REG - Ceres Power Holdings - Final results for the year ended 31 December 2025
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RNS Number : 1577Y Ceres Power Holdings plc 26 March 2026
CWR.L
26 March 2026
Ceres Power Holdings plc
Final results for the year ended 31 December 2025
Horsham, UK: Ceres Power Holdings plc ("Ceres", the "Company") (CWR.L), a
leading developer of clean energy technology, announces its audited results
for the year ended 31 December 2025.
Financial highlights
• Strong cash and short-term investments position of £83.3 million
(2024: £102.5 million) with continued disciplined cash management driving a
reduced cash outflow of £19.2 million (2024: £37.5 million).
• Revenue of £32.6 million (2024: £51.9 million), a decrease of
37%.
• Gross profit of £22.7 million (2024: £40.2 million),
maintaining sector-leading gross margin of 70% (2024: 77%).
• First royalties were generated, representing a key milestone for
the Company.
Strategic highlights
• China - Weichai signs manufacturing licence agreement. Weichai
intends to produce cells and stacks for the stationary power markets,
targeting power for AI data centres, commercial buildings and industrial
applications.
• Taiwan - Delta invests in land on which to build its solid oxide
fuel and electrolysis cell factory. The purchase of land and factory
facilities for approximately NT$6.95 billion (£170 million), expected to be
partly focused on the large-scale manufacturing of hydrogen energy solutions
for data centre power, microgrid and other energy infrastructure applications.
• South Korea - Doosan starts factory production of solid oxide
fuel cells and stacks. Ceres designed fuel cells are now in production, with
first royalties generated.
• Japan - Ceres' partner DENSO and JERA began testing Japan's first
solid oxide electrolysis demonstrator for hydrogen production at a JERA
thermal power station, leading to government funding valued at 35 billion yen,
approximately £165 million.
• India - Shell megawatt-scale electrolysis system produces hydrogen.
Exceeding performance expectations, this milestone underlines the maturity of
Ceres' solid oxide electrolyser technology, supported by Shell's installation,
integration and safety assurance expertise.
• Business transformation plan implemented. Ceres transitions to a
new structure as the business to focus on accelerating its commercial
opportunities. Team structures have been aligned to support the growth of
new business, delivering anticipated operating cost savings of 20% in 2026.
Outlook
• Current contracted group revenue for 2026 is approximately £45m
before any new business.
Phil Caldwell, Chief Executive Officer of Ceres, said:
"In 2025 our first partner achieved scaled production, unlocking Ceres' first
royalties, a significant milestone for the business. We sharpened our
commercial focus to address rising demands for power generation and advanced
our solid oxide technology toward becoming the industry standard, setting a
strong foundation for a successful 2026."
Ends
Financial Summary
2025 2024
£'000 £'000
Total revenue, comprising: 32,643 51,891
Engineering services and licences 22,244 44,953
Provision of technology hardware 10,289 6,938
Royalties 110 ꟷ
Gross profit 22,704 40,164
Gross margin % 70% 77%
Adjusted EBITDA loss(1) (32,522) (22,287)
Operating loss (47,621) (31,317)
Net cash used in operating activities (20,070) (35,941)
Net cash and investments 83,272 102,465
1. Adjusted EBITDA loss is an Alternative Performance Measure, as defined and
reconciled to operating loss in the non-GAAP section at the end of this
report.
Analyst presentation
Ceres Power Holdings plc will be hosting a live webcast for analysts and
investors on 26 March 2026 at 09.30 GMT. To register your interest in
participating, please register at:
https://www.investormeetcompany.com/ceres-power-holdings-plc/register-investor
For further information visit www.ceres.tech (http://www.ceres.tech) or
contact:
Ceres Power Holdings plc
Merryl Black Tel: +44 (0)7770 853 463
Email: investors@cerespower.com
About Ceres
Ceres is a leading developer of clean energy technology: fuel cells for power
generation and electrolysers to produce green hydrogen. Its asset-light,
licensing model has seen it establish partnerships with some of the world's
largest companies, such as Doosan, Delta, Denso, Shell, Weichai and Thermax.
Ceres' solid oxide technology supports greater electrification of our energy
systems, including AI data centres, commercial and industrial applications,
and produces green hydrogen at high efficiencies as a route to decarbonise
emissions-intensive industries such as ammonia, steelmaking, and electrofuels.
Ceres is listed on the London Stock Exchange ("LSE") (LSE: CWR) and is
classified by the LSE Green Economy Mark, which recognises listed companies
that derive more than 50% of their activity from the green economy. Read more
on our website www.ceres.tech (http://www.ceres.tech) or follow us on LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/company/ceres-power/) .
Chief Executive's statement
Iam pleased to report on another year of progress as we continue to deliver
on our ambitions to establish our solid oxide technology as the industry
standard for both power generation and hydrogen production. The year had its
challenges as Bosch withdrew from its SOFC activities following a strategic
shift and there was a slowdown in the demand for hydrogen solutions.
Nonetheless, we intensified our focus on commercial activities and made
meaningful progress in positioning Ceres at the heart of emerging markets for
power solutions for commercial, industrial and data centre markets. Our focus
on disciplined execution, clarity of purpose and partner-centric ways of
working is now creating tangible commercial momentum.
Power markets are undergoing structural change
Around the world, electrification, digitalisation and AI are transforming
power demand. Nowhere is this clearer than in AI enabled data centres, which
have become one of the fastest growing and most energy intensive sectors of
the global economy. Structural grid constraints, long lead times
for conventional generation and rising environmental pressures are driving
operators to look for alternative, high-efficiency power technologies.
Customers tell us consistently that they need faster time-to-power, high
electrical efficiency and meaningful heat integration, low local emissions and
24/7 reliability, with systems that can scale quickly.
Ceres' solid oxide systems meet these needs well. As data centre operators
expand capacity globally, including major investments announced in the UK by
Microsoft, Google, OpenAI/NScale and Blackstone, the near-term commercial
opportunity for high-efficiency SOFC systems continues to grow.
Importantly, the same fundamentals underpin opportunities in commercial
buildings, industrial campuses, microgrids and other distributed power
markets, strengthening our confidence in the scale of demand our partners can
serve.
This growth dynamic presents distinct and significant near-term opportunities
for Ceres SOFCs given the many advantages over conventional power generation
systems, such as gas turbines, diesel reciprocating engines and renewable
energy. In comparison, SOFCs can offer the highest rates of energy efficiency
coupled with virtually zero particulate emissions and high reliability, making
them a natural choice for these markets. In addition to these attractive
features, SOFCs can now offer a compelling advantage that other energy systems
cannot - rapid time-to-power. Wait times for higher power systems are now
significant: up to 15 years for upgraded grid connections; exceeding five
years for gas turbines; and at least a decade for small modular nuclear power
systems. The more rapid availability of SOFC systems is now becoming a key
differentiating factor in the data centre power market (see our Technology
section on page 16 for additional details).
Our analysis, based on BloombergNEF estimates, suggests that the market for
SOFC power could be around 22GW by 2030, representing a substantial market for
our technology. This represents a substantial market for our technology, with
Ceres' ability to meet that demand delivered through the scale-up of our
manufacturing partners.
Aclear step forward in commercial delivery
For almost 25 years, Ceres has invested in building world-leading solid oxide
technology. In 2025, that investment translated into some of the most
important milestones in our history. We saw our technology move from
development to production and our commercial strategy sharpen around
the markets that offer the greatest near-term opportunity.
We achieved a significant milestone in July 2025, when Doosan commenced mass
market manufacture of fuel cell stacks using Ceres' technology at its first of
akind 50MW facility in South Korea. This represents a validation of both our
technology leadership and our asset-light IP licensing model. These early
shipments generated our first royalty revenues, marking the beginning of a
scalable, high-margin future income stream.
Momentum continued across our partner ecosystem. Delta Electronics advanced
at pace towards establishing large-scale manufacturing in Taiwan, targeting AI
enabled data centres, commercial buildings, industrial facilities and
microgrid applications.
During the year Delta acquired land and factory facilities in Taiwan for
approximately £170 million, expected to be partly focused on the large-scale
manufacturing of hydrogen energy solutions, based on Ceres' solid oxide
technology. Delta continues to move at pace and with clear commitment to
initial pilot production based on our technology by the end of 2026.
In November 2025 we announced that we had signed a new manufacturing licence
agreement for the production of our proprietary SOFC technology with Weichai
Power, a global original equipment manufacturer and power systems developer,
headquartered in Shandong, China. Weichai intends to establish a manufacturing
facility to produce cells and stacks for the stationary power markets
supported by key components supplied by Ceres, targeting power for AI data
centres, commercial buildings and industrial applications.
This agreement extends our existing relationship with Weichai, which we
anticipate will open up a multi-billion-dollar market opportunity and boosts
our ambition to establish Ceres as the global industry standard for solid
oxide.
Hydrogen: progress with discipline and purpose
While industry-wide progress on large-scale electrolysis projects has been
slower than anticipated, our own SOEC programme continued to advance in 2025.
At Shell's Technology Centre in Bangalore, our first megawatt-scale
demonstrator produced hydrogen at industry-leading efficiency, a major proof
point of the cost and performance advantages of high-temperature electrolysis.
With a class-leading electrolyser module efficiency of 37kWh/kg of hydrogen
from a 1MW plant, this equates to potential production capacity of around
600kg of hydrogen per day. This milestone marks an important step,
demonstrating the maturity of Ceres' solid oxide electrolyser technology,
supported by Shell's installation, integration and safety assurance expertise.
After completing its technology transfer programme during 2025, SOEC
manufacturing partner DENSO announced in September that it had begun Japan's
first demonstration of SOEC hydrogen production at a JERA (Japan's largest
power generation company) thermal power station. This aims to achieve hydrogen
production with the world's highest level electrolysis efficiency by applying
DENSO's heat-management technology. The project, which is due to run until
2032, is valued at 46 billion yen (c.£220 million), with significant
government subsidies from Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organisation (NEDO) of up to 35 billion yen (c.£165 million).
In India, Thermax continued its rapid progress, following the launch of its
HydroGenX Hub in Pune, our partner broke ground earlier this year on its SOEC
pilot plant, a very clear commitment to deploying Ceres' technology in one of
the world's most strategically important markets for clean energy
in industrial applications.
These milestones reinforce the long-term relevance of our technology as we
expect industrial decarbonisation to gather pace towards the end of this
decade.
In addition to the significant progress being achieved with current partners,
we have also been working hard to ensure that our technology remains an
attractive proposition for future manufacturing partners. Our latest design is
astack that can generate power or produce hydrogen from the same core cell
and stack platform and enables partners to build both fuel cell and
electrolysis stacks using the same manufacturing facility, allowing them to
leverage their investment in our technology to access the power markets now
and electrolysis markets in the future. I believe that this is a key
differentiator for us and our technology, positioning us as the global leader
in solid oxide energy solutions.
Market dynamics create new opportunities
In parallel to the AI enabled data centre market, other attractive power
applications continue to mature for Ceres through our partners. These include
distributed power provision through microgrids; combined heat, power and
cooling applications for buildings; and auxiliary power systems for marine
vessels. These nascent markets continue to be supported by favourable tax
credit and other incentives to adopt next-generation clean technologies, such
as fuel cells. Key regions where these are available include the US (30%
Investment Tax Credit under Section 48E of the One Big Beautiful Bill for fuel
cell adoption), South Korea (the Green New Deal aims to achieve fuel cell
deployment of 15GW by 2040, supported by tax and other incentives) and Japan
(Green Transformation policies supporting the hydrogen economy, including the
development of large-scale stationary fuel cell power stations).
While progress in our power business accelerated in 2025, securing final
investment decisions for hydrogen electrolysis projects has undoubtedly been a
challenge for the industry, exacerbated by macroeconomic headwinds. However,
as we refocus our commercial activities on the near-term opportunities, we
remain confident that the structural impetus to decarbonise industrial
processes will continue to drive the market over the longer term and that this
will stimulate the industry to adopt more advanced clean technologies such
as solid oxide.
