Eos Energy Enterprises (EOSE) 2026年第三季法說會：營收創新高與利潤率進展

重點摘要

• 2026 年第三季營收創下歷史新高，達 8,270 萬美元，年增 171%、季增 20%，主因 Cube 出貨量較第二季成長 23%。
• 調整後毛損收斂至 3,680 萬美元，調整後 EBITDA 為 負 6,380 萬美元，利潤率為負 77%。管理層報告毛利率已連續第八個季度改善。
• 截至本季末，在手訂單為 7.65 億美元，相當於約 3.2 GWh。這項數據較去年同期成長 19%，但低於第二季的 8.07 億美元，主因出貨量超過新增訂單量。
• 各大主要類別的製造成本全面下滑：每組 Cube 的材料成本下降 9%、每組直接人工成本下降 17%，每組製造費用亦減少 8%（均為季減）。
• Eos 重申其 2026 年營收預期為 3 億至 3.25 億美元。管理層預期第四季調整後毛利率為 負 25% 至負 20%，產品利潤率為 負 15% 至負 10%。
• 現金總額為 3.44 億美元，其中包括 2.71 億美元的非受限現金。隨著 2 號線與 Thorn Hill 廠的主要投資接近完工，管理層預期資本支出將會趨緩。

核心財務數據

業務與營運表現

出貨量季增 23%，電池產量成長 25%，次組裝件產量亦提升 26%。第三季是兩條生產線均投入商業運營的第一個完整季度。

2 號線貢獻了 電池產量的 17%，高於第二季的約 1%，儘管該產線僅以部分輪班制運作。1 號線產量亦成長 6%。Thorn Hill 廠的電池產出約 每班多出 20%（相較於 Turtle Creek 廠），受惠於更快的週期時間、設備停機時間減少以及更嚴格的環境控制。

Eos 正將生產集中於 Thorn Hill 廠，以降低間接費用並簡化營運。Turtle Creek 廠的設備正陸續遷移，並採用針對 2 號線開發的改良技術進行升級。該公司於 10 月開始在 Thorn Hill 廠實行 24 小時全天候運作，並預期第四季出貨量將進一步增加。

在整體安裝基礎中，Eos 系統累計放電量已達 6.9 GWh（經歷超過 400 萬次循環）。其中 Z3 機組貢獻了近 1 GWh，平均全循環往返效率升至 79%，高於上一季的 78%。

該公司表示，其潛在儲備專案中有一半以上的儲能時長為 8 小時或更長。近期的重點動向包括一項為 Google 進行的 西維吉尼亞州 10 小時專案。在旨在模擬快速負載波動的測試中，兩套系統完成了 超過 735 小時內的連續 147 次循環，維持了 81% 的往返效率，且未出現額外的溫升現象。

本季出貨的每套系統均採用 Eos 自製電池，且電芯含有超過 90% 的美國本土材料，據管理層表示。

管理層指引

Eos 重申 2026 全年營收指引為 3 億至 3.25 億美元。管理層預期，隨著專案組合回歸常態，第四季平均售價將回升至 2026 年上半年的水準。

該公司預期第四季調整後毛利率將再改善 19 至 24 個百分點，達到 負 25% 至負 20%。產品利潤率預計達到 負 15% 至負 10%。

預期的改善預計將來自材料統包採購、2 號線自動化、Thorn Hill 廠區佈局、更高產出量以及消除 Turtle Creek 廠重複的間接費用。管理層亦預期，隨著 2 號線與 Thorn Hill 廠的主要投資完成，資本支出將開始放緩。

Eos 指出額外的潛在流動性來源，包括 美國能源部（DOE）第二批次的 2,000 萬美元、約 2,400 萬美元的賓州補助報銷款，以及約 3,900 萬美元的淨生產稅額減免。該公司計劃在第四季財報電話會議上提供 2027 年財務指引。

風險與觀察重點

在手訂單較上季下滑，因 Eos 出貨量超過新增簽約量。管理層將此歸因於專案時程安排而非需求疲軟，但也坦承該公司必須將更多潛在商機轉化為確定訂單。

Eos 報告稱擁有 3.5 GWh 的後期潛在商機，超過其目前的在手訂單。其中半數以上正在等待融資到位，其餘則處於合約談判階段。管理層提醒，並非所有商機最終都能順利成交。

在紐約州能源研發署（NYSERDA）的大規模儲能計畫第一輪評選中，Eos 的專案均未入選。管理層預期在年底前將迎來新一輪遴選（取決於計畫時程），同時該公司亦在積極爭取其他州別的長時儲能計畫。

