Ameresco just used the second quarter to reposition itself from a federal-energy-services contractor into a credible behind-the-meter data center power developer, and the print is the first time the market can see what that repositioning is worth. The $1.8 billion of new project awards in the quarter, of which $1.2 billion was tied to data centers, lifted the awarded backlog to a record $4.4 billion, up 65% from a year ago, and total project backlog to $6.7 billion, up roughly a third year over year. The $1.5 billion of data center projects now in the awarded pipeline represent one gigawatt or more of firm generating capacity scheduled to come online in phases between 2028 and 2032, with multi-year O&M attachments running 10 to 20 years. In our view, the equity has been re-rated as a generalist energy-services name trading on a backlog conversion story; the right way to think about it from here is as a power infrastructure developer with a project backlog that already gives the market visibility into growth several years out.
The financial print itself is mixed but the directional signal is clean. Revenue of $515.5 million in the quarter rose 9.1% year over year; gross margin expanded 220 basis points to 17.7%; adjusted EBITDA grew 12% to $62.8 million and outpaced the top line; non-GAAP EPS of $0.20 came in ahead of the GAAP $0.18 figure that absorbed the non-controlling interest impact of the new Neogenyx Fuels joint venture. The Neogenyx transaction itself, in which Ameresco contributed its biogas business in exchange for a 70% interest while HASI committed $400 million in cash, added $233.8 million of fresh capital at closing and a $166.2 million pipeline of future contributions, and was the single largest balance-sheet event of the quarter. We read the resulting Q2 GAAP EPS compression to $0.18 from $0.24 last year as a transient optics problem, not a deterioration in franchise quality. The H1 GAAP loss attributable to common shareholders of $(8.6) million reflects timing - Neogenyx's $10.2 million of net income flowed to non-controlling interests, weighing on the bottom line - and the H2 seasonal cadence is expected to follow the normal Q4-weighted pattern.
The single load-bearing risk is execution risk on a backlog of a fundamentally different shape than Ameresco has historically carried. Federal ESPC projects, the legacy business, have a 12 to 36 month construction period and a definable customer; behind-the-meter data center power plants are phased in over 2028 to 2032, are built around multi-billion-dollar customer campuses, and require Ameresco to deliver integrated generation, storage, and microgrid systems as a single package. Five data center projects are already in awarded backlog, a sixth advanced into the pipeline in Q2, and management is partnering selectively rather than bidding for share. The falsifiable clock is the Q3 print in early November 2026: the metric the market is watching is whether contracted backlog, which sits at $2.3 billion today, expands by enough to validate the conversion cadence that the $4.4 billion of awarded backlog implies, and whether 2026 full-year revenue tracks the $2.0 to $2.2 billion guidance range that was reaffirmed on the call.