Executing our business transformation plan
During 2025 we defined new strategic priorities that underpin the sharper
commercial focus we have brought to the business (see page 20 for more
details). To ensure we are set up for success, we are optimising the business
and have initiated a business transformation plan, which started in September
2025. This will realign our resources to new market opportunities by the end
of 2026 and consolidate our platform for further growth.
The objectives of this programme are to simplify the organisation, embed
accountable ways of working and align resources with the commercial markets
that matter most.
By the end of 2026, we expect to have:
· Realigned Ceres into focused, delivery driven teams;
· Strengthened partner-centric values and behaviours across the
organisation;
· Reduced operating costs by around 20% compared to the year ending
31 December 2025;
· Supported partners on their path to manufacturing scale-up and
product launch;
· Enhanced our capability to secure new licensing agreements; and
· Commercially launched our best-in-class, dual-purpose stack
platform serving both power and hydrogen markets, consolidating development
onto a unified technology platform ready for scale.
Now is the right time for us to take these actions to optimise the business
and I firmly believe that successful completion will ensure that we operate
with the scale, pace, discipline and clarity required for commercial success.
Outlook
The final words in my review of the year are dedicated to the people at Ceres.
Without doubt, 2025 started as a challenging year for us following the Bosch
announcement in February 2025 and a wider slowdown in hydrogen adoption. I am,
however, very pleased with the manner in which we responded as a business,
demonstrating purpose and professionalism as we refocused on new and evolving
market dynamics represented by the growth in power. I would like to thank
everyone at Ceres for the ongoing commitment and dedication they showed over
the past year. Not only have our teams come together to overcome the
challenges of a turbulent year to deliver key milestones for the business, but
they have also embraced the changes we are putting in place to drive our
next chapter of growth.
Although we are conscious of the uncertainties arising from the war in Iran
and its impact on global energy markets, we start 2026 with strong operational
momentum. We have generated our first royalty revenues and are seeing growing
demand across commercial and industrial power markets - particularly in the
rapidly expanding data centre sector. Solid oxide technology is increasingly
viewed as a high-efficiency, low emission and fast-to-deploy solution for
resilient power. We remain well positioned for electrolysis for green hydrogen
as we anticipate industrial demand will accelerate as global decarbonisation
policies mature towards the end of this decade.
Our sharper commercial focus and strategic pillars aligned during the year
with the resurgence of demand in the power markets, I am confident that we are
well positioned to capitalise on the growth in the power markets today and the
hydrogen electrolysis markets of tomorrow.
As we enter our 25th year, Ceres is firmly positioned for a new era:
establishing our technology platform as the industry standard for solid oxide,
embedding partner-centric values throughout the organisation and maintaining
absolute focus on commercial execution. Together with our partners, we are
moving to market with real pace and unlocking the next phase of growth for
Ceres.
Phil Caldwell
Chief Executive Officer
Financial review
2025 has been a pivotal year for Ceres, marking our transition from a
primarily R&D first organisation to a business firmly focusing on its
commercial phase. Building on the record performance achieved in 2024, we have
advanced each of our key partnerships towards factory completion and the start
of mass manufacturing of Ceres' solid oxide cells. Importantly, we recognised
our first royalty income as Doosan commenced production and sales of Ceres
fuel cells, and we deepened our longstanding relationship with Weichai through
anew manufacturing licence agreement signed in November.
As we move into this next stage of growth, we are maintaining a disciplined
approach to cost management. Across the business, we continued to focus on
operating efficiency, prioritising investment in areas that drive commercial
scaling while taking a rigorous approach to controlling overheads and
optimising our cost base.
Revenue
Revenue for 2025 was £32.6 million, compared with £51.9 million in the prior
year. The reduction primarily reflects the timing of revenues recognised in
2024, when up‑front technology transfer activities were completed for our
new manufacturing licence partners, Delta and DENSO. Our revenue comprises
technology transfers, development licences, engineering services, the
provision of technology hardware and, for the first time, royalties as Doosan
begun commercial production. Licence revenues from the manufacturing licence
agreement signed with Weichai in November 2025 will begin to be recognised in
the first half of 2026.
Gross margin
Gross profit of £22.7 million in the year fell by 43% from £40.2 million in
2024, as a result of high-margin technology transfers conducted with Delta and
DENSO in 2024. Despite the lower revenue base, our gross margin remained
strong at 70% (2024: 77%), illustrating the resilience of our licensing‑led
business model and the continued benefits of disciplined cost management.
Other operating income
Other operating income was 11% higher than last year at £3.2 million (2024:
£2.8 million), which reflects the level of RDEC (R&D expenditure credits)
claimed in the year. As Ceres has now passed the peak of its technology
development investment cycle, we expect this to gradually reduce as our focus
shifts towards the execution and delivery of commercial programmes.
Operating costs (non-exceptional)
Operating costs reduced to £70.1 million (2024: £74.3 million) as we focused
strategic investment on our core product platform to support future commercial
growth. This was delivered alongside disciplined financial management,
including a restructuring programme implemented in the second half of the
year. Following this restructure, the average number of employees decreased to
462 (2024: 546), with the Group ending the year at 353 employees.
Exceptional operating costs
Exceptional operating costs relate to a settlement paid to a supplier for a
contractual dispute (£1.4 million) and an obligation arising from the
termination of a supplier contract (£2.0 million).
Finance income and expense
Finance income decreased to £4.1 million (2024: £5.8 million), which
reflects continued strong interest rates on our bank deposits and short-term
investments in money-market funds with a lower average cash position. We
maintain a stringent treasury policy to balance appropriate market returns
with the security of funds including only high investment grade, and
diversification of, financial institutions. Finance expense increased to £0.6
million (2024: £0.4 million) driven by the unwinding of a finance component
of a customer contract, £0.3 million.
Taxation charge
Taxation charge decreased to £1.2 million (2024: £2.4 million) and reflects
payment of withholding taxes from overseas earnings. The decrease can be
attributed to the up-front licence fees recognised in the prior year from the
new manufacturing licence partners acquired in 2024.
Loss for the financial year
The Group posted a loss of £47.5 million (2024: £28.3 million) for the
period, which reflects the decrease in revenue and gross margin compared to
2024.
Adjusted EBITDA
Adjusted EBITDA loss for 2025 increased to £32.5 million (2024: £22.3
million). Adjusted EBITDA is a non-statutory measure and is detailed in the
Alternative Performance Measures section in this review. The increased loss
is primarily due to the decreased revenue explained above.
Reconciliation between operating loss and adjusted EBITDA
Management believes that presenting Adjusted EBITDA loss allows for a more
direct comparison of the Group's performance against its peers and provides a
better understanding of the underlying trading performance of the Group by
excluding non-recurring, irregular and one-off costs. The Group currently
defines Adjusted EBITDA loss as the operating loss for the year excluding
depreciation and amortisation charges, share-based payment charges,
exceptional costs outside the regular course of business, unrealised losses on
forward contracts and exchange gains/losses.
Total capital investments
Total capital investments comprises capital expenditure (plant, property and
equipment) and capitalised development (intangible assets). In 2025, total
capital investments declined to £1.9 million (2024: £6.7 million),
representing completion in intangible investment culminating in the launch of
our single stack platform.
Working capital movements
During 2025 working capital decreased by £17.4 million (2024: increase of
£15.7 million), due to significant partner invoice receipts in January 2025,
recognised as receivables in 2024. Our continued focus on aligning pilot plant
production with partner demand ensured that inventory levels remained stable.
Cash outflow
Cash outflow (change in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments) was
£19.2 million (2024: £37.5 million). This significant reduction was
supported by substantial partner receipts early in the year and reflects our
continued discipline in managing expenditure. As we progress through the
commercialisation phase, maintaining tight control of cash remains a core
priority, ensuring we allocate resources effectively while preserving balance
sheet strength.
Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments
The Group ends the financial year in a strong position with £83.3 million in
cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments (2024: £102.5 million) to
support future investment as we drive revenue growth, manage costs and
expenditure in a disciplined way, and track towards profit and cash flow
break-even.
Events after the balance sheet date
After the year end, Ceres agreed and paid a settlement of £2.0 million with a
third party in connection with the early termination of a contract.
Outlook
We enter 2026 with strong operational momentum and a clear line of sight to
the next phase of Ceres' commercial growth. Our partners continue to make
meaningful progress towards the start of mass production, with factory
readiness advancing across our global network.
In parallel, 2025 marked an important milestone as we recognised our first
royalties from Doosan's commercial launch. This represents the beginning of a
scalable, high‑margin revenue stream that will grow as additional partners
commence production. Maintaining this momentum is a key focus for the year
ahead.
The launch of our single stack platform further strengthens our product
offering and expands the opportunity for both existing and future partners.
With a robust technology roadmap, a disciplined operating model and a
portfolio of partners approaching commercial scale, Ceres is well positioned
to capture long‑term value from the global transition to efficient,
low‑carbon power and green hydrogen solutions.
Stuart Paynter
Chief Financial Officer
About Ceres
Ceres is a leading developer of clean energy technology: fuel cells for power
generation and electrolysers to produce green hydrogen. Its asset-light,
licensing model has seen it establish partnerships with some of the world's
largest companies, such as Doosan, Delta, Denso, Shell, Weichai and Thermax.
Ceres' solid oxide technology supports greater electrification of our energy
systems, including AI data centres, commercial and industrial applications,
and produces green hydrogen at high efficiencies as a route to decarbonise
emissions-intensive industries such as ammonia, steelmaking, and electrofuels.
Ceres is listed on the London Stock Exchange ("LSE") (LSE: CWR) and is
classified by the LSE Green Economy Mark, which recognises listed companies
that derive more than 50% of their activity from the green economy. Read more
on our website www.ceres.tech (http://www.ceres.tech) or follow us on LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/company/ceres-power/) .
Chief Executive's statement
I am pleased to report on another year of progress as we continue to deliver
on our ambitions to establish our solid oxide technology as the industry
standard for both power generation and hydrogen production. The year had its
challenges as Bosch withdrew from its SOFC activities following a strategic
shift and there was a slowdown in the demand for hydrogen solutions.
Nonetheless, we intensified our focus on commercial activities and made
meaningful progress in positioning Ceres at the heart of emerging markets for
power solutions for commercial, industrial and data centre markets. Our focus
on disciplined execution, clarity of purpose and partner-centric ways of
working is now creating tangible commercial momentum.
Power markets are undergoing structural change
Around the world, electrification, digitalisation and AI are transforming
power demand. Nowhere is this clearer than in AI enabled data centres, which
have become one of the fastest growing and most energy intensive sectors of
the global economy. Structural grid constraints, long lead times
for conventional generation and rising environmental pressures are driving
operators to look for alternative, high-efficiency power technologies.
Customers tell us consistently that they need faster time-to-power, high
electrical efficiency and meaningful heat integration, low local emissions and
24/7 reliability, with systems that can scale quickly.
Ceres' solid oxide systems meet these needs well. As data centre operators
expand capacity globally, including major investments announced in the UK by
Microsoft, Google, OpenAI/NScale and Blackstone, the near-term commercial
opportunity for high-efficiency SOFC systems continues to grow.
Importantly, the same fundamentals underpin opportunities in commercial
buildings, industrial campuses, microgrids and other distributed power
markets, strengthening our confidence in the scale of demand our partners can
serve.
This growth dynamic presents distinct and significant near-term opportunities
for Ceres SOFCs given the many advantages over conventional power generation
systems, such as gas turbines, diesel reciprocating engines and renewable
energy. In comparison, SOFCs can offer the highest rates of energy efficiency
coupled with virtually zero particulate emissions and high reliability, making
them a natural choice for these markets. In addition to these attractive
features, SOFCs can now offer a compelling advantage that other energy systems
cannot - rapid time-to-power. Wait times for higher power systems are now
significant: up to 15 years for upgraded grid connections; exceeding five
years for gas turbines; and at least a decade for small modular nuclear power
systems. The more rapid availability of SOFC systems is now becoming a key
differentiating factor in the data centre power market (see our Technology
section on page 16 for additional details).