該公司持續產生與既有安裝系統控制軟體升級相關的成本。管理層預期此項工作將在未來兩到三個季度持續進行。此外，隨著 1 號線設備遷移至 Thorn Hill 廠並重新進行調試，生產整合也帶來了執行風險。

客戶集中度仍然偏高。關係人營收佔 單季總量的 83%，不過管理層預期隨著時間推移，該比例將會下降，並逐漸向在手訂單的組合結構靠攏。

分析師問答重點

現金消耗與流動性： 管理層表示，營運現金流一直與調整後 EBITDA 走勢相符，並預期隨著利潤率擴張，現金狀況將會改善。在客戶訂金與專案里程碑款項的支持下，第三季營運資金基本持平。管理層並未提供 2027 年具體的季度資本支出預測。

利潤率走勢： 管理層表示，成本下降屬於結構性改善，並非僅仰賴產量擴大。Thorn Hill 廠的作業環境使電池模組的生產週期縮短了約 10%，而產品簡化、零件減少與自動化仍是進一步節省成本的著力點。

現場相關成本： 管理層表示，目前的現場支出是與控制系統升級有關，而非保固索賠增加所致。保固準備金隨出貨量增加而提升，但這些準備金的實際使用情況並未隨時間發生重大變化。

Frontier Power USA： 該業務部門正在建立自身的潛在專案儲備，同時也評估源自 Eos 的專案。目前正致力於個別專案的債務融資以及更廣泛的投資組合融資架構。

資料中心與工業負載： 管理層看好利用同一套儲能資產同時實現快速負載平滑化與長時放電的機會。然而，管理層強調，保持現場運行的穩定可靠度，並將後期潛在專案轉化為實質訂單，仍是重中之重。

完整財報電話會議記錄

完整財報電話會議逐字稿

管理層陳述

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Eos Energy Enterprises Third Quarter 2026 Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded, and your participation implies consent to such recording. [Operator Instructions] With that, I would like to turn the call over to Liz Higley. Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Elizabeth Higley

Good morning, and welcome to Eos' Third Quarter 2026 Conference Call. Today, I'm joined by Eos' CEO, Joe Mastrangelo, COO, John Mahaz; and CFO, Alessandro Lagi. Today's call may include forward-looking statements, including our expectations regarding future results and the outlook for our company. These statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For more information on these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our SEC filings.

Forward-looking statements speak only as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update them, except as required by law. Today's remarks will also include references to non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measures is included in our earnings release. Non-GAAP measures should be considered supplemental to and not a substitute for financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP. Further, these measures may not be comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies.

This conference call will be available for replay via webcast through Eos Investor Relations website at investors.eofb.com. Joe, John and Alessandro will walk you through our business outlook and financial results before we proceed to Q&A.

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Eos' CEO, Joe Mastrangelo.

Joseph Mastrangelo

Thanks, Liz, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. Our team delivered a strong operating quarter. We delivered the most cubes in our history while continuing to drive product cost out. At the same time, our backlog came down from last quarter, and I'll come back to that on a later slide. There are 3 critical industry shifts that are shaping our performance. First, the Power business has gone from managing retirements to adding capacity as fast as it can. For 15 years, U.S. electricity demand barely grew. Today, grid planners expect 166 gigawatts of new demand by 2030. While data centers are more than half of it, manufacturers and commercial customers have the same challenge. They need power faster than the grid can deliver. .

Storage helps close that gap. Every grid connection at a gas plant, the solar farm, a substation, a steel mill or a factory has hours when it runs below its capacity. Storage puts that power to work faster than waiting for new generation or transmission. Second, where batteries made is now part of a project financing model under the foreign entity rules that took effect in January, a project's tax credit depends on how much of its cost traces back to prohibited foreign suppliers. And the cell is about half of that requirement. Every system we shipped this quarter, we used Eos made batteries and cells with more than 90% American Materials, that's what we mean when we say Americas battery.

Third, reliable performance besides who wins, and it has 2 key parts. First is delivery. A system delivered late can push a project past its tax credit deadline or delay system revenue. That's why we're consolidating operations into Thorn Hill, 1 factory running at scale at lower cost. And it's already working. Cost per cube came down again and margins improved for the eighth consecutive quarter. The second is performance in the field. Our system is a 20-plus year asset, and owners are using its flexibility to do more and meet new demand requirements. The same system might run a short cycle in the morning and a long discharge at night. Other systems today are built for 2 to 4 hours.

