FuelCell stock drops after reporting bigger-than-expected quarterly loss

• FuelCell shares fell as much as 15% Tuesday following the company's first-quarter financial report.
• The alternative energy company's adjusted loss of $0.06 a share was more than Wall Street's expected loss of $0.04 a share.

FuelCell Energy shares fell as much as 15% on Tuesday after the alternative energy company posted a wider first-quarter loss than Wall Street had expected. Shares pared some losses but closed lower by over 9%, at $15.42.

The company posted an adjusted loss of $0.06 a share, which was wider than a loss of $0.04 a share expected in a consensus estimate produced by Zacks. The company's net loss of $0.15 a share was narrower than its loss of $0.20 a share a year earlier.

The company also said its total revenue fell to $14.9 million from $16.3 million a year ago, leaving the top-line figure below the Zacks estimate of $20.25 million. There was a decline in generation revenues to $4.9 million from $5.4 million because of a temporary shut-down of several Bridgeport fuel cell project plants in Connecticut for scheduled module exchanges, the company said.

FuelCell noted that its first-quarter backlog fell by 7% to $1.27 billion from $1.36 billion in the same period in 2020.

The company also said it's "made tangible progress" in its decarbonization development efforts by producing hydrogen with its solid oxide electrolysis platform.

"Additionally, we continued to advance our joint research with ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company on fuel cell carbon capture solutions," Jason Few, chief executive of FuelCell, said in the financial statement.