Our analysis, based on BloombergNEF estimates, suggests that the market for
SOFC power could be around 22GW by 2030, representing a substantial market for
our technology. This represents a substantial market for our technology, with
Ceres' ability to meet that demand delivered through the scale-up of our
manufacturing partners.
A clear step forward in commercial delivery
For almost 25 years, Ceres has invested in building world-leading solid oxide
technology. In 2025, that investment translated into some of the most
important milestones in our history. We saw our technology move from
development to production and our commercial strategy sharpen around
the markets that offer the greatest near-term opportunity.
We achieved a significant milestone in July 2025, when Doosan commenced mass
market manufacture of fuel cell stacks using Ceres' technology at its first of
a kind 50MW facility in South Korea. This represents a validation of both our
technology leadership and our asset-light IP licensing model. These early
shipments generated our first royalty revenues, marking the beginning of a
scalable, high-margin future income stream.
Momentum continued across our partner ecosystem. Delta Electronics advanced
at pace towards establishing large-scale manufacturing in Taiwan, targeting AI
enabled data centres, commercial buildings, industrial facilities and
microgrid applications.
During the year Delta acquired land and factory facilities in Taiwan for
approximately £170 million, expected to be partly focused on the large-scale
manufacturing of hydrogen energy solutions, based on Ceres' solid oxide
technology. Delta continues to move at pace and with clear commitment to
initial pilot production based on our technology by the end of 2026.
In November 2025 we announced that we had signed a new manufacturing licence
agreement for the production of our proprietary SOFC technology with Weichai
Power, a global original equipment manufacturer and power systems developer,
headquartered in Shandong, China. Weichai intends to establish a manufacturing
facility to produce cells and stacks for the stationary power markets
supported by key components supplied by Ceres, targeting power for AI data
centres, commercial buildings and industrial applications.
This agreement extends our existing relationship with Weichai, which we
anticipate will open up a multi-billion-dollar market opportunity and boosts
our ambition to establish Ceres as the global industry standard for solid
oxide.
Hydrogen: progress with discipline and purpose
While industry-wide progress on large-scale electrolysis projects has been
slower than anticipated, our own SOEC programme continued to advance in 2025.
At Shell's Technology Centre in Bangalore, our first megawatt-scale
demonstrator produced hydrogen at industry-leading efficiency, a major proof
point of the cost and performance advantages of high-temperature electrolysis.
With a class-leading electrolyser module efficiency of 37kWh/kg of hydrogen
from a 1MW plant, this equates to potential production capacity of around
600kg of hydrogen per day. This milestone marks an important step,
demonstrating the maturity of Ceres' solid oxide electrolyser technology,
supported by Shell's installation, integration and safety assurance expertise.
After completing its technology transfer programme during 2025, SOEC
manufacturing partner DENSO announced in September that it had begun Japan's
first demonstration of SOEC hydrogen production at a JERA (Japan's largest
power generation company) thermal power station. This aims to achieve hydrogen
production with the world's highest level electrolysis efficiency by applying
DENSO's heat-management technology. The project, which is due to run until
2032, is valued at 46 billion yen (c.£220 million), with significant
government subsidies from Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organisation (NEDO) of up to 35 billion yen (c.£165 million).
In India, Thermax continued its rapid progress, following the launch of its
HydroGenX Hub in Pune, our partner broke ground earlier this year on its SOEC
pilot plant, a very clear commitment to deploying Ceres' technology in one of
the world's most strategically important markets for clean energy
in industrial applications.
These milestones reinforce the long-term relevance of our technology as we
expect industrial decarbonisation to gather pace towards the end of this
decade.
In addition to the significant progress being achieved with current partners,
we have also been working hard to ensure that our technology remains an
attractive proposition for future manufacturing partners. Our latest design is
a stack that can generate power or produce hydrogen from the same core cell
and stack platform and enables partners to build both fuel cell and
electrolysis stacks using the same manufacturing facility, allowing them to
leverage their investment in our technology to access the power markets now
and electrolysis markets in the future. I believe that this is a key
differentiator for us and our technology, positioning us as the global leader
in solid oxide energy solutions.
Market dynamics create new opportunities
In parallel to the AI enabled data centre market, other attractive power
applications continue to mature for Ceres through our partners. These include
distributed power provision through microgrids; combined heat, power and
cooling applications for buildings; and auxiliary power systems for marine
vessels. These nascent markets continue to be supported by favourable tax
credit and other incentives to adopt next-generation clean technologies, such
as fuel cells. Key regions where these are available include the US (30%
Investment Tax Credit under Section 48E of the One Big Beautiful Bill for fuel
cell adoption), South Korea (the Green New Deal aims to achieve fuel cell
deployment of 15GW by 2040, supported by tax and other incentives) and Japan
(Green Transformation policies supporting the hydrogen economy, including the
development of large-scale stationary fuel cell power stations).
While progress in our power business accelerated in 2025, securing final
investment decisions for hydrogen electrolysis projects has undoubtedly been a
challenge for the industry, exacerbated by macroeconomic headwinds. However,
as we refocus our commercial activities on the near-term opportunities, we
remain confident that the structural impetus to decarbonise industrial
processes will continue to drive the market over the longer term and that this
will stimulate the industry to adopt more advanced clean technologies such
as solid oxide.
Executing our business transformation plan
During 2025 we defined new strategic priorities that underpin the sharper
commercial focus we have brought to the business (see page 20 for more
details). To ensure we are set up for success, we are optimising the business
and have initiated a business transformation plan, which started in September
2025. This will realign our resources to new market opportunities by the end
of 2026 and consolidate our platform for further growth.
The objectives of this programme are to simplify the organisation, embed
accountable ways of working and align resources with the commercial markets
that matter most.
By the end of 2026, we expect to have:
· Realigned Ceres into focused, delivery driven teams;
· Strengthened partner-centric values and behaviours across the
organisation;
· Reduced operating costs by around 20% compared to the year ending
31 December 2025;
· Supported partners on their path to manufacturing scale-up and
product launch;
· Enhanced our capability to secure new licensing agreements; and
· Commercially launched our best-in-class, dual-purpose stack
platform serving both power and hydrogen markets, consolidating development
onto a unified technology platform ready for scale.
Now is the right time for us to take these actions to optimise the business
and I firmly believe that successful completion will ensure that we operate
with the scale, pace, discipline and clarity required for commercial success.
Outlook
The final words in my review of the year are dedicated to the people at Ceres.
Without doubt, 2025 started as a challenging year for us following the Bosch
announcement in February 2025 and a wider slowdown in hydrogen adoption. I am,
however, very pleased with the manner in which we responded as a business,
demonstrating purpose and professionalism as we refocused on new and evolving
market dynamics represented by the growth in power. I would like to thank
everyone at Ceres for the ongoing commitment and dedication they showed over
the past year. Not only have our teams come together to overcome the
challenges of a turbulent year to deliver key milestones for the business, but
they have also embraced the changes we are putting in place to drive our
next chapter of growth.
Although we are conscious of the uncertainties arising from the war in Iran
and its impact on global energy markets, we start 2026 with strong operational
momentum. We have generated our first royalty revenues and are seeing growing
demand across commercial and industrial power markets - particularly in the
rapidly expanding data centre sector. Solid oxide technology is increasingly
viewed as a high-efficiency, low emission and fast-to-deploy solution for
resilient power. We remain well positioned for electrolysis for green hydrogen
as we anticipate industrial demand will accelerate as global decarbonisation
policies mature towards the end of this decade.
Our sharper commercial focus and strategic pillars aligned during the year
with the resurgence of demand in the power markets, I am confident that we are
well positioned to capitalise on the growth in the power markets today and the
hydrogen electrolysis markets of tomorrow.
As we enter our 25th year, Ceres is firmly positioned for a new era:
establishing our technology platform as the industry standard for solid oxide,
embedding partner-centric values throughout the organisation and maintaining
absolute focus on commercial execution. Together with our partners, we are
moving to market with real pace and unlocking the next phase of growth for
Ceres.
Phil Caldwell
Chief Executive Officer
Financial review
2025 has been a pivotal year for Ceres, marking our transition from a
primarily R&D first organisation to a business firmly focusing on its
commercial phase. Building on the record performance achieved in 2024, we have
advanced each of our key partnerships towards factory completion and the start
of mass manufacturing of Ceres' solid oxide cells. Importantly, we recognised
our first royalty income as Doosan commenced production and sales of Ceres
fuel cells, and we deepened our longstanding relationship with Weichai through
a new manufacturing licence agreement signed in November.
As we move into this next stage of growth, we are maintaining a disciplined
approach to cost management. Across the business, we continued to focus on
operating efficiency, prioritising investment in areas that drive commercial
scaling while taking a rigorous approach to controlling overheads and
optimising our cost base.
Revenue
Revenue for 2025 was £32.6 million, compared with £51.9 million in the prior
year. The reduction primarily reflects the timing of revenues recognised in
2024, when up‑front technology transfer activities were completed for our
new manufacturing licence partners, Delta and DENSO. Our revenue comprises
technology transfers, development licences, engineering services, the
provision of technology hardware and, for the first time, royalties as Doosan
begun commercial production. Licence revenues from the manufacturing licence
agreement signed with Weichai in November 2025 will begin to be recognised in
the first half of 2026.
Gross margin
Gross profit of £22.7 million in the year fell by 43% from £40.2 million in
2024, as a result of high-margin technology transfers conducted with Delta and
DENSO in 2024. Despite the lower revenue base, our gross margin remained
strong at 70% (2024: 77%), illustrating the resilience of our licensing‑led
business model and the continued benefits of disciplined cost management.
Other operating income
Other operating income was 11% higher than last year at £3.2 million (2024:
£2.8 million), which reflects the level of RDEC (R&D expenditure credits)
claimed in the year. As Ceres has now passed the peak of its technology
development investment cycle, we expect this to gradually reduce as our focus
shifts towards the execution and delivery of commercial programmes.
Operating costs (non-exceptional)
Operating costs reduced to £70.1 million (2024: £74.3 million) as we focused
strategic investment on our core product platform to support future commercial
growth. This was delivered alongside disciplined financial management,
including a restructuring programme implemented in the second half of the
year. Following this restructure, the average number of employees decreased to
462 (2024: 546), with the Group ending the year at 353 employees.
Exceptional operating costs
Exceptional operating costs relate to a settlement paid to a supplier for a
contractual dispute (£1.4 million) and an obligation arising from the
termination of a supplier contract (£2.0 million).
Finance income and expense
Finance income decreased to £4.1 million (2024: £5.8 million), which
reflects continued strong interest rates on our bank deposits and short-term
investments in money-market funds with a lower average cash position. We
maintain a stringent treasury policy to balance appropriate market returns
with the security of funds including only high investment grade, and
diversification of, financial institutions. Finance expense increased to £0.6
million (2024: £0.4 million) driven by the unwinding of a finance component
of a customer contract, £0.3 million.
Taxation charge
Taxation charge decreased to £1.2 million (2024: £2.4 million) and reflects
payment of withholding taxes from overseas earnings. The decrease can be
attributed to the up-front licence fees recognised in the prior year from the
new manufacturing licence partners acquired in 2024.
Loss for the financial year
The Group posted a loss of £47.5 million (2024: £28.3 million) for the
period, which reflects the decrease in revenue and gross margin compared to
2024.
Adjusted EBITDA
Adjusted EBITDA loss for 2025 increased to £32.5 million (2024: £22.3
million). Adjusted EBITDA is a non-statutory measure and is detailed in the
Alternative Performance Measures section in this review. The increased loss
is primarily due to the decreased revenue explained above.
Reconciliation between operating loss and adjusted EBITDA
Management believes that presenting Adjusted EBITDA loss allows for a more
direct comparison of the Group's performance against its peers and provides a
better understanding of the underlying trading performance of the Group by
excluding non-recurring, irregular and one-off costs. The Group currently
defines Adjusted EBITDA loss as the operating loss for the year excluding
depreciation and amortisation charges, share-based payment charges,
exceptional costs outside the regular course of business, unrealised losses on
forward contracts and exchange gains/losses.