Longer, more flexible duty cycles need a different design, and that's where Eos competes. Our installed fleet runs from 2 hours to 14. We now have 12 sites operating in commissioning, up from 7 a year ago. More than half of our pipeline is 8 hours or longer, and recent deals include a new 10-hour project in West Virginia for Google. I've worked through several booms and busts in this industry. The winners were never the companies with the best technology on paper. They were the ones this equipment showed up on schedule, resolve issues and then ran year after year, day after day. Customers and shareholders are asking us for the same, be reliable.

Now let's look at fleet performance on the next page. Across our installed base, Eos systems have discharged 6.9 gigawatt hours over 4 million cycles, nearly a gigawatt hour of that from the Z3 fleet. Z3 round trip efficiency averaged 79% on a full cycle, up from 78% last quarter. And that includes systems not yet operating [indiscernible]. We didn't get here in a straight line, and the biggest lesson is at the bottom of this page. In our early systems, we controlled each cube as 1 unit. So a weak module set the performance of the whole cube.

We changed how we control the system from 1 control point per cube to 3 to 6 to 1.68. Donal -- last manages each of the 672 modules on its own, tracking its state of charge and state of health in real time. No single module holds back system performance and with the improvements that John will talk about in operations, modules going out have a much smaller deviation or distribution of how they perform. The industry standard is to plan for capacity losses and add batteries over time to recover.

We manage every module so the system holds performance, and we see a module that needs service before it impacts the system's output. And because we know exactly what's installed at every site, down to the module, down to the software version down to the firmware and improvement implemented in 1 site can be rolled out everywhere else in applies. The steepest learning curve for the company wasn't the battery itself. It was the system, the battery plus power electronics, the controls and the grid working as one. Our early Z3 projects took longer to commission than we planned, and we learned from each project and improved our fleet performance.

Now let's go and look at a specific customer use case. Here on Slide 6, we are showing what the Dan OS architecture makes possible. New loads coming on to the grid aren't just large. They're dynamic, and AI training cluster can swing tens of megawatts in under a second over and over and over again and our furnaces and large industrial processes do the same. I spent much of my career around turbines, and I know the risk. Swings like that where on turbine generator shafts over time. Regulators are seeing it, too.

FERC has directed NER to write mandatory standards for these loads by year-end, and grid operators are proposing ramp rate limits. Here, we are showing how an density core absorbs the swing within milliseconds and the grid sees a fraction of those swings and the utility sees a steady customer, not a volatile one. The questions that customers ask is what does that do to the battery itself. Fast swings create heat, and heat is what were traditional battery is out. We ran 2 intensity cores available for customers today, charging and discharging into each other on a fast fluctuation profile for 147 straight cycles for over 735 hours.

We saw no added temperature rise and the round trip efficiency held at 81% and in density runs the same module level controls we just covered on the previous slide. We're continuing to test and are using this data to show customers our operating flexibility. One asset can do both jobs, smooth the load milliseconds and shift energy over hours. For the customer, that's a faster path to power for the utility that becomes system reliability for the community, that's growth about higher electricity bills. That's what we mean by assets that meet today's grid requirements.

Turning to Slide 7. Let's go into some details on the backlog. We ended the quarter at $765 million, about 3.2 gigawatt hours. That's up 19% from a year ago and down from $807 million in Q2. We shipped more than we booked last quarter. This is project timing, not a fundamental change in demand. We're currently working 3.5 gigawatt hours of late-stage opportunity more than today's entire backlog. More than half is waiting on financing the rest is in contract negotiations. Our pipeline reflects where the market is moving, longer duration storage, growth across multiple end markets and stand-alone projects that will make existing energy infrastructure more efficient.

While Frontier Power U.S.A. is now about [indiscernible] of the backlog, we're also widening the customer base. We closed orders with 6 customers, 4 of them new last quarter. We don't expect every late-stage opportunity to close and the NYSERDA bulk storage program is a good example. one of several state programs we are pursuing. No EOS projects were selected in the first round that awarded less than 1/3 of the program's 3 gigawatt target. Those projects tend to reapply for the next round, which is expected by the end of this year. Focusing now on the middle of this slide, you see why the capabilities on the previous page are so important.

The biggest driver of storage economics isn't routes of efficiency. It's how many cycles a day can you run to generate revenue. adding just half a cycle per day reduces lifetime storage costs by approximately 10x more than a 5-point round trip efficiency improvement. On top of that, the intrinsically lower operating cost of an EOS density system further increases project returns. Policy at the state and federal level is making long duration a critical requirement with a growing number of states setting procurement targets with defined duration mandates.

