Orion Secures Additional $35 Million LED Lighting Installation Contract

MANITOWOC, Wis., April 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Orion Energy Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: OESX) (Orion Lighting), announced today that it has expanded the retrofit of a major national account customer’s lighting systems with Orion’s state-of-the-art LED lighting and wireless IoT enabled control solutions at additional locations nationwide. Orion anticipates additional revenue of $35 million under the contract, which is dependent on the customer's issuance of purchase orders. The contract builds upon an earlier letter of intent for Orion to provide approximately $11 million in turnkey LED lighting retrofit services, most of which were completed in Orion’s fiscal 2019 fourth quarter ended March 31, 2019.

The customer selected Orion for additional LED lighting retrofit business based on Orion’s proven ability to design, develop and install customized, highly energy-efficient, U.S.-manufactured LED lighting solutions on a turnkey basis. Orion’s services will again include initial energy audits, custom design, fixture manufacturing, IoT enabled control systems, IoT system commissioning and full project management through installation at a number of the customer's locations nationwide.

A significant portion of the installations are expected to be completed in Orion’s fiscal 2020 first quarter ending June 30, 2019. The installations will include both Orion LED lighting systems and state-of the-art IoT enabled control systems.

Orion CEO, Mike Altschaefl, commented, “These added projects are not only an endorsement of the values, expertise, product quality, and customer commitment of the entire Orion organization, but also a confirmation of the customer’s satisfaction with our solutions and service to date. We look forward to the successful completion of these installations and are optimistic regarding the potential to secure additional projects with this customer.

“Orion is best differentiated in the large national account arena where we are unique in combining project design and engineering, high product quality, energy efficiency, industry leading customer service, U.S. manufacturing, and quick order turnaround all wrapped in a fully turnkey solution including installation services. The successful execution of these and other projects is a core focus of our organization, as customer satisfaction remains the critical ingredient in attracting both new and repeat LED retrofit business.

“We will provide an update regarding our fiscal 2020 financial outlook with our fiscal 2019 earnings call later this spring.”

About Orion Energy Systems
Orion is a provider of enterprise-grade LED lighting and energy project solutions. Orion manufactures and markets connected lighting systems encompassing LED solid-state lighting and smart controls. Orion systems incorporate patented design elements and controls that deliver significant energy efficiency as well as optical and thermal performance that drive financial, environmental and work-space benefits for a wide variety of customers, including nearly 40% of the Fortune 500.

Safe Harbor Statement
Certain matters discussed in this press release are "forward-looking statements" intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including specifically the revenue expectations with respect to the new contract and Orion's updated fiscal 2019 revenue growth expectations. These forward-looking statements may generally be identified as such because the context of such statements will include words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "will," "would" or words of similar import. Similarly, statements that describe our future plans, objectives or goals are also forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from those expected, including, but not limited to, the following: (i) our ability to achieve our expected revenue growth, gross margin, and EBITDA objectives in fiscal 2019 and beyond; (ii) our ability to achieve profitability and positive cash flows; (iii) our levels of cash and our limited borrowing capacity under our revolving line of credit; (iv) the availability of additional debt financing and/or equity capital; (v) our increasing emphasis on selling more of our products through third party distributors and sales agents, including our ability to attract and retain effective third party distributors and sales agents to execute our sales model; (vi) our ability to develop and participate in new product and technology offerings or applications in a cost effective and timely manner; (vii) our ability to manage the ongoing decreases in the average selling prices of our products as a result of competitive pressures in the evolving LED market; (viii) our ability to manage our inventory and avoid inventory obsolescence in a rapidly evolving LED market; (ix) our lack of major sources of recurring revenue and the potential consequences of the loss of one or more key customers or suppliers, including key contacts at such customers; (x) our ability to adapt to increasing convergence in the LED market; (xi) our ability to differentiate our products in a highly competitive market; (xii) the deterioration of market conditions, including our dependence on customers' capital budgets for sales of products and services; (xiii) our ability to complete and execute our strategy in a highly competitive market and our ability to respond successfully to market competition; (xiv) our increasing reliance on third parties for the manufacture and development of products and product components; (xv) our ability to successfully implement our strategy of focusing mainly on lighting solutions using LED technologies; (xvi) the market acceptance of our products and services; (xvii) our ability to realize expected cost savings on the timetable and amounts expected from our cost reduction initiatives; (xviii) adverse developments with respect to litigation and other legal matters pursuant to which we are subject, (xix) our failure to comply with the covenants in our revolving credit agreement; (xx) our fluctuating quarterly results of operations as we focus on new LED technologies and continue to focus investing in our third party distribution sales channel; (xxi) our ability to recruit, hire and retain talented individuals in all disciplines of our company; (xxii) price fluctuations, shortages or interruptions of component supplies and raw materials used to manufacture our products; (xxiii) our ability to defend our patent portfolio; (xxiv) a reduction in the price of electricity; (xxv) the cost to comply with, and the effects of, any current and future government regulations, laws and policies; (xxvi) potential warranty claims in excess of our reserve estimates; (xxvii) our inability to timely and effectively remediate any material weaknesses in our internal control of financial reporting and/or our failure to maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting and (xxviii) the other risks described in our filings with the SEC. Shareholders, potential investors and other readers are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements made herein are made only as of the date of this press release and we undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. More detailed information about factors that may affect our performance may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at http://www.sec.gov or at http://investor.oriones.com/ in the Investor Relations section of our Website.

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