Total capital investments
Total capital investments comprises capital expenditure (plant, property and
equipment) and capitalised development (intangible assets). In 2025, total
capital investments declined to £1.9 million (2024: £6.7 million),
representing completion in intangible investment culminating in the launch of
our single stack platform.
Working capital movements
During 2025 working capital decreased by £17.4 million (2024: increase of
£15.7 million), due to significant partner invoice receipts in January 2025,
recognised as receivables in 2024. Our continued focus on aligning pilot plant
production with partner demand ensured that inventory levels remained stable.
Cash outflow
Cash outflow (change in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments) was
£19.2 million (2024: £37.5 million). This significant reduction was
supported by substantial partner receipts early in the year and reflects our
continued discipline in managing expenditure. As we progress through the
commercialisation phase, maintaining tight control of cash remains a core
priority, ensuring we allocate resources effectively while preserving balance
sheet strength.
Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments
The Group ends the financial year in a strong position with £83.3 million in
cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments (2024: £102.5 million) to
support future investment as we drive revenue growth, manage costs and
expenditure in a disciplined way, and track towards profit and cash flow
break-even.
Events after the balance sheet date
After the year end, Ceres agreed and paid a settlement of £2.0 million with a
third party in connection with the early termination of a contract.
Outlook
We enter 2026 with strong operational momentum and a clear line of sight to
the next phase of Ceres' commercial growth. Our partners continue to make
meaningful progress towards the start of mass production, with factory
readiness advancing across our global network.
In parallel, 2025 marked an important milestone as we recognised our first
royalties from Doosan's commercial launch. This represents the beginning of a
scalable, high‑margin revenue stream that will grow as additional partners
commence production. Maintaining this momentum is a key focus for the year
ahead.
The launch of our single stack platform further strengthens our product
offering and expands the opportunity for both existing and future partners.
With a robust technology roadmap, a disciplined operating model and a
portfolio of partners approaching commercial scale, Ceres is well positioned
to capture long‑term value from the global transition to efficient,
low‑carbon power and green hydrogen solutions.
Stuart Paynter
Chief Financial Officer
Analyst presentation
Ceres Power Holdings plc will be hosting a live webcast for analysts and
investors on 26 March 2026 at 09.30 GMT. To register your interest in
participating, please register at:
https://www.investormeetcompany.com/ceres-power-holdings-plc/register-investor
For further information visit www.ceres.tech (http://www.ceres.tech) or
contact:
Ceres Power Holdings plc
Merryl Black Tel: +44 (0)7770 853 463
Email: investors@cerespower.com
About Ceres
Ceres is a leading developer of clean energy technology: fuel cells for power
generation and electrolysers to produce green hydrogen. Its asset-light,
licensing model has seen it establish partnerships with some of the world's
largest companies, such as Doosan, Delta, Denso, Shell, Weichai and Thermax.
Ceres' solid oxide technology supports greater electrification of our energy
systems, including AI data centres, commercial and industrial applications,
and produces green hydrogen at high efficiencies as a route to decarbonise
emissions-intensive industries such as ammonia, steelmaking, and electrofuels.
Ceres is listed on the London Stock Exchange ("LSE") (LSE: CWR) and is
classified by the LSE Green Economy Mark, which recognises listed companies
that derive more than 50% of their activity from the green economy. Read more
on our website www.ceres.tech (http://www.ceres.tech) or follow us on LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/company/ceres-power/) .
Chief Executive's statement
I am pleased to report on another year of progress as we continue to deliver
on our ambitions to establish our solid oxide technology as the industry
standard for both power generation and hydrogen production. The year had its
challenges as Bosch withdrew from its SOFC activities following a strategic
shift and there was a slowdown in the demand for hydrogen solutions.
Nonetheless, we intensified our focus on commercial activities and made
meaningful progress in positioning Ceres at the heart of emerging markets for
power solutions for commercial, industrial and data centre markets. Our focus
on disciplined execution, clarity of purpose and partner-centric ways of
working is now creating tangible commercial momentum.
Power markets are undergoing structural change
Around the world, electrification, digitalisation and AI are transforming
power demand. Nowhere is this clearer than in AI enabled data centres, which
have become one of the fastest growing and most energy intensive sectors of
the global economy. Structural grid constraints, long lead times
for conventional generation and rising environmental pressures are driving
operators to look for alternative, high-efficiency power technologies.
Customers tell us consistently that they need faster time-to-power, high
electrical efficiency and meaningful heat integration, low local emissions and
24/7 reliability, with systems that can scale quickly.
Ceres' solid oxide systems meet these needs well. As data centre operators
expand capacity globally, including major investments announced in the UK by
Microsoft, Google, OpenAI/NScale and Blackstone, the near-term commercial
opportunity for high-efficiency SOFC systems continues to grow.
Importantly, the same fundamentals underpin opportunities in commercial
buildings, industrial campuses, microgrids and other distributed power
markets, strengthening our confidence in the scale of demand our partners can
serve.
This growth dynamic presents distinct and significant near-term opportunities
for Ceres SOFCs given the many advantages over conventional power generation
systems, such as gas turbines, diesel reciprocating engines and renewable
energy. In comparison, SOFCs can offer the highest rates of energy efficiency
coupled with virtually zero particulate emissions and high reliability, making
them a natural choice for these markets. In addition to these attractive
features, SOFCs can now offer a compelling advantage that other energy systems
cannot - rapid time-to-power. Wait times for higher power systems are now
significant: up to 15 years for upgraded grid connections; exceeding five
years for gas turbines; and at least a decade for small modular nuclear power
systems. The more rapid availability of SOFC systems is now becoming a key
differentiating factor in the data centre power market (see our Technology
section on page 16 for additional details).
Our analysis, based on BloombergNEF estimates, suggests that the market for
SOFC power could be around 22GW by 2030, representing a substantial market for
our technology. This represents a substantial market for our technology, with
Ceres' ability to meet that demand delivered through the scale-up of our
manufacturing partners.
A clear step forward in commercial delivery
For almost 25 years, Ceres has invested in building world-leading solid oxide
technology. In 2025, that investment translated into some of the most
important milestones in our history. We saw our technology move from
development to production and our commercial strategy sharpen around
the markets that offer the greatest near-term opportunity.
We achieved a significant milestone in July 2025, when Doosan commenced mass
market manufacture of fuel cell stacks using Ceres' technology at its first of
a kind 50MW facility in South Korea. This represents a validation of both our
technology leadership and our asset-light IP licensing model. These early
shipments generated our first royalty revenues, marking the beginning of a
scalable, high-margin future income stream.
Momentum continued across our partner ecosystem. Delta Electronics advanced
at pace towards establishing large-scale manufacturing in Taiwan, targeting AI
enabled data centres, commercial buildings, industrial facilities and
microgrid applications.
During the year Delta acquired land and factory facilities in Taiwan for
approximately £170 million, expected to be partly focused on the large-scale
manufacturing of hydrogen energy solutions, based on Ceres' solid oxide
technology. Delta continues to move at pace and with clear commitment to
initial pilot production based on our technology by the end of 2026.
In November 2025 we announced that we had signed a new manufacturing licence
agreement for the production of our proprietary SOFC technology with Weichai
Power, a global original equipment manufacturer and power systems developer,
headquartered in Shandong, China. Weichai intends to establish a manufacturing
facility to produce cells and stacks for the stationary power markets
supported by key components supplied by Ceres, targeting power for AI data
centres, commercial buildings and industrial applications.
This agreement extends our existing relationship with Weichai, which we
anticipate will open up a multi-billion-dollar market opportunity and boosts
our ambition to establish Ceres as the global industry standard for solid
oxide.
Hydrogen: progress with discipline and purpose
While industry-wide progress on large-scale electrolysis projects has been
slower than anticipated, our own SOEC programme continued to advance in 2025.
At Shell's Technology Centre in Bangalore, our first megawatt-scale
demonstrator produced hydrogen at industry-leading efficiency, a major proof
point of the cost and performance advantages of high-temperature electrolysis.
With a class-leading electrolyser module efficiency of 37kWh/kg of hydrogen
from a 1MW plant, this equates to potential production capacity of around
600kg of hydrogen per day. This milestone marks an important step,
demonstrating the maturity of Ceres' solid oxide electrolyser technology,
supported by Shell's installation, integration and safety assurance expertise.
After completing its technology transfer programme during 2025, SOEC
manufacturing partner DENSO announced in September that it had begun Japan's
first demonstration of SOEC hydrogen production at a JERA (Japan's largest
power generation company) thermal power station. This aims to achieve hydrogen
production with the world's highest level electrolysis efficiency by applying
DENSO's heat-management technology. The project, which is due to run until
2032, is valued at 46 billion yen (c.£220 million), with significant
government subsidies from Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organisation (NEDO) of up to 35 billion yen (c.£165 million).
In India, Thermax continued its rapid progress, following the launch of its
HydroGenX Hub in Pune, our partner broke ground earlier this year on its SOEC
pilot plant, a very clear commitment to deploying Ceres' technology in one of
the world's most strategically important markets for clean energy
in industrial applications.
These milestones reinforce the long-term relevance of our technology as we
expect industrial decarbonisation to gather pace towards the end of this
decade.
In addition to the significant progress being achieved with current partners,
we have also been working hard to ensure that our technology remains an
attractive proposition for future manufacturing partners. Our latest design is
a stack that can generate power or produce hydrogen from the same core cell
and stack platform and enables partners to build both fuel cell and
electrolysis stacks using the same manufacturing facility, allowing them to
leverage their investment in our technology to access the power markets now
and electrolysis markets in the future. I believe that this is a key
differentiator for us and our technology, positioning us as the global leader
in solid oxide energy solutions.
Market dynamics create new opportunities
In parallel to the AI enabled data centre market, other attractive power
applications continue to mature for Ceres through our partners. These include
distributed power provision through microgrids; combined heat, power and
cooling applications for buildings; and auxiliary power systems for marine
vessels. These nascent markets continue to be supported by favourable tax
credit and other incentives to adopt next-generation clean technologies, such
as fuel cells. Key regions where these are available include the US (30%
Investment Tax Credit under Section 48E of the One Big Beautiful Bill for fuel
cell adoption), South Korea (the Green New Deal aims to achieve fuel cell
deployment of 15GW by 2040, supported by tax and other incentives) and Japan
(Green Transformation policies supporting the hydrogen economy, including the
development of large-scale stationary fuel cell power stations).
While progress in our power business accelerated in 2025, securing final
investment decisions for hydrogen electrolysis projects has undoubtedly been a
challenge for the industry, exacerbated by macroeconomic headwinds. However,
as we refocus our commercial activities on the near-term opportunities, we
remain confident that the structural impetus to decarbonise industrial
processes will continue to drive the market over the longer term and that this
will stimulate the industry to adopt more advanced clean technologies such
as solid oxide.
Executing our business transformation plan
During 2025 we defined new strategic priorities that underpin the sharper
commercial focus we have brought to the business (see page 20 for more
details). To ensure we are set up for success, we are optimising the business
and have initiated a business transformation plan, which started in September
2025. This will realign our resources to new market opportunities by the end
of 2026 and consolidate our platform for further growth.
The objectives of this programme are to simplify the organisation, embed
accountable ways of working and align resources with the commercial markets
that matter most.
By the end of 2026, we expect to have:
· Realigned Ceres into focused, delivery driven teams;
· Strengthened partner-centric values and behaviours across the
organisation;
· Reduced operating costs by around 20% compared to the year ending
31 December 2025;
· Supported partners on their path to manufacturing scale-up and
product launch;
· Enhanced our capability to secure new licensing agreements; and
· Commercially launched our best-in-class, dual-purpose stack
platform serving both power and hydrogen markets, consolidating development
onto a unified technology platform ready for scale.
Now is the right time for us to take these actions to optimise the business
and I firmly believe that successful completion will ensure that we operate
with the scale, pace, discipline and clarity required for commercial success.
Outlook
The final words in my review of the year are dedicated to the people at Ceres.
