Fluence Cuts 2026 Sales $600M; Houston Line Made Under 1 a Day

Fluence Energy told investors on 16 September that it now expects about $2.4 billion in revenue for its 2026 fiscal year, down from a prior guidance midpoint of roughly $3.0 billion. The Arlington, Virginia company also widened its adjusted EBITDA forecast to a loss of about $200 million from a previous midpoint loss of about $10 million — a twentyfold increase. The revision went out at 4:15 p.m. Eastern, after the close.

It was the second cut in six weeks; Fluence had already trimmed its revenue range from $3.2–3.6 billion to $2.9–3.1 billion in August. The choke point is a contract plant in Houston that builds thermal management systems — the HVAC and chiller units that keep grid batteries cool. Chief executive Julian Nebreda told analysts on the 16 September call that guidance had assumed an average of 11 units a day during an August–September ramp-up. August output instead averaged fewer than one a day, per his remarks as reported by trade title Energy-Storage.news; corrective measures have since lifted the average to three.

Nebreda blamed a customised automated welding process running far below target and a shortage of skilled labour, and said the response is a switch to manual welding plus subcontracted capacity. He attributed roughly 80% of the $600 million revenue reduction to US production problems: $450 million in delays and about $65 million in penalties largely tied to late delivery, with a further $85 million from logistics.

FLNC closed at $9.05 on 16 September, before the announcement, then at $7.66 on 17 September — down 15.4% after touching a 52-week low of $7.01 intraday on 33.8 million shares. Another 4.4% came off on 18 September, taking the close to $7.32 and the two-session decline to 19.1%, on settled Yahoo Finance data. JPMorgan cut its price target to $8 (Neutral), BMO Capital to $7 (Market Perform) and RBC Capital to $4 (Sector Perform) on 17 September, Benzinga reported.

The shake-up began before the guidance cut. An 8-K filed on 16 September shows Fluence terminated chief product officer Peter Williams on 11 September and made former AES operating chief Bernerd Da Santos, 62, its COO from 15 September. Da Santos gave up his Fluence board seat; AES finance chief Stephen Coughlin took it.

What failed matters. Fluence, backed by Siemens and AES, has spent years moving production onshore — battery modules from Utah since 2024, enclosures from Arizona since mid-2025 — to qualify for US domestic-content incentives. Demand was not the problem: Nebreda said orders remain strong at home and abroad and the international supply chain "has continued to work well". What broke was a welding line for cooling units.

Fluence's fiscal year ends on 30 September. Finance chief Ahmed Pasha said the priority is turning the $2.9 billion backlog into cash and reaching neutral-to-positive operating cash flow in 2027 without outside capital, with a plan due at full-year results. The company has not said when Houston will reach 11 units a day.

This article is not investment advice.