Capstone Turbine Corporation (NASDAQ:CPST) announced Tuesday that it has achieved its first significant win under its new direct sales initiative.
The California company signed a new national account agreement with IP Innovative Power GmbH of Berlin and received an initial order for 20 C65 microturbines. Deliveries are expected to begin in late March and conclude by October this year.
This is the first agreement to come from the new Capstone Direct Sales organization announced in January. The stand-alone organization led by Jim Crouse, who was recently promoted to chief revenue officer, is responsible for growing Capstone's national account business, long-term rental fleet, as well as licensing and new product partnerships -- with a focus on revenue growth opportunities.
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“As we stated back in early January, this new strategic organizational change is aimed at driving improved year-over-year product revenue growth to complement our aftermarket service, parts and rental business, which as we recently announced was up 20% in Q3 FY20 over the year-ago Q3 FY19,” said CEO Darren Jamison in a statement.
“I am pleased with the pace in which we executed our first significant new national account relationship and look forward to many more in the weeks to come as we leverage the initial twenty-two opportunities from our new IndyCar sponsorship with Andretti Autosport.”
Innovative Power plans to install Capstone C65 microturbines with customers where cooling is necessary to maximize the running hours with absorption chillers. Capstone was selected because of the ease of installation, low operating cost, and extremely low emissions. The initial order of 20 C65 microturbines will be installed in Germany over the next several months at multiple properties.
The agreement with Innovative Power takes advantage of Capstone’s global distribution network, which is serving customers in 73 countries. Each installation will be covered by Capstone’s industry-leading Factory Protection Plan, which is designed to offer a risk-free solution for both planned and unplanned maintenance for the life of the factory-backed service contract.
“Innovative Power has identified dozens of sites throughout Europe that are excellent candidates for their solution," said Crouse. "With the support of the Capstone Direct Sales team and our local distribution network, we expect increased new deployment of our products with Innovative Power.”
Since 2002, the Combined Heat and Power Act (CHP) has been the main basis for the promotion of CHP in Germany. In January 2016, the German government doubled the funding for CHP, raising it to €1.5 billion and extended the funding scheme until 2020, providing customers the assurance they need to deploy CHP.
Capstone, based in Van Nuys, offers a product line-up of microturbines that can produce anywhere from 30 kilowatts to 10 megawatts of power, operating on a variety of gaseous or liquid fuels.
Capstone’s stock recently traded up 13% to $2.40 a share in pre-market trading in New York.
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