Without doubt, 2025 started as a challenging year for us following the Bosch
announcement in February 2025 and a wider slowdown in hydrogen adoption. I am,
however, very pleased with the manner in which we responded as a business,
demonstrating purpose and professionalism as we refocused on new and evolving
market dynamics represented by the growth in power. I would like to thank
everyone at Ceres for the ongoing commitment and dedication they showed over
the past year. Not only have our teams come together to overcome the
challenges of a turbulent year to deliver key milestones for the business, but
they have also embraced the changes we are putting in place to drive our
next chapter of growth.
Although we are conscious of the uncertainties arising from the war in Iran
and its impact on global energy markets, we start 2026 with strong operational
momentum. We have generated our first royalty revenues and are seeing growing
demand across commercial and industrial power markets - particularly in the
rapidly expanding data centre sector. Solid oxide technology is increasingly
viewed as a high-efficiency, low emission and fast-to-deploy solution for
resilient power. We remain well positioned for electrolysis for green hydrogen
as we anticipate industrial demand will accelerate as global decarbonisation
policies mature towards the end of this decade.
Our sharper commercial focus and strategic pillars aligned during the year
with the resurgence of demand in the power markets, I am confident that we are
well positioned to capitalise on the growth in the power markets today and the
hydrogen electrolysis markets of tomorrow.
As we enter our 25th year, Ceres is firmly positioned for a new era:
establishing our technology platform as the industry standard for solid oxide,
embedding partner-centric values throughout the organisation and maintaining
absolute focus on commercial execution. Together with our partners, we are
moving to market with real pace and unlocking the next phase of growth for
Ceres.
Phil Caldwell
Chief Executive Officer
Financial review
2025 has been a pivotal year for Ceres, marking our transition from a
primarily R&D first organisation to a business firmly focusing on its
commercial phase. Building on the record performance achieved in 2024, we have
advanced each of our key partnerships towards factory completion and the start
of mass manufacturing of Ceres' solid oxide cells. Importantly, we recognised
our first royalty income as Doosan commenced production and sales of Ceres
fuel cells, and we deepened our longstanding relationship with Weichai through
a new manufacturing licence agreement signed in November.
As we move into this next stage of growth, we are maintaining a disciplined
approach to cost management. Across the business, we continued to focus on
operating efficiency, prioritising investment in areas that drive commercial
scaling while taking a rigorous approach to controlling overheads and
optimising our cost base.
Revenue
Revenue for 2025 was £32.6 million, compared with £51.9 million in the prior
year. The reduction primarily reflects the timing of revenues recognised in
2024, when up‑front technology transfer activities were completed for our
new manufacturing licence partners, Delta and DENSO. Our revenue comprises
technology transfers, development licences, engineering services, the
provision of technology hardware and, for the first time, royalties as Doosan
begun commercial production. Licence revenues from the manufacturing licence
agreement signed with Weichai in November 2025 will begin to be recognised in
the first half of 2026.
Gross margin
Gross profit of £22.7 million in the year fell by 43% from £40.2 million in
2024, as a result of high-margin technology transfers conducted with Delta and
DENSO in 2024. Despite the lower revenue base, our gross margin remained
strong at 70% (2024: 77%), illustrating the resilience of our licensing‑led
business model and the continued benefits of disciplined cost management.
Other operating income
Other operating income was 11% higher than last year at £3.2 million (2024:
£2.8 million), which reflects the level of RDEC (R&D expenditure credits)
claimed in the year. As Ceres has now passed the peak of its technology
development investment cycle, we expect this to gradually reduce as our focus
shifts towards the execution and delivery of commercial programmes.
Operating costs (non-exceptional)
Operating costs reduced to £70.1 million (2024: £74.3 million) as we focused
strategic investment on our core product platform to support future commercial
growth. This was delivered alongside disciplined financial management,
including a restructuring programme implemented in the second half of the
year. Following this restructure, the average number of employees decreased to
462 (2024: 546), with the Group ending the year at 353 employees.
Exceptional operating costs
Exceptional operating costs relate to a settlement paid to a supplier for a
contractual dispute (£1.4 million) and an obligation arising from the
termination of a supplier contract (£2.0 million).
Finance income and expense
Finance income decreased to £4.1 million (2024: £5.8 million), which
reflects continued strong interest rates on our bank deposits and short-term
investments in money-market funds with a lower average cash position. We
maintain a stringent treasury policy to balance appropriate market returns
with the security of funds including only high investment grade, and
diversification of, financial institutions. Finance expense increased to £0.6
million (2024: £0.4 million) driven by the unwinding of a finance component
of a customer contract, £0.3 million.
Taxation charge
Taxation charge decreased to £1.2 million (2024: £2.4 million) and reflects
payment of withholding taxes from overseas earnings. The decrease can be
attributed to the up-front licence fees recognised in the prior year from the
new manufacturing licence partners acquired in 2024.
Loss for the financial year
The Group posted a loss of £47.5 million (2024: £28.3 million) for the
period, which reflects the decrease in revenue and gross margin compared to
2024.
Adjusted EBITDA
Adjusted EBITDA loss for 2025 increased to £32.5 million (2024: £22.3
million). Adjusted EBITDA is a non-statutory measure and is detailed in the
Alternative Performance Measures section in this review. The increased loss
is primarily due to the decreased revenue explained above.
Reconciliation between operating loss and adjusted EBITDA
Management believes that presenting Adjusted EBITDA loss allows for a more
direct comparison of the Group's performance against its peers and provides a
better understanding of the underlying trading performance of the Group by
excluding non-recurring, irregular and one-off costs. The Group currently
defines Adjusted EBITDA loss as the operating loss for the year excluding
depreciation and amortisation charges, share-based payment charges,
exceptional costs outside the regular course of business, unrealised losses on
forward contracts and exchange gains/losses.
Total capital investments
Total capital investments comprises capital expenditure (plant, property and
equipment) and capitalised development (intangible assets). In 2025, total
capital investments declined to £1.9 million (2024: £6.7 million),
representing completion in intangible investment culminating in the launch of
our single stack platform.
Working capital movements
During 2025 working capital decreased by £17.4 million (2024: increase of
£15.7 million), due to significant partner invoice receipts in January 2025,
recognised as receivables in 2024. Our continued focus on aligning pilot plant
production with partner demand ensured that inventory levels remained stable.
Cash outflow
Cash outflow (change in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments) was
£19.2 million (2024: £37.5 million). This significant reduction was
supported by substantial partner receipts early in the year and reflects our
continued discipline in managing expenditure. As we progress through the
commercialisation phase, maintaining tight control of cash remains a core
priority, ensuring we allocate resources effectively while preserving balance
sheet strength.
Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments
The Group ends the financial year in a strong position with £83.3 million in
cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments (2024: £102.5 million) to
support future investment as we drive revenue growth, manage costs and
expenditure in a disciplined way, and track towards profit and cash flow
break-even.
Events after the balance sheet date
After the year end, Ceres agreed and paid a settlement of £2.0 million with a
third party in connection with the early termination of a contract.
Outlook
We enter 2026 with strong operational momentum and a clear line of sight to
the next phase of Ceres' commercial growth. Our partners continue to make
meaningful progress towards the start of mass production, with factory
readiness advancing across our global network.
In parallel, 2025 marked an important milestone as we recognised our first
royalties from Doosan's commercial launch. This represents the beginning of a
scalable, high‑margin revenue stream that will grow as additional partners
commence production. Maintaining this momentum is a key focus for the year
ahead.
The launch of our single stack platform further strengthens our product
offering and expands the opportunity for both existing and future partners.
With a robust technology roadmap, a disciplined operating model and a
portfolio of partners approaching commercial scale, Ceres is well positioned
to capture long‑term value from the global transition to efficient,
low‑carbon power and green hydrogen solutions.
Stuart Paynter
Chief Financial Officer
About Ceres
Ceres is a leading developer of clean energy technology: fuel cells for power
generation and electrolysers to produce green hydrogen. Its asset-light,
licensing model has seen it establish partnerships with some of the world's
largest companies, such as Doosan, Delta, Denso, Shell, Weichai and Thermax.
Ceres' solid oxide technology supports greater electrification of our energy
systems, including AI data centres, commercial and industrial applications,
and produces green hydrogen at high efficiencies as a route to decarbonise
emissions-intensive industries such as ammonia, steelmaking, and electrofuels.
Ceres is listed on the London Stock Exchange ("LSE") (LSE: CWR) and is
classified by the LSE Green Economy Mark, which recognises listed companies
that derive more than 50% of their activity from the green economy. Read more
on our website www.ceres.tech (http://www.ceres.tech) or follow us on LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/company/ceres-power/) .
Chief Executive's statement
I am pleased to report on another year of progress as we continue to deliver
on our ambitions to establish our solid oxide technology as the industry
standard for both power generation and hydrogen production. The year had its
challenges as Bosch withdrew from its SOFC activities following a strategic
shift and there was a slowdown in the demand for hydrogen solutions.
Nonetheless, we intensified our focus on commercial activities and made
meaningful progress in positioning Ceres at the heart of emerging markets for
power solutions for commercial, industrial and data centre markets. Our focus
on disciplined execution, clarity of purpose and partner-centric ways of
working is now creating tangible commercial momentum.
Power markets are undergoing structural change
Around the world, electrification, digitalisation and AI are transforming
power demand. Nowhere is this clearer than in AI enabled data centres, which
have become one of the fastest growing and most energy intensive sectors of
the global economy. Structural grid constraints, long lead times
for conventional generation and rising environmental pressures are driving
operators to look for alternative, high-efficiency power technologies.
Customers tell us consistently that they need faster time-to-power, high
electrical efficiency and meaningful heat integration, low local emissions and
24/7 reliability, with systems that can scale quickly.
Ceres' solid oxide systems meet these needs well. As data centre operators
expand capacity globally, including major investments announced in the UK by
Microsoft, Google, OpenAI/NScale and Blackstone, the near-term commercial
opportunity for high-efficiency SOFC systems continues to grow.
Importantly, the same fundamentals underpin opportunities in commercial
buildings, industrial campuses, microgrids and other distributed power
markets, strengthening our confidence in the scale of demand our partners can
serve.
This growth dynamic presents distinct and significant near-term opportunities
for Ceres SOFCs given the many advantages over conventional power generation
systems, such as gas turbines, diesel reciprocating engines and renewable
energy. In comparison, SOFCs can offer the highest rates of energy efficiency
coupled with virtually zero particulate emissions and high reliability, making
them a natural choice for these markets. In addition to these attractive
features, SOFCs can now offer a compelling advantage that other energy systems
cannot - rapid time-to-power. Wait times for higher power systems are now
significant: up to 15 years for upgraded grid connections; exceeding five
years for gas turbines; and at least a decade for small modular nuclear power
systems. The more rapid availability of SOFC systems is now becoming a key
differentiating factor in the data centre power market (see our Technology
section on page 16 for additional details).
Our analysis, based on BloombergNEF estimates, suggests that the market for
SOFC power could be around 22GW by 2030, representing a substantial market for
our technology. This represents a substantial market for our technology, with
Ceres' ability to meet that demand delivered through the scale-up of our
manufacturing partners.
A clear step forward in commercial delivery
For almost 25 years, Ceres has invested in building world-leading solid oxide
technology. In 2025, that investment translated into some of the most
important milestones in our history. We saw our technology move from
development to production and our commercial strategy sharpen around
the markets that offer the greatest near-term opportunity.
We achieved a significant milestone in July 2025, when Doosan commenced mass
market manufacture of fuel cell stacks using Ceres' technology at its first of
a kind 50MW facility in South Korea. This represents a validation of both our
technology leadership and our asset-light IP licensing model. These early
shipments generated our first royalty revenues, marking the beginning of a
scalable, high-margin future income stream.
Momentum continued across our partner ecosystem. Delta Electronics advanced
at pace towards establishing large-scale manufacturing in Taiwan, targeting AI
enabled data centres, commercial buildings, industrial facilities and
microgrid applications.
During the year Delta acquired land and factory facilities in Taiwan for
approximately £170 million, expected to be partly focused on the large-scale
manufacturing of hydrogen energy solutions, based on Ceres' solid oxide
technology. Delta continues to move at pace and with clear commitment to
initial pilot production based on our technology by the end of 2026.
