3W Power, the holding company of AEG Power Solutions (AEG PS), today issued preliminary results for Q1 2012. Order intake was down 3% year-on-year, but up 14.6% compared to the previous quarter. Revenues for the first quarter were also down by 3% at €83.5 million (Q1 2011: €86.4 million) and EBITDA was €-2.8 million (Q1 2011: €2.3 million), which includes one-time expense items of €1.8 million. One-time items consist of restructuring charges for the telecom converter business, write-off of receivables due to a solar customer insolvency and certain legal fees.

“Q1 was negatively impacted by a temporary delay in solar projects due to the financial crisis and by underperformance in our telecom converter business. With resuming growth, our RES business segment will return to double-digit EBITDA margins, and with the restructuring of our DC telecom converter business unit (CVT), our EES business segment will return to positive EBITDA margins in Q2. In addition, shared cost will be under strict scrutiny for the remaining quarters. As of Q2, AEG Power Solutions will be back on its profitable growth track”, comments Horst J. Kayser, CEO of 3W Power/AEG Power Solutions.

RES Business Segment

Due to the well diversified global positioning of the Renewable Energy Solutions (RES) segment and a strong technology base designed to take advantage of emerging applications in renewables, orders for the RES segment as a whole were up 15% year-over-year.

The strong order intake in the Power Controller business unit in Q1 2012 is based on two important wins for the delivery of power controller equipment to the polysilicon industry. AEG Power Solutions has been selected because of its outstanding technological leadership and will deliver its innovative Thyrobox M power supply solution to a poly plant in Asia and a poly plant in EMEA in 2012 and 2013 respectively. In addition, AEG PS has booked an important order for its innovative Thyrobox H2 hydrolysis power supply for a 6 MW hybrid power plant in Northern Germany. It will remain a strategic priority of RES to diversify the Power Controller business beyond polysilicon applications. While this order intake is encouraging, the continued weakening of the spot market for polysilicon for our customers indicates an oversupply situation that will have to be closely monitored over the next few quarters.

Orders in the Solar business unit for Q1 2012 were at a similar level for Q1 2011 due to successful positioning in growth regions. As announced, orders in India are already above 2011 full year levels and orders from growth regions (Eastern Europe, India, Southern Africa, USA) are expected to offset and over-compensate expected market contractions in Western Europe.

RES revenue for the quarter was €33.0 million compared to €38.2 million in Q1 2011. As sales in the Power Control Systems business unit were up 40% in Q1 2012 compared to Q1 2011, RES’ revenue decline was driven by an expected revenue decrease in the Solar business unit in Q1 2012 compared to the same period last year after low order intake in Q4 2011. The shortfall was specifically caused by a delay in deliveries to large key customers, due to customer difficulties in securing financing given the European debt crises. However, deliveries resumed towards the end of Q1, which should bode well for Q2 and beyond.

Source: AEG Power Solutions