Ceres Power reported a much-needed upswing in revenue throughout 2023 after years of struggling to retain contracts.
Revenue for the fuel cell and hydrogen technology specialist increased from £19.8m to £22.3m, while gross profit jumped from £10.7m to £13.6m, the company’s 2023 results revealed.
All three sources of revenue for the company increased compared to 2022, with cash coming from licence fees, engineering services, and provision of technology hardware jumping from the previous year.
Despite these wins for the company, it still reported an operating loss of £59.4m, compared to £54m in 2022.
The company ended 2023 with cash and short-term investments of £140m.
After seeing its stock price increase ten-fold during 2020 and 2021, Ceres has since been in terminal decline, falling back to price levels not seen since 2018.
This was due to struggles retaining contracts, and last December, the company said that thanks to difficulty in securing new licence partners, it was cutting revenue expectations to “approximately £20m to £21m”.
However, its credibility received a significant boost at the start of this year after it signed a £43m licence acquisition deal with Delta Electronics, expected to start by the end of 2026.
Ceres’s stock price skyrocketed 67 per cent after the deal was unveiled. However, the company’s value has fallen to a record low since then.
In a research note earlier this year, UBS analysts noted that despite the fact that the solid oxide fuel cell market is estimated to reach $2.3 trillion (£1.8 trillion) by 2030, there are only two credible manufacturers in the space, excluding Ceres.
This gap in the market, fuelled by the billions of projected subsidies into the space over the next couple of years, could help the struggling energy company out.
Phil Caldwell, CEO of Ceres, made the case that after a “challenging 2023”, the group was “already on track for a strong year in 2024”, pointing to the new licence deal with Delta, which is the first for the company to include a solid oxide electrolyser cell.
“We have confidence at this early stage of the year to approximately double revenues in 2024 from existing partnerships, compared to 2023,” the group added.