In November 2025 we announced that we had signed a new manufacturing licence
agreement for the production of our proprietary SOFC technology with Weichai
Power, a global original equipment manufacturer and power systems developer,
headquartered in Shandong, China. Weichai intends to establish a manufacturing
facility to produce cells and stacks for the stationary power markets
supported by key components supplied by Ceres, targeting power for AI data
centres, commercial buildings and industrial applications.
This agreement extends our existing relationship with Weichai, which we
anticipate will open up a multi-billion-dollar market opportunity and boosts
our ambition to establish Ceres as the global industry standard for solid
oxide.
Hydrogen: progress with discipline and purpose
While industry-wide progress on large-scale electrolysis projects has been
slower than anticipated, our own SOEC programme continued to advance in 2025.
At Shell's Technology Centre in Bangalore, our first megawatt-scale
demonstrator produced hydrogen at industry-leading efficiency, a major proof
point of the cost and performance advantages of high-temperature electrolysis.
With a class-leading electrolyser module efficiency of 37kWh/kg of hydrogen
from a 1MW plant, this equates to potential production capacity of around
600kg of hydrogen per day. This milestone marks an important step,
demonstrating the maturity of Ceres' solid oxide electrolyser technology,
supported by Shell's installation, integration and safety assurance expertise.
After completing its technology transfer programme during 2025, SOEC
manufacturing partner DENSO announced in September that it had begun Japan's
first demonstration of SOEC hydrogen production at a JERA (Japan's largest
power generation company) thermal power station. This aims to achieve hydrogen
production with the world's highest level electrolysis efficiency by applying
DENSO's heat-management technology. The project, which is due to run until
2032, is valued at 46 billion yen (c.£220 million), with significant
government subsidies from Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organisation (NEDO) of up to 35 billion yen (c.£165 million).
In India, Thermax continued its rapid progress, following the launch of its
HydroGenX Hub in Pune, our partner broke ground earlier this year on its SOEC
pilot plant, a very clear commitment to deploying Ceres' technology in one of
the world's most strategically important markets for clean energy
in industrial applications.
These milestones reinforce the long-term relevance of our technology as we
expect industrial decarbonisation to gather pace towards the end of this
decade.
In addition to the significant progress being achieved with current partners,
we have also been working hard to ensure that our technology remains an
attractive proposition for future manufacturing partners. Our latest design is
a stack that can generate power or produce hydrogen from the same core cell
and stack platform and enables partners to build both fuel cell and
electrolysis stacks using the same manufacturing facility, allowing them to
leverage their investment in our technology to access the power markets now
and electrolysis markets in the future. I believe that this is a key
differentiator for us and our technology, positioning us as the global leader
in solid oxide energy solutions.
Market dynamics create new opportunities
In parallel to the AI enabled data centre market, other attractive power
applications continue to mature for Ceres through our partners. These include
distributed power provision through microgrids; combined heat, power and
cooling applications for buildings; and auxiliary power systems for marine
vessels. These nascent markets continue to be supported by favourable tax
credit and other incentives to adopt next-generation clean technologies, such
as fuel cells. Key regions where these are available include the US (30%
Investment Tax Credit under Section 48E of the One Big Beautiful Bill for fuel
cell adoption), South Korea (the Green New Deal aims to achieve fuel cell
deployment of 15GW by 2040, supported by tax and other incentives) and Japan
(Green Transformation policies supporting the hydrogen economy, including the
development of large-scale stationary fuel cell power stations).
While progress in our power business accelerated in 2025, securing final
investment decisions for hydrogen electrolysis projects has undoubtedly been a
challenge for the industry, exacerbated by macroeconomic headwinds. However,
as we refocus our commercial activities on the near-term opportunities, we
remain confident that the structural impetus to decarbonise industrial
processes will continue to drive the market over the longer term and that this
will stimulate the industry to adopt more advanced clean technologies such
as solid oxide.
Executing our business transformation plan
During 2025 we defined new strategic priorities that underpin the sharper
commercial focus we have brought to the business (see page 20 for more
details). To ensure we are set up for success, we are optimising the business
and have initiated a business transformation plan, which started in September
2025. This will realign our resources to new market opportunities by the end
of 2026 and consolidate our platform for further growth.
The objectives of this programme are to simplify the organisation, embed
accountable ways of working and align resources with the commercial markets
that matter most.
By the end of 2026, we expect to have:
· Realigned Ceres into focused, delivery driven teams;
· Strengthened partner-centric values and behaviours across the
organisation;
· Reduced operating costs by around 20% compared to the year ending
31 December 2025;
· Supported partners on their path to manufacturing scale-up and
product launch;
· Enhanced our capability to secure new licensing agreements; and
· Commercially launched our best-in-class, dual-purpose stack
platform serving both power and hydrogen markets, consolidating development
onto a unified technology platform ready for scale.
Now is the right time for us to take these actions to optimise the business
and I firmly believe that successful completion will ensure that we operate
with the scale, pace, discipline and clarity required for commercial success.
Outlook
The final words in my review of the year are dedicated to the people at Ceres.
Without doubt, 2025 started as a challenging year for us following the Bosch
announcement in February 2025 and a wider slowdown in hydrogen adoption. I am,
however, very pleased with the manner in which we responded as a business,
demonstrating purpose and professionalism as we refocused on new and evolving
market dynamics represented by the growth in power. I would like to thank
everyone at Ceres for the ongoing commitment and dedication they showed over
the past year. Not only have our teams come together to overcome the
challenges of a turbulent year to deliver key milestones for the business, but
they have also embraced the changes we are putting in place to drive our
next chapter of growth.
Although we are conscious of the uncertainties arising from the war in Iran
and its impact on global energy markets, we start 2026 with strong operational
momentum. We have generated our first royalty revenues and are seeing growing
demand across commercial and industrial power markets - particularly in the
rapidly expanding data centre sector. Solid oxide technology is increasingly
viewed as a high-efficiency, low emission and fast-to-deploy solution for
resilient power. We remain well positioned for electrolysis for green hydrogen
as we anticipate industrial demand will accelerate as global decarbonisation
policies mature towards the end of this decade.
Our sharper commercial focus and strategic pillars aligned during the year
with the resurgence of demand in the power markets, I am confident that we are
well positioned to capitalise on the growth in the power markets today and the
hydrogen electrolysis markets of tomorrow.
As we enter our 25th year, Ceres is firmly positioned for a new era:
establishing our technology platform as the industry standard for solid oxide,
embedding partner-centric values throughout the organisation and maintaining
absolute focus on commercial execution. Together with our partners, we are
moving to market with real pace and unlocking the next phase of growth for
Ceres.
Phil Caldwell
Chief Executive Officer
Financial review
2025 has been a pivotal year for Ceres, marking our transition from a
primarily R&D first organisation to a business firmly focusing on its
commercial phase. Building on the record performance achieved in 2024, we have
advanced each of our key partnerships towards factory completion and the start
of mass manufacturing of Ceres' solid oxide cells. Importantly, we recognised
our first royalty income as Doosan commenced production and sales of Ceres
fuel cells, and we deepened our longstanding relationship with Weichai through
a new manufacturing licence agreement signed in November.
As we move into this next stage of growth, we are maintaining a disciplined
approach to cost management. Across the business, we continued to focus on
operating efficiency, prioritising investment in areas that drive commercial
scaling while taking a rigorous approach to controlling overheads and
optimising our cost base.
Revenue
Revenue for 2025 was £32.6 million, compared with £51.9 million in the prior
year. The reduction primarily reflects the timing of revenues recognised in
2024, when up‑front technology transfer activities were completed for our
new manufacturing licence partners, Delta and DENSO. Our revenue comprises
technology transfers, development licences, engineering services, the
provision of technology hardware and, for the first time, royalties as Doosan
begun commercial production. Licence revenues from the manufacturing licence
agreement signed with Weichai in November 2025 will begin to be recognised in
the first half of 2026.
Gross margin
Gross profit of £22.7 million in the year fell by 43% from £40.2 million in
2024, as a result of high-margin technology transfers conducted with Delta and
DENSO in 2024. Despite the lower revenue base, our gross margin remained
strong at 70% (2024: 77%), illustrating the resilience of our licensing‑led
business model and the continued benefits of disciplined cost management.
Other operating income
Other operating income was 11% higher than last year at £3.2 million (2024:
£2.8 million), which reflects the level of RDEC (R&D expenditure credits)
claimed in the year. As Ceres has now passed the peak of its technology
development investment cycle, we expect this to gradually reduce as our focus
shifts towards the execution and delivery of commercial programmes.
Operating costs (non-exceptional)
Operating costs reduced to £70.1 million (2024: £74.3 million) as we focused
strategic investment on our core product platform to support future commercial
growth. This was delivered alongside disciplined financial management,
including a restructuring programme implemented in the second half of the
year. Following this restructure, the average number of employees decreased to
462 (2024: 546), with the Group ending the year at 353 employees.
Exceptional operating costs
Exceptional operating costs relate to a settlement paid to a supplier for a
contractual dispute (£1.4 million) and an obligation arising from the
termination of a supplier contract (£2.0 million).
Finance income and expense
Finance income decreased to £4.1 million (2024: £5.8 million), which
reflects continued strong interest rates on our bank deposits and short-term
investments in money-market funds with a lower average cash position. We
maintain a stringent treasury policy to balance appropriate market returns
with the security of funds including only high investment grade, and
diversification of, financial institutions. Finance expense increased to £0.6
million (2024: £0.4 million) driven by the unwinding of a finance component
of a customer contract, £0.3 million.
Taxation charge
Taxation charge decreased to £1.2 million (2024: £2.4 million) and reflects
payment of withholding taxes from overseas earnings. The decrease can be
attributed to the up-front licence fees recognised in the prior year from the
new manufacturing licence partners acquired in 2024.
Loss for the financial year
The Group posted a loss of £47.5 million (2024: £28.3 million) for the
period, which reflects the decrease in revenue and gross margin compared to
2024.
Adjusted EBITDA
Adjusted EBITDA loss for 2025 increased to £32.5 million (2024: £22.3
million). Adjusted EBITDA is a non-statutory measure and is detailed in the
Alternative Performance Measures section in this review. The increased loss
is primarily due to the decreased revenue explained above.
Reconciliation between operating loss and adjusted EBITDA
Management believes that presenting Adjusted EBITDA loss allows for a more
direct comparison of the Group's performance against its peers and provides a
better understanding of the underlying trading performance of the Group by
excluding non-recurring, irregular and one-off costs. The Group currently
defines Adjusted EBITDA loss as the operating loss for the year excluding
depreciation and amortisation charges, share-based payment charges,
exceptional costs outside the regular course of business, unrealised losses on
forward contracts and exchange gains/losses.
Total capital investments
Total capital investments comprises capital expenditure (plant, property and
equipment) and capitalised development (intangible assets). In 2025, total
capital investments declined to £1.9 million (2024: £6.7 million),
representing completion in intangible investment culminating in the launch of
our single stack platform.
Working capital movements
During 2025 working capital decreased by £17.4 million (2024: increase of
£15.7 million), due to significant partner invoice receipts in January 2025,
recognised as receivables in 2024. Our continued focus on aligning pilot plant
production with partner demand ensured that inventory levels remained stable.
Cash outflow
Cash outflow (change in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments) was
£19.2 million (2024: £37.5 million). This significant reduction was
supported by substantial partner receipts early in the year and reflects our
continued discipline in managing expenditure. As we progress through the
commercialisation phase, maintaining tight control of cash remains a core
priority, ensuring we allocate resources effectively while preserving balance
sheet strength.
Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments
The Group ends the financial year in a strong position with £83.3 million in
cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments (2024: £102.5 million) to
support future investment as we drive revenue growth, manage costs and
expenditure in a disciplined way, and track towards profit and cash flow
break-even.
Events after the balance sheet date
After the year end, Ceres agreed and paid a settlement of £2.0 million with a
third party in connection with the early termination of a contract.
Outlook
We enter 2026 with strong operational momentum and a clear line of sight to
the next phase of Ceres' commercial growth. Our partners continue to make
meaningful progress towards the start of mass production, with factory
readiness advancing across our global network.