California is eliciting up to 2 gigawatts of 12-hour and multi-day storage. While Massachusetts has launched a 5,000-megawatt energy storage program, for projects with durations of 4 hours or longer, including dedicated longer duration storage tranches. And in PJM, Virginia passed one of the largest storage mandates in the country this spring, calling for approximately 21 gigawatts a by 2045. The market is requiring American-made long-duration energy storage. We must turn more of our pipeline into backlog, and that's where Michelle and the team are focused.

With that, I'd like to turn it over to John to walk through operations, including our progress at consolidating into Thorn Hill.

John Mahaz

Thanks, Joe. The team delivered a strong quarter and everything we did operationally in Q3 moved us closer to profitability. We increased output, reduce unit costs and improve productivity across both Turtle Creek and Thorn Hill. That execution continues to strengthen our manufacturing platform and positions us well to add future capacity. A couple of key highlights. Shipments were up 23% from the second quarter battery production was up 25% and subassembly was up 26%. Now Line 2 contributes a big part to that. Q3 was our first quarter with both lines running commercially. Line 2 went from about 1% of our battery output in Q2 to 17% in Q3, and it did that on a partial shift schedule.

Line 1 increased 6% as well. That's productivity coming from the same asset base -- now here's a number I really like. On average, Stonehill is producing about 20% more batteries per shift than Turtle Creek. That comes from faster cycle times and less equipment downtime and it's structural. Is the facility layout and the equipment enhancements designed into Line 2, same shift, more batteries, more efficiency. Yield tells a similar story. Line 2 reached the same first pass yield as Line 1 in just 3 months. At Total Creek, it took 13 months for the bipolar line and 26 months for the battery line to reach that level.

There are further opportunities to improve and the accelerated ramp to those levels highlight the benefits of the improvements we've made and provides a blueprint for scaling future lines more efficiently. This is where the economics show up. higher output and better yields drive lower costs, and we saw improvement across every major cost line in the quarter. Our materials cost per cube came down 9% from Q2 that several supply chain initiatives taking hold and those savings are structural, not onetime. On labor, direct labor cost per cube declined 17%. That's our teams getting more productive at both sites with additional volume and on overhead. We reduced manufacturing overhead per Q by 8% through higher facility utilization and better fixed cost absorption. That's the operating leverage built into our manufacturing model.

The more we build, the less each cube cost us. Now the next big lever is consolidation. That move is already underway and on an accelerated time line. We began this assembly earlier in the quarter and equipment is moving now. running 1 site instead of 2 means lower overhead, lower conversion costs and simpler operations. Our manufacturing process is simple but precision matters. While we don't need clean rooms, Down Hills infrastructure provides much tighter control over air pressure, humidity and temperature all critical to process control. That means more consistent output, better yields and all of that contributes to our profitability road map.

We are using the relocation to incorporate Line 2 enhancements into Line 1. Regarding time line, the first bipolar lines from Turtle Creek are targeted to begin production in the fourth quarter. On the battery line, we're completing the upgrades we're seeing from Line 2 performance and targeting a full line returning to production near the end of the first quarter. Antelman, Line 2 will carry production. In mid-October, we transitioned 4 shifts to Turtle Creek personnel to Dorn Hill and began 24-hour operations. We feel really good about the progress we've made. We expect another step-up in shipments in Q4, remain on track to deliver the revenue outlook and remain focused on delivering profitable growth.

With that, I'll turn it over to Alessandro.

Alessandro Lagi

Thanks, John, and great to be back with you all this morning. The key points from Q3. Revenue hit a record margin posted its biggest improvement of the year and we absorbed that sequential growth with less operating cash flow usage. Revenue closed at $82.7 million. That's up 171% year-over-year and 20% sequentially. Volume drove Cube shipment rose 23% sequentially. Pricing was lower this quarter, and that was a project mix, not a market trend. As mix normalizes, we expect average selling prices to return to the first half 2026 level in Q4.

Overall, we delivered 210 projects across a diverse set of end markets and use cases. Related party revenue represented 83% of the quarter of the quarterly volume. That includes 2 projects that were originated by independent third-party developers and subsequently acquired by F USA. This number moves with delivery shadow and project size, and we expect this percentage to more closely align with a backlog mix over time. declining already in Q4.

Importantly, we are beginning to see that revenue growth is translating into better operating performance. Gas loss was $44.2 million with margin improvement 58 points year-over-year and 18 points sequentially. On an adjusted basis, gross loss was $36.8 million with 18 points of improvement in margin percentage. This marks our 8 consecutive quarters of gross margin improvement, and we expect that trend to continue.

