Edited Transcript of SOL earnings conference call or presentation 8-Apr-19 12:30pm GMT

Additionally, we maintained a healthy balance sheet, providing the financial flexibility to drive growth.

Operationally, we connected 27.2 megawatts of DG projects in China, 58.4 megawatts of DG projects in Europe and 6.8 megawatts of solar power projects in the U.S.

During the year, we increased our global late-stage pipeline by 41% to 772.5 megawatts. And our overall solar power project pipeline remains solid at around 1.7 gigawatts.

Q4 revenue was below our guidance trends because of delays in recognizing revenue related to the sale of a 7.7 megawatts project in Hungary and a 14 megawatts project in Poland. Due diligence work on both asset took longer than anticipated. Mr. Liang will go over these and other details of our financial results later on the conference call.

I will now turn our attention to operating highlights. As you know, there are 4 elements to our business. The first is the build and transfer business. We develop and build solar projects then sell those projects to buyers. The second is project right sales. We engage in earlier development stage to secure land or rooftop with interconnection capacity as well as related premise and then sell the project rights at notice to proceed or NTP. The third is the EPC business. We provide in-house and external EPC services. The fourth is our independent power producer or IPP business. We own and operate solar projects and there the electricity generated. Because of lower capital requirements, we have been focused on the development business, however, we are actively pursuing other segments of the business to reduce our risk and better utilize the capital we have. The development business recycles capital quickly, where operating asset generate stable high margin recurring revenue.

Our development pipeline strong at 1.7 gigawatts of which 772.5 megawatts is late-stage. This late-stage pipeline is spread across the U.S., Canada, Poland, France, Hungary, Spain, India, South Korea, Vietnam and China. Approximately, 40 -- approximately 54 megawatts of the late-stage is under construction, where 1.6 megawatts was connected in Q4. The connected projects were all China rooftop DG. We also connected 30 megawatts of DG projects in Poland and 7.7 megawatts of macro projects in Hungary.

Our owned and operated portfolio of 232 megawatts generates high-margin recurring revenue. The portfolio consists of 212 megawatts of rooftop in China, 15 megawatts of ground mounted in Romania and 4 megawatts of rooftop in the U.K.

Looking ahead, we have nearly 12 megawatts more of rooftop projects under construction in China. Slide 3 profiles our project business in more detail.

Now let us cover some detail on the various regions. First, China. As shown on Slide 6, we now operate approximately 212 megawatts of rooftop solar concentrated in a number of eastern provinces with still robust development environments. The commercial and industrial electricity prices in those provinces are relatively high and electricity off-takers are generally creditworthy enterprises. Self-consumption DG projects in those provinces are attractive investments. In order to evolve ReneSola into an asset-light solar project developer, we expect internally to monetize our China DG assets. This will further strengthen our business -- our balance sheet, reduce leverage and improve cash flow.

In addition to DG projects, we intended to develop and maintain 350 megawatts of ground mounted unsubsidized projects, located in the northern provinces in 2019, as shown on Slide 6. The U.S. remains a site for an important market for us, as highlighted on Slide 7. Our late-stage projects, they total 340.2 megawatts of which approximately 119.1 megawatts are community solar in Minnesota and the New York. Additionally, we are pursuing small utility scale projects in Utah, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Colorado and California. Of the late-stage projects, 24.1 megawatts are under construction and expected to grid connect in the second quarter of 2019.

In March of 2019, we announced another solar energy acquisition of our 21.1 megawatts community solar portfolio in Minnesota that was developed by us. As many of you know, Nautilus is a leading U.S. company investing in solar projects acquisition, development and active management. This sale to them represents the third acquisition of community solar asset from us.

Similar to the 2017 and 2018 deals we did with them, this community solar portfolio is also qualified under Xcel Energy's industry-leading community solar programs in Minnesota.

In Canada, shown on Slide 8, we have 7.6 megawatts of the late-stage projects, all of which are under construction and should connect to the grid in the second quarter of 2019. All these projects are eligible for the FiT3 scheme.

We show Poland in Slide 9, where we have a total of 81 megawatts in final stage. The main asset is our portfolio of 55 installation of 1 megawatt per -- each. 44 of those are completed, operating and up for sale. The other 11 are under construction.

In addition to the 55 installations, late last year, we won the auction of another 26 megawatts of project development rights, which are for sale. All of the projects will sell power under Poland's Contract for Difference or CFD regime and eligible for a 15-year guaranteed tariff. The 26 we won recently are eligible for a 15-year guaranteed tariff of PLN 354.8 to PLN 358.8 per megawatt hours. This is growth to the highest auction price of PLN 364.9 per megawatt hours.

Poland is a key market for us, and we are one of the largest project developers in the country. So this recent auction win is a positive development, this win validates our ability to deliver reliable cost competitive distributed power to serve growth and the demand in the region.

Slide 10 shows Hungary. While we continue to invest in small-scale DG projects, our late-stage pipeline has more than 67 micro projects, each with a size of 0.5 megawatts bringing total capacity to approximately 33.6 megawatts. We expect the construction of all of these micro projects to start in the second quarter of 2019.

We announced recently that we entered into a brief financing agreement with Eiffel Energy Transition Fun for our solar projects in Hungary and Poland. Eiffel Energy Transition Fund is a specialized investment vehicle of EUR 350 million, strictly reserved for institutional investors. The fund meets the financial needs of energy transition players focused on renewable energy production and energy efficiency solutions.

Under the term of the agreement, Eiffel Energy Transition Fund will finance our 41.3 megawatts projects in Hungary and 50,000 megawatts project in Poland in the amount of EUR 13.4 million. We are very excited to partner with Eiffel. This facility demonstrates the confidence that the capital market put in our ability to successfully develop projects in this geography. We continue to expect both Hungary and Poland to be growth market for us in the years ahead.

Let's move to India on Slide 11. We have secured a project pipeline of 50 megawatts, most projects that are ground mounted open access projects. Similar to U.S. community solar, India projects can sell electricity to different commercial and industrial off-takers under long-term PPAs.

Our strategy in India is a pure-project developer model. We want to develop projects to the several ready space and then sell the projects rights to investors. This model enabled us to leverage our expertise in project development and our global network of solar project investors.

Now turn to Slide 12, where we cover other regions. In France, we've won a strategic partnership with Green City Energy to jointly develop 4 solar parks in the south with a total installed capacity of 69 megawatts. The 4 parks will generate approximately 105 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year. We expect COD for the parks in 2020 and 2021. Additionally, in the last tender, we also won projects with a combined capacity 2.5 megawatts. So our total projects pipeline in France is now 71.5 megawatts. Beyond those geographies I just discussed, we are actively pursuing opportunities in other international markets, including Spain, South Korea and Vietnam.

In Spain, we have late-stage pipeline of 12 megawatts of private PPA projects. And in South Korea, we secured a 9 megawatts ground-mounted project. In Vietnam, we obtained the land right for a 200 megawatts ground-mounted project. In summary, we have a globally diversified project portfolio in comparison multiple space in both rooftop and ground mounted. Because of this, we are very optimistic about the opportunity ahead of us.

Before I turn the call over to Mr.