In parallel, 2025 marked an important milestone as we recognised our first
royalties from Doosan's commercial launch. This represents the beginning of a
scalable, high‑margin revenue stream that will grow as additional partners
commence production. Maintaining this momentum is a key focus for the year
ahead.
The launch of our single stack platform further strengthens our product
offering and expands the opportunity for both existing and future partners.
With a robust technology roadmap, a disciplined operating model and a
portfolio of partners approaching commercial scale, Ceres is well positioned
to capture long‑term value from the global transition to efficient,
low‑carbon power and green hydrogen solutions.
Stuart Paynter
Chief Financial Officer
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF PROFIT AND LOSS AND OTHER COMPREHENSIVE INCOME
For the year ended 31 December 2025
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
Note £'000 £'000
Revenue 2 32,643 51,891
Cost of sales (9,939) (11,727)
Gross profit 22,704 40,164
Other operating income(1) 3,168 2,846
Operating costs 3 (70,073) (74,327)
Exceptional operating costs 22 (3,420) ꟷ
Operating loss (47,621) (31,317)
Impairment of investment in associate 22 (2,158) ꟷ
Finance income 4 4,060 5,807
Finance expense 4 (587) (362)
Loss before taxation (46,306) (25,872)
Taxation (charge)/credit 5 (1,240) (2,433)
Loss for the financial period and total comprehensive loss (47,546) (28,305)
Loss per £0.10 ordinary share expressed in pence per share:
Basic and diluted loss per share 6 (24.52)p (14.64)p
The accompanying notes are an integral part of these consolidated financial
statements.
(1) Other operating income relates to grant income and the Group's RDEC tax
credit.
( )
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION
As at 31 December 2025
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
Note £'000 £'000
Assets
Non-current assets
Property, plant and equipment 7 18,194 23,584
Right-of-use assets 8 2,063 1,834
Intangible assets 9 16,203 19,974
Investment in associate ꟷ 2,218
Other receivables 11 741 741
Total non-current assets 37,201 48,351
Current assets
Inventories 10 3,203 2,756
Contract assets 2 143 8,208
Other current assets 12 1,449 1,430
Derivative financial instruments 16 ꟷ 8
Current tax receivable 1,792 ꟷ
Trade and other receivables 11 18,736 17,885
Short-term investments 13 47,437 54,971
Cash and cash equivalents 13 35,835 47,494
Total current assets 108,595 132,752
Liabilities
Current liabilities
Trade and other payables 14 (2,742) (3,538)
Contract liabilities 2 (23,284) (10,682)
Other current liabilities 15 (4,149) (6,825)
Lease liabilities 16 (834) (731)
Provisions 17 (2,214) (441)
Total current liabilities (33,223) (22,217)
Net current assets 75,372 110,535
Non-current liabilities
Lease liabilities 16 (1,575) (1,492)
Other non-current liabilities 15 (976) (1,221)
Provisions 17 (2,376) (2,340)
Total non-current liabilities (4,927) (5,053)
Net assets 107,646 153,833
Equity attributable to the owners of the parent
Share capital 18 19,469 19,370
Share premium 406,650 406,650
Capital redemption reserve 3,449 3,449
Merger reserve 7,463 7,463
Accumulated losses (329,385) (283,099)
Total equity 107,646 153,833
The accompanying notes are an integral part of these consolidated financial
statements.
CONSOLIDATED CASH FLOW STATEMENT
For the year ended 31 December 2025
Note
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
Cash flows from operating activities
Loss before taxation (46,306) (25,872)
Adjustments for:
Finance income (4,060) (5,807)
Finance expense 587 362
Depreciation of property, plant and equipment 7,100 7,472
Depreciation of right-of-use assets 753 710
Amortisation of intangible assets 3,858 1,374
Impairment of associates 2,218 ꟷ
Net foreign exchange (gains)/loss (13) 79
Net change in fair value of financial instruments 90 (99)
Loss on disposal of property, plant and equipment and right of use assets 125 ─
Share-based payments charge 1,260 964
Operating cash flows before movements in working capital (34,388) (20,817)
Increase in trade and other receivables (870) (8,757)
(Increase)/decrease in inventories (447) 69
Decrease in trade and other payables (3,717) (1,809)
Decrease/(increase) in contract assets 8,065 (6,633)
Increase in contract liabilities 12,602 3,213
Increase/(decrease) in provisions 1,717 (188)
Net cash used in operations (17,038) (34,790)
Taxation paid (3,032) (1,019)
Net cash used in operating activities (20,070) (35,941)
Investing activities
Purchase of property, plant and equipment (1,776) (4,449)
Capitalised development expenditure (87) (2,294)
Decrease in short-term investments 7,445 32,537
Finance income received 4,149 8,469
Net cash generated from investing activities 9,731 34,263
Financing activities
Proceeds from issuance of ordinary shares 99 539
Repayment of lease liabilities (792) (774)
Interest paid (495) (243)
Net cash generated used by financing activities (1,188) (478)
Net decrease in cash and cash equivalents (11,527) (2,156)
Exchange loss on cash and cash equivalents (132) (57)
Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of period 47,494 49,707
Cash and cash equivalents at end of period 13 35,835 47,494
The accompanying notes are an integral part of these consolidated financial
statements.
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN EQUITY
For the year ended 31 December 2025
Share Share Capital redemption reserve Merger Accumulated losses Total
capital premium reserve
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
At 1 January 2024 19,297 406,184 3,449 7,463 (255,758) 180,635
Comprehensive income
Loss for the financial year ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ (28,305) (28,305)
Total comprehensive loss ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ (28,305) (28,305)
Transactions with owners
Issue of shares, net of costs 73 466 ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ 539
Share-based payments charge ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ 964 964
Total transactions with owners 73 466 ꟷ ꟷ 964 1,503
At 31 December 2024 19,370 406,650 3,449 7,463 (283,099) 153,833
Comprehensive income
Loss for the financial period ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ (47,546) (47,546)
Total comprehensive loss ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ (47,546) (47,546)
Transactions with owners
Issue of shares 99 ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ 99
Share-based payments charge ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ 1,260 1,260
Total transactions with owners 99 ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ 1,260 1,359
At 31 December 2025 19,469 406,650 3,449 7,463 (329,385) 107,646
The accompanying notes are an integral part of these consolidated financial
statements.
1. Basis of preparation
The financial information presented in this final results announcement has
been prepared in accordance with the recognition and measurement requirements
of UK adopted international accounting standards ("IFRS") as issued by the
International Accounting Standards Board ("IASB"). The principal accounting
policies adopted in the preparation of the financial information in this
announcement are unchanged from those used in the company's statutory
financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2025. Whilst the financial
information included in this announcement has been computed in accordance with
the recognition and measurement requirements of IFRS, this announcement does
not itself contain sufficient disclosures to comply with IFRS.
The financial information contained in this final results statement does not
constitute statutory financial statements as defined by in Section 434 of the
Companies Act 2006. The financial information has been extracted from the
financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2025 which have been
approved by the Board of Directors, and the comparative figures for the year
ended 31 December 2024 are based on the financial statements for that year.
The financial statements for 2024 have been delivered to the Registrar of
Companies and the 2025 financial statements will be delivered after the Annual
General Meeting on 14 May 2026. The Auditor has reported on both sets of
accounts without qualification, did not draw attention to any matters by way
of emphasis without qualifying their report, and did not contain a statement
under Section 498(2) or 498(3) of the Companies Act 2006. The Directors
confirm that, to the best of their knowledge, this condensed set of
consolidated financial statements has been prepared in accordance with the LSE
Rules.
Going Concern
The Group has reported a loss after tax for the year ended 31 December 2025 of
£47.5 million (2024: £28.3 million) and net cash used in operating
activities of £20.1 million (2024: £35.9 million). At 31 December 2025, the
Group held cash and cash equivalents and investments of £83.3 million (31
December 2024: £102.5 million).
The Directors have prepared monthly budgets and cash flow projections that
extend up to 31 December 2027. The forecast operating cash will be lower in
2026 compared to 2025 following the Group's restructuring. Future projections
include management's expectations of the further investment in R&D
projects, new product development and capital investment as the Group sustains
its competitive advantage in licensing fuel cell and electrolysis
technologies. Future cash inflows reflects management's expectations of
revenue from existing and new licensee partners in both the power and green
hydrogen markets.
The projections were stress tested by applying different scenarios in line
with the Group's viability scenarios including a slower intake of future
licensee partners leading to a loss of significant future revenue and a
resulting cost mitigation. In each case the projections demonstrated that the
Group is expected to have sufficient cash reserves to meet its liabilities as
they fall due and to continue as a going concern for at least a period of 12
months. For the above reasons, the Directors continue to adopt the going
concern basis in preparing the consolidated financial statements.
Critical accounting judgements and key sources of estimation uncertainty
In the application of the Group's accounting policies, management is required
to make judgements, estimates and assumptions about the carrying amounts of
assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources.
In preparing the consolidated financial statements, the areas where judgement
has been exercised remain consistent with those applied to the annual report
and accounts for the year ended 31 December 2024.
2. Revenue
The Group's revenue is disaggregated by geographical market, major
product/service lines, and timing of revenue recognition:
Geographical market
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
Europe 4,571 8,689
Asia 27,989 43,064
North America 83 138
32,643 51,891
For the year ended 31 December 2025, the Group has identified four major
customers (defined as customers that individually contributed more than 10% of
the Group's total revenue) that accounted for approximately 33%, 23%, 17% and
11% of the Group's total revenue recognised in the year (year ended 31
December 2024: three customers that accounted for approximately 44%, 26% and
13% of the Group's total revenue recognised for that year).
Major product/service lines
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
Provision of technology hardware 10,289 6,938
Engineering services and licences 22,244 44,953
Royalties 110 ꟷ
32,643 51,891
Timing of transfer of goods and services
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
Products and services transferred at a point in time 14,328 33,030
Products and services transferred over time 18,315 18,861
32,643 51,891
The contract-related assets and liabilities are as follows:
31 December 2025 31 December 2024 1 January
2024
£'000 £'000 £'000
Trade receivables 11 14,938 9,872 3,422
Contract assets - accrued income 143 7,333 1,575
Contract assets - deferred contract costs ꟷ 875 ꟷ
Total contract related assets 15,081 18,080 4,997
Contract liabilities - variable consideration constrained (1,500) (525) ꟷ
Contract liabilities - deferred income (21,784) (10,157) (7,469)
Total contract liabilities (23,284) (10,682) (7,469)
3. Operating costs
Operating costs can be analysed as follows:
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
Research and development costs 48,559 48,531
Administrative expenses 14,199 18,014
Commercial 7,315 7,782
70,073 74,327
4. Finance income and expenses
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
Interest income on cash, cash equivalents and investments 4,060 5,807
Finance income 4,060 5,807
Interest on lease liability (245) (243)
Unwinding of discount on provisions (92) (40)
Unwinding of the finance component of a customer contract (250) ꟷ
Foreign exchange loss on cash, cash equivalents and short-term deposits ꟷ (79)
Interest expense (587) (362)
5. Taxation
A tax charge has arisen as a result of expenditure surrendered and claimed
under the SME R&D regime in the prior year and foreign tax and withholding
tax arising on licence income received from customers based in China, South
Korea and Taiwan.