Below the gross profit line, we continue to demonstrate cost management discipline. Sequentially, operating expenses were flat with SG&A and R&D overall at $34.7 million of which about 20% is noncash. So overall, revenue up 20%, 18 points improvement in adjusted gross margin and OpEx flat. That's the Eos operating model working. Now turning to the bottom line. Net income was $125 million. That's driven by noncash fair value adjustments related to a capital structure. This mark-to-market revaluation of warrants and debt are driven by changes in our stock price, not operating performance. The line we track here is adjusted EBITDA, which was negative $63.8 million, with margin improving to negative 77%. That's 27 points of improvement sequentially and a 96 points improvement year-over-year.

Two drivers there. First, Volume growth contributed approximately 16 points and 12 net of price. This shows how our business model can quickly create strong operating leverage as volume expands to the plant. Over the past several quarters, we have invested ahead of expected growth by building the team and capabilities required to support a significantly larger revenue base. As revenue continues to grow, we expect a greater portion of each incremental dollar of gross profit to flow through the adjusted EBITDA and cash flow. We also expect SG&A to become a smaller percentage of revenue over time clearing meaningful operating leverage throughout the organization.

Second, operational improvements contributed another 15 percentage points, including 12 points from product cost reduction and 3 points related to project execution. As John discussed earlier, cube costs improved again this quarter, and we expect that progress to continue in the coming quarters. The project execution benefit reflected the timing and mix of activity during the quarter. including our continued work to transition installed systems to downs and simplify operations for our customers, as Joe already discussed earlier.

We expect to see those benefits flow not only through profitability but also through cash flow and liquidity. Now turning to liquidity. We ended up the quarter with $344 million of total cash including $271 million of unrestricted cash. That's down $20 million sequentially. We used $106 million of net cash, offset in part by $87 million of DOE reimbursement received during the quarter. There are 2 key points here. First, we supported a meaningful increase in production and shipment without increasing quarterly operating cash consumption.

Operating cash flow tracked closely with our adjusted EBITDA loss again this quarter. Working capital was essentially flat, supported by customer deposits and project milestone payments and we collected another $11 million of cash by monetizing our remaining 2025 production tax credits. Given the pace of our revenue growth maintaining neutral working capital reflect disciplined execution and effective cash management across the business. Second, we are nearing completion of the major investment associated with Line 2 and the Port Hill facility. As those projects are completed, we expect CapEx to begin moderating. The way to think about cash is that a lot of the heavy lifting on line 2 and the tunnel facility build-out is already behind us and we still have meaningful sources of liquidity available to us.

$20 million under the DOE tranche 2, approximately $24 million of Pennsylvania grand reimbursement and roughly $39 million of net production tax credits. Those resources provide additional liquidity as we complete Line 2. Quarterly cash flow will continue to be influenced by production volumes, working capital and customer payment timing. But as Line 2 ramps, margins improved and capital spending moderates, we expect a stronger cash flow profile over time.

Now turning to our margin improvement. Since Q1, we have made steady progress. Adjusted gross margin improved 25 points and adjusted EBITDA improving by 42 points. We expect that momentum to accelerate in the fourth quarter with adjusted gross margin improving another 19 to 24 points to between negative 25% and negative 20%. Execution for the improvement is what we discussed already. A couple of key drivers support that outlook. First, we are seeing average selling prices move back towards first half of 2026 levels. That's a function of what's in macular today. Second, savings from bundled material purchases as volume continues to grow.

Third, Automation on line 2 continues to reduce labor cost per cube. Fourth, the optimized turn Hill layout improving through output and material flow. And finally, the location of Line 1, eliminating overhead costs from Charter Creek. That puts product margin in the range of negative 15% to negative 10% in Q4, and the profitability road map doesn't stop at year-end. There are additional initiatives to execute in the first part of 2027, along with the volume leverage and 2 lines in production at Tom Hill. Now on full year outlook. We are reaffirming 2026 revenue of $300 million to $325 million. As John discussed, accelerating the Line 1 transition cost us some revenue in the near term, but it also sets us a leaner, more productive footprint for 2027.

Currently, Line 2's performance gives us the confidence in that hole. We are encouraged by the progress we are seeing. Margins are improving, operating leverage is showing through and much of the heavy lithium on line 2 and terminals behind us. With that, thanks, everyone, for joining us, and I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Christopher Souther with Truist.

分析師問答

Christopher Souther

Congrats on the progress, particularly on the margin front here. Can you -- I think we can kind of do the math around with that nice continued sequential improvement in 4Q for margins and kind of the OpEx like implied EBITDA and $50 million to $60 million loss for 4Q. Can you talk through any kind of cash deviation from those levels that we should think into [indiscernible] as we're continuing to ramp and then shifting the production over to Thorn Hill and starting to ramp that 1 up? Just anything from a CapEx perspective or working capital perspective that we should be watching over the next like 2 quarters?

