June 4, 2026
Orion Says the Turnaround Is Over. The Numbers Agree.
Revenue growth and consistent profits reflect sustained strength in LED lighting
Six consecutive quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA is not something a struggling company manufactures through accounting creativity. At some point, the streak becomes the story. For Orion Energy Systems, that point may have arrived.
The Manitowoc, Wisconsin-based LED lighting, EV charging and maintenance services company reported full fiscal year 2026 results today, posting revenue of $86.3 million, up from $79.7 million the prior year, and adjusted EBITDA of $2.2 million against an adjusted EBITDA loss of $2.9 million in FY25. Q4 alone showed gross margin expansion of 950 basis points, from 27.5% to 37.0%.
CEO Sally Washlow, completing her first year in the role, called the results proof that Orion has moved from turnaround to growth company. The numbers do not contradict her.
Five developments in today's report are worth examining closely...
1. The Streak Is Real, and Management Knows It
Six quarters is a long time to maintain positive adjusted EBITDA when you are also absorbing earnout liabilities, writing off solar assets, and managing an EV charging segment navigating federal funding uncertainty. Orion did all of that while still posting $0.8 million in adjusted EBITDA for Q4 and $2.2 million for the full year.
The company also enters FY27 with liquidity of $15.4 million, working capital of $11.0 million, and a revolving credit facility extended through June 2030. That is not the balance sheet of a company still fighting for survival. The harder question now is whether Orion can translate operational discipline into the kind of durable, scalable growth that justifies the trajectory CEO Washlow has publicly committed to.
2. The LED Business Is Carrying More Weight Than the Story Suggests
Orion has spent several years cultivating an identity as something more than a lighting company. The EV charging bet was central to that reframing. Today's numbers complicate it.
Q4 LED lighting revenue reached $20.3 million, up 86% year-over-year from $10.9 million. Full-year LED revenue rose 17% to $55.9 million. Meanwhile, EV charging revenue fell 61% in Q4 to $2.3 million, and declined 15% for the full year to $14.4 million. Maintenance services fell 23% in Q4 as well. Lighting is not merely one segment among three. It is the engine running the machine, and Q4's result was emphatic about that.
For lighting professionals watching this company, the message is straightforward: the demand for large-scale LED retrofit and installation work remains strong, and Orion is winning its share of it.
3. The Backlog Number Matters
Revenue beats are quarterly events. Backlog tells you where the business is headed. Orion enters FY27 with a backlog of $30 million, up $13 million year-over-year. That is roughly 76% backlog growth, and it supports the company's guidance of $95 million to $97 million in revenue for the current fiscal year, a 12% increase over FY26.
The composition of that backlog reflects some of the largest project categories in commercial and institutional lighting: a $42 million to $45 million, three-year preventative maintenance renewal for 2,050 big-box retail outlets, a $21 million array of electrical contracting engagements across seven customers, and a $10 million EV charging installation program spread across multiple regions. If backlog converts at historical rates, FY27 guidance is not aspirational. It has structural support.
4. The Voltrek Saga Is Closed
Inside Lighting readers will recall the March coverage of Orion's $3 million settlement with Final Frontier, resolving the earnout dispute tied to its October 2022 acquisition of EV charging company Voltrek. Today's earnings confirm what that settlement implied: the overhang is gone.
The final Voltrek-related earnout expense of $1.7 million landed in Q4, pushing operating expenses higher than they would otherwise have appeared. Strip that out, and the quarter looks cleaner still. Washlow acknowledged the completion of earnout payments in her prepared remarks as a marker of organizational progress, and in context, it is. A dispute that once carried a $10 million claim from the sellers, arbitrated down to $3.4 million and ultimately settled at $3.0 million, is now fully absorbed. The acquisition cost more than originally modeled. It is no longer an open question.
5. EV Charging Is Being Quietly Recalibrated
The company's language around EV charging has shifted. Orion's filings now cite "uncertainty around the near-term scope, pace and funding availability for EV charging projects" as the explanation for flat-to-declining segment revenue. That phrasing is measured, but the context is not subtle. Federal incentives for EV infrastructure are under pressure, and Orion is one of many companies recalibrating expectations accordingly.
Full-year EV revenue of $14.4 million trailed FY25's $16.8 million. The Q4 figure of $2.3 million, against $5.8 million in the same quarter a year earlier, reflects project timing as much as structural demand softness. But the company has already told the market to expect EV revenues to run roughly flat or slightly lower, and nothing in today's results challenges that guidance. For Orion, the question is whether EV charging becomes a meaningful growth driver again once the funding environment stabilizes, or whether lighting quietly reclaims the center of gravity it never fully surrendered.
The Road Ahead
Washlow has now said publicly, in filings and on investor calls, that FY27 will demonstrate Orion is a sustainable growth company. That is a specific claim attached to specific numbers: $95 million to $97 million in revenue, positive adjusted EBITDA, a backlog that already accounts for a meaningful portion of the target.
The runway exists. What remains to be seen is whether EV charging stabilizes as a real contributor or continues to subtract from a lighting business that, at the moment, is doing most of the work on its own.