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
UK corporation tax ─ ꟷ
Foreign tax suffered 1,248 2,445
Adjustment in respect of prior periods (8) (12)
1,240 2,433
6. Loss per share
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
Loss for the financial period attributable to shareholders (47,546) (28,305)
Weighted average number of shares in issue 193,896,776 193,321,401
Loss per £0.10 ordinary share (basic and diluted) (24.52)p (14.64)p
7. Property, plant and equipment
Leasehold improvements Assets under construction
£'000 Plant and machinery Computer equipment Fixtures and fittings £'000
£'000
£'000
£'000 Total
£'000
Cost
At 1 January 2024 8,813 31,317 2,042 391 6,429 48,992
Additions 554 2,786 29 ꟷ 1,805 5,174
Transfers 32 2,357 ꟷ ꟷ (2,389) ꟷ
Disposal (267) (640) (321) (15) ꟷ (1,243)
At 31 December 2024 9,132 35,820 1,750 376 5,845 52,923
Additions 161 30 15 ꟷ 1,570 1,776
Transfers 386 2,055 ꟷ ꟷ (2,441) ꟷ
Disposals (168) (1,435) (259) (16) ꟷ (1,878)
At 31 December 2025 9,511 36,470 1,506 360 4,974 52,821
Accumulated depreciation
At 1 January 2024 3,844 17,273 1,725 268 ꟷ 23,110
Charge for the year 1,564 5,635 224 49 ꟷ 7,472
Depreciation on disposals (267) (640) (321) (15) ꟷ (1,243)
At 31 December 2024 5,141 22,268 1,628 302 ꟷ 29,339
Charge for the year 1,238 5,719 91 52 ꟷ 7,100
Depreciation on disposals (120) (1,417) (259) (16) ꟷ (1,812)
At 31 December 2025 6,259 26,570 1,460 338 ꟷ 34,627
Net book value
At 31 December 2025 3,252 9,900 46 22 4,974 18,194
At 31 December 2024 3,991 13,552 122 74 5,845 23,584
At 1 January 2024 4,969 14,044 317 123 6,429 25,882
'Assets under construction' represents the cost of purchasing, constructing
and installing property, plant and equipment ahead of their productive use.
The category is temporary, pending completion of the assets and their transfer
to the appropriate and permanent category of property, plant and equipment. As
such, no depreciation is charged on assets under construction.
Assets under construction primarily comprise plant and machinery and leasehold
improvements related to the Group's manufacturing and testing facilities.
8. Right of use assets
Land and Buildings Computer equipment Electric Total
vehicles
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Cost
At 1 January 2024 4,658 43 ꟷ 4,701
Additions ꟷ ꟷ 290 290
Disposals ꟷ ꟷ (38) (38)
Adjustment to lease term 145 ꟷ ꟷ 145
At 31 December 2024 4,803 43 252 5,098
Additions 935 ꟷ 106 1,041
Disposals ꟷ ꟷ (111) (111)
At 31 December 2025 5,738 43 247 6,028
Accumulated depreciation
At 1 January 2024 2,522 38 ꟷ 2,560
Charge for the year 648 5 57 710
Disposals ꟷ ꟷ (6) (6)
At 31 December 2024 3,170 43 51 3,264
Charge for the year 658 ꟷ 95 753
Disposals ꟷ ꟷ (52) (52)
At 31 December 2025 3,828 43 94 3,965
Net book value
At 31 December 2025 1,910 ꟷ 153 2,063
At 31 December 2024 1,633 ꟷ 201 1,834
At 1 January 2024 2,136 5 ꟷ 2,141
The lease liabilities are detailed in Note 16.
9. Intangible assets
Internal developments in relation to manufacturing site Internal development programmes Patent costs
£'000
£'000 £'000 Perpetual Total
software £'000
licences
£'000
Cost
At 1 January 2024 411 20,190 525 1,209 22,335
Additions ꟷ 2,010 ꟷ 284 2,294
At 31 December 2024 411 22,200 525 1,493 24,629
Additions ꟷ ꟷ 87 ꟷ 87
At 31 December 2025 411 22,200 612 1,493 24,716
Accumulated amortisation
At 1 January 2024 328 2,514 285 154 3,281
Charge for the year 83 1,019 124 148 1,374
At 31 December 2024 411 3,533 409 302 4,655
Charge for the year ꟷ 3,382 42 434 3,858
At 31 December 2025 411 6,915 451 736 8,513
Net book value
At 31 December 2025 ꟷ 15,285 161 757 16,203
At 31 December 2024 ꟷ 18,667 116 1,191 19,974
At 1 January 2024 83 17,676 240 1,055 19,054
The internal development intangible relates to the design, development and
configuration of the Group's core solid oxide cell and system technology.
Amortisation of capitalised development commences once the developed
technology is complete and is available for use. The net book value of
internal development programmes that are not available for use at 31 December
2025 are £Nil (2024: £812,000). Amortisation of the 640 programme commenced
in 2024.
10. Inventories
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
Raw materials 1,313 1,621
Work in progress 1,319 759
Finished goods 571 376
Total inventory 3,203 2,756
11. Trade and other receivables
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
Current: £'000 £'000
Trade receivables 14,938 9,872
VAT receivable 687 1,120
RDEC receivable 2,814 6,790
Other receivables 297 103
18,736 17,885
Non-current:
Other receivables 741 741
The RDEC receivable is a receivable from the UK Government for the Group's
2025 RDEC claim.
12. Other current assets
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
Prepayments 1,449 1,430
1,449 1,430
13. Net cash and cash equivalents, short-term and long-term investments
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
Cash at bank and in hand 3,287 10,338
Money market funds 32,548 37,156
Cash and cash equivalents 35,835 47,494
Short-term investments 47,437 54,971
Cash and cash equivalents and investments 83,272 102,465
( )
The Group typically places surplus funds into pooled money market funds with
same day access and bank deposits with durations of up to 24 months. The
Group's treasury policy restricts investments in short-term sterling money
market funds to those which carry short-term credit ratings of at least two of
AAAm (Standard & Poor's), Aaa-mf (Moody's) and AAAmmf (Fitch) and deposits
with banks with minimum long-term rating of A-/A3/A and short-term rating of
A-2/P-2/F-1 for banks which the UK Government holds less than 10% ordinary
equity.
14. Trade and other payables
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
Current: £'000 £'000
Trade payables 1,352 2,007
Other payables 1,390 1,531
2,742 3,538
15. Other current liabilities
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
Current:
Accruals 3,907 6,581
Deferred income 242 244
4,149 6,825
Non-current:
Deferred income 976 1,221
Deferred income consists of grant income and RDEC tax credits deferred in
relation to associated development costs which have been capitalised as an
intangible asset. Grant income is recognised in the Consolidated Statement of
Profit and Loss in the same period as the expenditure to which the grant
relates.
16. Lease liabilities
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
At the start of the period 2,223 2,596
New finance leases recognised 106 290
Lease payments (1,037) (1,017)
Interest expense 245 243
Disposals (63) ꟷ
Adjustment to lease term 935 111
At the end of the period 2,409 2,223
Current 834 731
Non-current 1,575 1,492
Total at the end of the period 2,409 2,223
17. Provisions
Property Dilapidations Settlement Total
Warranties Contract Losses
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
At 1 January 2024 2,282 603 ꟷ 44 2,929
Movements in the Consolidated Statement of Profit and Loss:
Unused amounts reversed ꟷ (206) ꟷ ꟷ (206)
Unwinding of discount 40 ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ 40
Increase in provision 18 ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ 18
At 31 December 2024 2,340 397 ꟷ 44 2,781
Movements in the Consolidated Statement of Profit and Loss:
Unused amounts reversed ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ (44) (44)
Unwinding of discount 92 ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ 92
Change in provision (56) (163) 1,980 ꟷ 1,761
At 31 December 2025 2,376 234 1,980 ꟷ 4,590
Current ꟷ 234 1,980 ꟷ 2,214
Non-current 2,376 ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ 2,376
At 31 December 2025 2,376 234 1,980 ꟷ 4,590
Current ꟷ 397 ꟷ 44 441
Non-current 2,340 ꟷ ꟷ ꟷ 2,340
At 31 December 2024 2,340 397 ꟷ 44 2,781
18. Share capital
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
Number of £0.10 £'000 Number of £0.10
Ordinary
Ordinary
shares
shares £'000
Allotted and fully paid
At 1 January 193,699,380 19,370 192,968,096 19,297
Allotted £0.10 Ordinary shares on exercise of employee share options 995,163 99 731,284 73
At 31 December 194,694,543 19,469 193,699,380 19,370
During the year ended 31 December 2025, 995,163 ordinary £0.10 shares were
allotted for cash consideration of £99,516 on the exercise of employee share
options (31 December 2024: 731,284 ordinary £0.10 shares were allotted for
cash consideration of £538,913).
Reserves
The Consolidated Statement of Financial Position includes a merger reserve and
a capital redemption reserve. The merger reserve represents a reserve arising
on consolidation using book value accounting for the acquisition of Ceres
Power Limited at 1 July 2004. The reserve represents the difference between
the book value and the nominal value of the shares issued by the Company to
acquire Ceres Power Limited. The capital redemption reserve was created in the
year ended 30 June 2014 when 86,215,662 deferred ordinary shares of £0.04
each were cancelled.
19. Events after the balance sheet date
After the year end, Ceres agreed and paid a settlement of £1,980,000 with a
third party in connection with the early termination of a contract.
20. Capital commitments
Capital expenditure that has been contracted for but has not been provided for
in the consolidated financial statements amounts to £320,000 as at 31
December 2025 (31 December 2024: £725,000). The reduction in capital
commitments this year reflects Ceres' continued progression through its
technology and manufacturing lifecycle, with major development and
test‑related investment now largely complete as we transition toward a
commercially focused operating model.
21. Related party transactions
As at 31 December 2025 the Group's related parties were its Directors.
Major shareholders have been considered in the Directors' Report within the
annual report and accounts and it was concluded that they do not meet the
definition of a related party in line with IAS 24 'Related Party Disclosures'.
During the year ended 31 December 2025 none of the Directors exercised share
options.
RFC Power Ltd were a related party up until control was obtained on 1 August
2025. There were no transactions with RFC Power Ltd while they were a related
party.
During the year ended 31 December 2024 one Director exercised 380,424 share
options under the Ceres Power Holdings plc 2004 Employees' Share Option
Scheme. The Director sold 282,077 shares and retained 98,347 shares.
22. Exceptional operating costs
Exceptional operating costs
Ceres and a supplier settled a contractual dispute for the sum of £1,440,000.
The Group also recognised a provision of £1,980,000 in respect of an
obligation arising from the termination of a supply contract. The provision
represents management's best estimate of the expenditure required to settle
the obligation at the reporting date.
Impairment of investment in associate
The 24.2% interest in the associate, RFC Power Limited, has been impaired to
£nil. During the period the Group identified indicators to suggest RFC could
not carry on as a going concern. As this cost arises from events outside the
ordinary course of business, it has been presented separately within the
consolidated statement of profit and loss to provide clarity on the Group's
underlying operating performance.
Subsequently, the Group purchased the remaining shares of RFC on 1 August
2025.
Reconciliation between operating loss and Adjusted EBITDA
Management believes that presenting Adjusted EBITDA loss allows for a more
direct comparison of the Group's performance against its peers and provides a
better understanding of the underlying trading performance of the Group by
excluding non-recurring, irregular and one-off costs. The Group currently
defines Adjusted EBITDA loss as the operating loss for the year excluding
depreciation and amortisation charges, share based payment charges,
exceptional costs outside the regular course of business, unrealised losses on
forward contracts and exchange gains/losses.
31 December 2025 31 December 2024
£'000 £'000
Operating loss (47,621) (31,317)
Depreciation and amortisation 10,417 8,029
Share-based payment charges 1,260 964
Unrealised losses on forward contracts (88) 136
Exceptional operating costs 3,420 ꟷ
Exchange gains 90 (99)
Adjusted EBITDA (32,522) (22,287)
Statement of Director's Responsibility
The responsibility statement below has been prepared in connection with the
annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2025.
Certain parts thereof are not included within this Preliminary Announcement.
The Directors confirm that to the best of their knowledge:
· The financial statements, prepared in accordance with the
applicable set of accounting standards, give a true and fair view of the
assets, liabilities, financial position and profit or loss of the Company and
the undertakings included in the consolidation taken as a whole; and
· The strategic report, contained within the annual report and
financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2025, includes a fair
review of the development and performance of the business and the position of
the Company and the undertakings included in the consolidation taken as a
whole, together with a description of the principal risks and uncertainties
that they face.
The directors are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the
corporate and financial information included on the Ceres website at
https://www.ceres.tech (https://www.ceres.tech) . Legislation in the United
Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements
may differ from legislation in other jurisdiction.
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