Alessandro Lagi

Chris, it's Alessandro here, and -- thanks for the question. So couple of points here. First of all, I'm really pleased with the progress that we have done on margin. As you said, great third quarter, we see the continuation of margin expansion in the fourth quarter. When it comes to cash, it's pretty much the same story, right? We are pleased with the fact that our cash performance today have been tracking on the operating side, the EBITDA. So we have basically no absorption in the working capital. And we see for the future this trend to continue, right? If you think about our cash profile, it will go align with the EBITDA improvement and it will improve over time with the EBITDA until we get profitable.

We feel pretty comfortable around the position in cash that we have on our balance sheet. And you heard that we also have a few other sources of cash between grants and the DOE reimbursement. So we feel good about it until we get profitable.

Joseph Mastrangelo

And Chris, I would just add on the CapEx side, like I think John and the team are running to a predetermined plan of how we get there. So the only thing that would change any CapEx profile in the short term is going to be the timing of those near-term projects coming in and how that relates to how we lay out the volume for 2027 as we're working through here over the next 5 or 6 weeks. .

Christopher Souther

Got it. Okay. That's super helpful. And then maybe just on the Frontier Power USA team now kind of getting assembled. Can you talk through -- we're starting to see some of the stuff that's been in the backlog flow through there, obviously, but like where are they starting to kind of set up their development process kind of parallel to your pipeline or within your pipeline. Can you just speak to their process is starting to kind of get out into the market and look for opportunities that may be incremental or closing within kind of the pipeline would be great.

Joseph Mastrangelo

Yes. I think Chris, like you've seen -- Jay Bellos has been announced as the CEO of Frontier Power USA, which I think is a great addition to the team, not only from the standpoint of he brings his own contact list of customers that he can go out and has started to build pipeline and opportunities that we're working on closing, but at the same time, he's got decades of experience operating systems. So things we're talking about around software and Donal s and having somebody that's been a real-time asset operator is helping us improve ourselves, but like from the pipeline itself, we've got projects that we put in the pipeline from our opportunity set that they're looking at.

They've got their own pipeline. It's a nice list of opportunities. And at the same time, working through and securing the debt financing. And that's been progressing really well as far as packaging up the aerial brine insurance and going out and looking both at specific project financing and also broader portfolio of financing to be able to pursue projects. But we'll keep everyone updated as it progresses. But I really like the team that Jay is assembling underneath them. I think it's going to make us stronger in the market and stronger as Eos.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Gengaro with Stifel.

Stephen Gengaro

A couple for me, and just maybe back to the cash burn and balance sheet question. When you think about the guidance you've laid out for I think, 10% cash gross margins in the second quarter next year. If you get there, can you just talk -- what would cash burn a quarterly cash burn look like? I know it's not the easiest question to answer, but that is -- it's clearly on top of investors' minds. Just kind of curious your views on that and your views on your current liquidity and sort of the runway you currently have before more capital might be needed.

Joseph Mastrangelo

Yes. So Stephen, just -- I'll start off and then Alessandro can talk second half of the -- of your question. The first thing I would say is like I think Alexander coming in here for the last couple of months, like you've seen 2 quarters in a row where operating cash is tracking to the operating results that we have in the company. And actually, the growth rate we saw last quarter, along with the cash burn being slower than that growth I think that's the impact of him as our CFO and the experience that he brings to the job. And I would expect that model to continue.

And then I think as we get into laying out 2027. John has his CapEx plan. We've built all those things together to have the runway to get there. But Alessandro can talk more details. But what I would say on operating cash -- you've seen the impact of having an operating CFO, and I expect that to continue.

Alessandro Lagi

Thanks, Jo. And Steve, just to complement here, right? When you think about our cash usage today, there is an operating part that track as Joe said, and we expect that to actually improve quarter-over-quarter in the next few quarters until we get profitable. From a CapEx standpoint, we start to see in the fourth quarter the CapEx spend moderating down versus the earlier part of the year. And then in the coming quarters, we will have like even a lower run rate from the plant. So overall, we feel comfortable with the cash that we have in our balance sheet.

And again, the other sources of cash that we cannot happen and until we're going to get profitable. And in regards of what the guide for next year, obviously, we're going to use next quarter call in order to provide more clarity around those numbers.

Stephen Gengaro

Can you give us a sense of what a quarterly CapEx number would look like next year?

