# Strategic Plan Update — Q1 2026

**From:** Rohit Bansal, Chief Strategy Officer
**To:** Board of Directors, Helios Renewables AG
**Date:** 13 March 2026
**Classification:** Board-confidential

## Executive summary

The strategic plan ratified in November 2024 framed three businesses on equal footing: **PV modules, grid-scale storage, EPC services**. Twelve months of operating data and the December 2025 EU CBAM widening have changed the math. We are recommending the board endorse a deliberate pivot in which **grid-scale storage becomes the primary growth platform from 2027 onwards**, the PV-module business is harvested, and EPC services are repositioned as a wrap-around capability for storage projects.

This paper presents the rationale (§1), the operational sequencing (§2), the implications for capital allocation (§3), and the dependencies on the Solarcraft acquisition (§4).

## 1. Why now

Three signals reached statistical significance in the last six months:

- **PV-module growth has decelerated** from a 14–17 % YoY band (2022–2024) to **6 % YoY in Q1 2026**. Our internal model attributes this primarily to module-price compression (now 9 c/W spot, down from 16 c/W in 2023) which has offset volume growth. We see no plausible path back to >10 % revenue growth at our current cost position.
- **Storage demand outstrips supply**: our pipeline as of 1 March 2026 is **€480 m** against a 2026 production-capacity ceiling of **€280 m**. We are turning customers away.
- **CBAM widening (December 2025)** materially worsens the unit economics of the Antwerp Phase-II expansion. The financial case for Antwerp Phase-II was built on €1.04/W landed cost for Chinese-imported cells; CBAM now adds approximately €0.07–0.09/W on a steady-state basis, pushing the project IRR from 11.4 % to 6.8 %. Below our 8.5 % WACC.

## 2. Operational sequencing

| Phase | Window | Key moves |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 — Reposition | Q2–Q4 2026 | Freeze Antwerp Phase-II; pre-buy four months of cathode (working-capital build of €22 m); finalise Kintron framework agreement (target signing Q2). |
| Phase 2 — Acquire | Q2 2026 | Sign and close Solarcraft acquisition (see §4 and `05-acquisition-proposal.md`). |
| Phase 3 — Integrate | Q3 2026 – Q2 2027 | Combined sales motion for storage + EPC; migrate 40 of Solarcraft's 140 engineers to Helios storage-project delivery. |
| Phase 4 — Scale | from Q4 2026 | First commercial output from the Bratislava partnership (2 GWh annualised capacity by end-2027). |

Critically, **the existing Antwerp PV-module plant continues to run at full utilisation** for the duration of the plan. There are no Antwerp job losses associated with this strategic shift; the change is in *additional* capacity, not the installed base.

## 3. Capital allocation implications

The FY 2026 growth-capex envelope of €185 m (approved November 2025) is **unchanged in total** but its deployment shifts:

| Original plan (Nov 2025) | Reallocation (this paper) |
|---|---|
| Antwerp Phase-II PV expansion: €120 m | Antwerp Phase-II frozen: -€90 m |
| Bratislava battery-cell partnership: €40 m | Bratislava partnership: €130 m (+€90 m) |
| Maintenance + IT: €25 m | Maintenance + IT: €25 m (unchanged) |

DCF impact: +€34 m NPV uplift at 8.5 % WACC, primarily from avoiding the post-CBAM IRR compression on Antwerp Phase-II.

## 4. Dependency on Solarcraft

The pivot is robust to a "no" on Solarcraft, but Solarcraft materially accelerates Phase 3. Specifically:

- Solarcraft brings **eleven live grid-connection permits** across Germany, Austria, and Italy. Without these, our 2027 storage-delivery plan is permit-constrained, not capacity-constrained: we would need 18–24 months to organically build the same permitting position.
- Solarcraft brings **existing relationships with E.ON and Iberdrola** on the EPC side. Both already buy from Helios on the storage side. Combining the relationships changes our position from a tier-2 supplier into a primary partner.
- The combined go-to-market simplifies the sales motion: one team, one set of commercial terms, one project-management process for the customer.

If the board declines Resolution R-2026-Q1-03, the strategic pivot is still recommended; the 2027 delivery profile compresses by ~€90 m and slips by ~9 months.

## 5. What I am asking for

1. **Endorsement** of the strategic pivot toward grid-scale storage as the primary growth platform.
2. **Approval** of the capex reallocation: €90 m from Antwerp Phase-II to the Bratislava partnership.
3. **Decision in principle** to support the Solarcraft acquisition, with the formal authorisation handled under Resolution R-2026-Q1-03.

If the board prefers to bifurcate (endorse the pivot now; defer the capex reallocation to June after another quarter of data), that is a defensible path but it pushes the Kintron framework signing into Q3 and tightens the 2027 delivery profile.

— Rohit