q4, which is one of the reasons we have raised guidance. Due to that, we did pull on an Accounts Receivable facility. That is a facility we have had in place over a year to manage all of the essentially some of the deposits that we have to pay into the supply base to be able to ensure we can get deliveries into this fourth quarter. All of that, just to do the math on the equation there, results in our ability to deliver higher revenue, and hence the increase of our revenue range this year. This is all standard in how we have built our working capital and operating model for the business.

What is, I think, very important about that is these things all are standard relative to debt facilities that we will pull from time to time and then pay on schedules with our cash. That is why also I will reference with the increase in the activity, if you notice, we did narrow to the high end of our cash, slightly for this year because of the nature of the turn and the cash accretion of the deal that we announced, the 1.25 gigawatt that we are going to begin deliveries on in Q4. Nothing, I think, unusual for the working capital management side, and hence, what you have seen with us raising guidance across revenue and gross margin and also even on the cash side for the end of the year.

Operator: Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to Robert Piconi for closing comments.

Robert Piconi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Vault Holdings: Okay, great. Operator, thank you. Just to close, one is we are obviously in a position that we would like to be in terms of executing now off of a very large increase in a backlog. Our team is built for that and executing well and delivering on the higher end relative to expectations. We are very focused on not only the second half of this year, but a lot of commercial activity. You would have seen that in the results and in terms of that growth and that backlog that comes through getting through a lot of detail customer contract negotiations, signing those contracts and getting those things, therefore, put in motion for us to begin to execute. Looking forward to what the increase in backlog is going to mean for our 2027 as well. We are getting into the second half of the year into that planning process.

But I think a lot of market activity. I will mention again, we’re being very selective in terms of not only which region we’re focusing on. Very focused on just the regions we’ve highlighted. Not planning any other broader type of expansions from a geographic perspective. We’re in the right markets, in the highest growth markets. And just so much activity, and requiring a lot of, I think, innovation, speed to power. You’ll continue to hear that theme. And I think our ability to deliver both creatively and with some of the innovation around our software across multiple solution sets, that’s storage, that’s generation. And to do that in predictable ways for our customers is resulting in them choosing us for their growth needs.

Finally, as I mentioned just before the Q&A period, again, a thanks to our employees that have remained very focused and vigilant and passionate about delivering for our customers, building the culture that create on the company. We’ve announced a few senior hires as referenced in terms of building the talent base to deliver on some of the results that you’ve just seen, but in particular, some of the outlook that we have. And I continue to thank them for their focus and execution here as a company. And with that operator, we’ll end the call. I’ll turn it back to you.

Operator: Thank you. This does conclude today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a great day.