Joseph Mastrangelo

Stephen, let us come back. Let us come back in 4Q and give -- and lay that out. Again, like as I said to Chris's question, some of that quarterly like I don't want us to get ahead of ourselves on a number as we go through. We've got near-term deals here that we'll know a lot more on here in the next 4 to 5 weeks that are going to determine what that looks like. But I don't want to say anything and then have to come back and change that from there and wind up coming off a number of what we see today. .

Stephen Gengaro

Okay. And then just 1 follow-up. When you think about the current assets that are deployed and you think about your gross margin profitability, are there any costs that you're incurring related to assets in the field that need work from a warranty perspective or anything of that nature that has kind of weighed down the gross margin?

Joseph Mastrangelo

No. So not warranty, Stephen. I think like the page when I walked through the Dawn OS upgrades, there's costs associated with doing those upgrades that will come in over time. Like we talked about and when you look at now send mentioned this in his comments, there's product margin, which is approaching breakeven. There's projects that there is a spend that's occurring that is the upgrade of the OS that is going to be occurring over the next 2 to 3 quarters as we implement that -- those systems on the field.

Operator

Next question is with Sean Milligan from Needham & Co.

Sean Milligan

I guess around NYSERDA, not being included in that first bulk storage solicitation. I was just curious if you had any feedback there. And then kind of can you revisit the timing of the second solicitation and maybe project sizes that you might have in play in NYSERDA?

Joseph Mastrangelo

Yes, not ready to talk specific projects with NiceR, we're working through with the customers that submitted before and other opportunities from -- look, from a selection, they're the customer, they picked on where they wanted to start, it's less than 1/3 of the announced amounts. We feel like the projects that we submitted last time were good projects that met the overall goals of the program. From what we understand, the next round is going to happen by year-end, but obviously, that's subject to timing when you look at how the timing fell on Round 1. There was a lot of work that I certainly did to get to the projects that they selected, and we'll just continue to work with them as we move forward. .

Sean Milligan

Okay. And then you mentioned the state level management...

Joseph Mastrangelo

The other thing I would just add is like we talk about NYSERDA because we submitted and it was public information, but there's other states with programs that are larger than what NYSERDA has that are progressing with multiple customers that are in that number that we talked about of the late-stage opportunities, and we feel really good about where other -- how other stay -- how multiple states are looking at long duration storage and the role it plays with the energy demand that we're seeing. .

Sean Milligan

Okay. Yes, that was going to be my follow-up on the state level side. I know you've been working in terms of long-duration mandates there. You mentioned Virginia specifically. It seems like a pretty sizable opportunity. Like are there call-outs for the technology specifically or duration periods? Like what's attractive to that and kind of where you see momentum in other states?

Joseph Mastrangelo

Yes. So if you look at every one of them, right, they all are adding in a duration mix of wanting to have the 12-hour to 24 hour and then beyond multiple -- beyond multiple days, which would not be for our technology, it would be for other technologies. But everybody is looking at and understanding that to get the market to shift, you got to have the incentives and not just incentives from a price standpoint, but incentives from being able to derive revenue from the assets. And that's what a lot of these -- a lot of these programs are building into this that there's a return on the investment to the owner.

We feel really good at working with the states as they start shaping the policy and explaining to them and explain them that there is a battery that can perform in a system that can perform to those duties and it's made in America, with 90-plus percent raw materials coming from the U.S. And we feel like we meet those requirements. Now there's nothing in there that says specific Eos or specific zinc bromine, but when you have a -- when you have a program that targets a discharge time and how they want the system to operate, we feel like our technology meets up with that. We just got to work through the process. that each state and each customer has to get to an order.

Operator

Our final question comes from the line of Julian [indiscernible].

Unknown Analyst

It's Carter on for Julien. You provided a lot of color here, but wanted to try to unpack the margin progression a little bit more -- you saw some nice progression here in third quarter and expected to get in fourth quarter, I guess I'm thinking about $27 a little bit. It sounds like you need some clarity on where some of the deals in the pipeline land to get the exact cadence there. But if I think back to your 72 points laid out in the last call, I'm wondering across the 4 major buckets you laid out of that 72 points, if anything has materially changed or the margin progression is really just contingent upon where some of these large deals land into the first half of next year. .

Alessandro Lagi

So thanks for the question. So the process dam so far are very encouraging. Again, third quarter was very strong. I think if you look at the fourth quarter Combined with the third quarter, we are well over the 50% of PAC to get to the 72 points. So we feel very good about it. And when you think about -- when you double click on the margin expansion, John talked about it before the progress that we've done on tubes cost right? So material -- material went down in the third quarter. We expect the same trend coming in the fourth quarter. And then obviously, you have the conversion cost there.

With the increased volume that we're going to have in Tornio, we expect that conversion cost to go down significantly because of the better layout of the plant, the better efficiency, the better automation that we have versus start to treat -- so these are going to be the key markets. And obviously, we're going to -- Joe talked about it before as we finished to upgrade the control in the field. We're also going to see the fuel cost coming down. So it's the same pretty much in the same buckets that we talked about in the last call. And we see the same trend in the third quarter coming in the fourth quarter in 2027.

Joseph Mastrangelo

Yes. And Carter, the only thing I would add to Alessandro's comments to just kind of clarity around your question like -- it's not we need volume to get the cost out. They're structural cost out that we're getting. And I think John's comments, and I want to make sure that we double click on a portion of this is just the building infrastructure that we have in Thornhill allows the equipment to run better, and we're seeing a 10% improvement on cycle time of producing a battery module. And a lot of that just has to do with the stability of the operating environment that we have. That takes cost out in and of itself and downtime and a bunch of other things, right? I think volume on top of that volume is a big lever for us, and like we are going to work through on where that comes out and how that structurally changes the cost profile of the project. But what I would say, again, with Alessandro and John have built is a good old-fashioned cost out pipeline that they're executing on with Francis on engineering to just get -- simplify the product, remove parts from the system, make the system more robust and take cost out.

The one other thing kind of echoing Stephen's question before and what Alessandro talked about. I know Stephen asked about warranty costs. I think the one clarity on clarifying thing I would give here is like our warranty reserve goes up with volume, doesn't mean there's warranty cost underneath it. Just as volume goes up, you reserve for the event of the warranty, but if you look at the usage of that reserve, it hasn't changed over time.

Unknown Analyst

Right. That's definitely helpful. Just a last 1 for me. If you could provide some more color on just the M&A Google announcement in West Virginia. -- seems like an exciting transaction for you guys. Curious how you would characterize just general interest from Google or other hyperscalers. Can we see a similar kind of transactions going forward here?

Joseph Mastrangelo

Yes, Carter, the Google M&A, this is something we worked on for a while to get through the tech validations of multiple parties, both M&A and Google, we feel that having long duration is going to help the project and help the return to Google, I think, as we talk to more and more people, and I think this comment I made when I talked about like the impact of these dynamic loads. And we like to talk about AI, but like if I take an AI load and I put that up against the load that comes from a steel mill, the load that comes from any industrial factory and the spikes and peaks and valleys that it derives, they kind of all look the same.

So you need something that's going to be able to buffer those loads against the traditional the traditional power generation equipment. And I think that's where we come in. And I think what's important, and this is where the pipeline gets excited -- and I know we've been talking about this and the proof is going to be with orders closing. And I think out of that 3.5 gigawatt of near-term opportunities, we're going to see orders closing that meet this use case. But we go into people and we talk about the fact that we can handle those short-term spikes and give you long-duration discharge with the same asset and the same technology and people like that.

The part that we need to do is get the reliability where it needs to be out in the field and operate day by day by day and get to like Five9's capability on the reliability of the product, and that's another big piece of what John and Francis and Alessandro are doing that drives not only performance to the customer but cost out and profitability for Eos.

Operator

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn it back to Joe for any closing remarks.

Joseph Mastrangelo

Thanks, and thanks, everyone, for listening. Again, I'm really proud of the work that John and his team and Francis have been doing to really get through get Thornhill up right the moving of the lines out of Foreign Hill it's somewhat emotional moment where I went to Turtle Creek about a week ago and where we had started Z3 production with semi-automated with a semi-automated line is now nothing is there because that equipment is now up at Foreign Hill installed and being commissioned to start operating here.

So the speed at which they're working and the efficiency of which they're doing this is impressive, and I really look forward to just 1 roof in a state-of-the-art building to start producing because what we see out of the Florange Hill line, it's not that the line is better. It's just that mine is operating in an environment that is conducive to better performance and having Alessandro here as an operating CFO, you're seeing the results and how our cash is tracking to profitability, and I think that's going to continue and improve over time.

And with Michelle being in our job here for the past couple of months and bringing a lot of what you're seeing on those state mandates tied to the work that she was doing before. Feel really good about what the -- her and the team are doing to position us to win deals. And we just got to put our nose to the grindstone and close and grow that backlog to show and continue to show that the technology is what the market needs for the future. So we'll keep everyone updated on that and look forward to the 4Q call, where we'll also lay out guidance for 2027 and how everything lands here as we get through year-end.

Operator

Thank you, Joe. We appreciate you participating in today's conference call with EOS. This concludes our presentation. You may now disconnect. Thank you.