Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Iren's nine months 2022 results and webcast. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to slowly press star one and then one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand over to our speaker, Mr. Giulio Domma, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Welcome. Welcome, everybody, and thanks for attending our nine months conference call. As usual, first the presentation will be given by the CEO, Mr. Armani, and the CFO, Ms. Anna Tanganelli, then the Q&A session will follow. Gianni, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much, Giulio, and good afternoon, everybody. Starting on page two, we would like to show the main highlights of the last nine months results. EBITDA increased by 4% year-on-year, thanks mainly to the development of renewable business and the contribution of waste treatment business. Almost EUR 1.1 billion of gross investments, 1.8 times higher than last year, as foreseen in the business plan. In a year in which we experienced some strong headwinds, such as the extreme volatility in the energy scenario and the severe drought. Nevertheless, the group managed to grow thanks to the development of the asset base and mitigating actions undertaken by the management.
Despite the almost double the revenues and the possibility of paying bills in installments for customers, the trade and working capital recorded an increase of only EUR 80 million compared to a full year 2021. That was possible thanks to the continuous monitoring of working capital flows across all businesses and the timely intervention with corrective actions. Taking into account all these elements, we continue to confirm the guidance for the end of the year, despite the very challenging remaining quarter. Moving to page three and our ESG results. We can see from the slide our sustainable growth path continues with all major KPIs on track or ahead of the plan.
We can use ESG KPIs as a good representation of our industrial performance. We reported a slight increase in the carbon intensities that stands at 338 g of CO2 per kWh . This is because of the severe drought occurred in the period that strongly impacted our hydroelectric production and reduced the efficiency of our CCGT facilities. Taking into account these two elements that are not recurring, the reported result would have been 322 g of CO2, so 2% less than the figures presented in 2021. On the other hand, the last nine months, we increased our material recovery and biomethane production, thanks to the new plant phasing during the period.
We strengthened our local presence, increasing the waste collection in inhabitants served, through the consolidation of Sei Toscana, and the EPC value of rebuilding projects rose 2.7 times compared to last year, resulting also in a very good performance from EBITDA. Furthermore, we were able to maintain a flat sorted waste collection at 69%, even if the amount of waste on average decreased 3% during the period, due to the slowdown of the economy that occurred during this period of course. Finally, it's worth mentioning that the continuous decrease in the water withdrawal, -4%, is a representation of the reduced water losses. We also reported a positive service quality perception from the clients, particularly in physical stores, and the increase of digital contacts with our clients.
Sustainable investments overall amounted for 72% of the total during the period. Moving to page four, we show the key financial figures of the period. As said before, nine months of 2022, EBITDA reached EUR 759 million, reporting a 4% growth, as said at the beginning, and mainly related to the following factors, the capacity market, which contributed for EUR 51 million combined with the renewable asset performance of EUR 44 million additional EBITDA. Which was counterbalanced by the negative impact of the drought and the energy scenario equal to EUR 70 million negative on the EBITDA.
The impact of drought affected, as said, also in the first half of the year, both the energy business unit with a lack of hydro volumes compared to the previous years, but also market view due to lower natural hedging volumes that had to be compensated with the purchasing of energy in the market. Organic growth of EUR 25 million was mainly driven by rebuilding activities carried out by Iren Smart Solutions and the new waste treatment plants that entered into operations. It's important to mention that the network business hub growth was partially offset by the WACC review that we experienced last year.
Over the period, we experienced also higher operational costs, primarily related to fuel and internal uses of energy, of which I recall is a pass-through only for the water business. That will be recovered in the tariff in the coming years for the part of the cost that refers to regulated activities. The decline in net profit is largely due to extraordinary changes in the elements reported in 2021 versus 2022, accounting for 72%, EUR 72 million. Excluding these extraordinary elements, the negative performance is mainly due to higher depreciation of new industrial investments that enter into operation without registering the increase or a deferred increase in EBITDA, and an increase of bad debt provisions as a result of the doubling of revenues in the period.
Finally, net financial position at the end of September was equal to EUR 3.86 billion, increasing versus December last year due to strong investments and acquisition made in the period and the large impact of gas storage cost that is reported in this nine months results. I now hand over to Anna to go through each business unit results.
Thank you, Gianni, and good afternoon, everyone. Let's now move to our business unit results. Let's start with the business unit networks on slide five. On EBITDA, the 7% RAB increase, mainly driven by water and electricity networks, was entirely offset by, one, the regulatory revision of the WACC, which accounted for EUR 10 million in total, and two, by higher operational costs, the majority of which will be recovered through tariffs over the coming years. In the period, we also reported EUR 9 million of positive one-off, mainly related to tariffs adjustments for previous years. As for investment, gross CapEx increased by 20% over the period, and consistently with previous quarters, such increase was mainly linked to the revamping of wastewater treatment plants and to the increase of our network's resilience.
As a result, these utilization activities, which I remind are crucial to improve monitoring and time intervention, continued, reaching more than 63% of the grid by the end of September 2022, up from 58% of last year. Turning to slide six, the waste business unit posted a +20% EBITDA increase year-over-year, reaching EUR 197 million, mainly driven also in this quarter by the strong performance of waste treatment facilities. Such growth was the result of three main factors. One, a supportive pricing scenario on the energy sold by WTE, combined with higher volumes, as shown in the chart on the bottom right. Here you can see the heat volumes were up +23% year-over-year, while electricity volumes were up +4%. Two, higher prices and volumes of recovered material and waste intermediation.
Three, the phase in of the two new organic waste plants with biomethane production launched in the second half of 2021, which brought our overall biomethane production to 4.3 million cu m by September 10, and contributed for EUR 6 million of EBITDA in the period. As for our collection business, the slight margin reduction versus prior year is mainly due to higher operational costs, primarily fuel and inflation, which will be recovered for tariffs over the coming years. This negative impact was partially offset by the consolidation of Sei Toscana, a waste collection company operating the southern part of Tuscany, which has been fully consolidated since July 1st of this year. Investment of the business units total EUR 118 million, +14% versus prior year.
The growth here, as we already commented in our previous calls, was mainly linked to the development of several new treatment plants over the period. You might remember the new organic fraction treatment plant with biomethane production in Reggio Emilia, the wood treatment plant for pallet production in Vercelli, and the plastic and paper treatment plant in Borgaro Torinese. Now, looking at the remaining part of the year, we expect the waste business unit to continue also in Q4 the same positive EBITDA performance reported in the previous quarters. Thanks to the contribution of the newly consolidated Sei Toscana, as we said, and the support coming from the increased biomethane production, as well as the continued strong performance of WTEs also in the next few months. Moving to our energy business unit on slide seven.
Here, EBITDA increased by EUR 90 million over the period from EUR 170 million to EUR 260 million, thanks to the positive margin contribution of the solar assets acquired beginning of the year and of the capacity market, which countered all the severe hydro reduction resulting from the drought. In particular, solar assets contributed for EUR 44 million of EBITDA, thanks to over 170 GWh produced. This result was partially offset by the impact of the [government's decree of the MiTE], which accounted for EUR 4 million in the period. As we revised downwards as a result of the lower hydro production, our previous estimate of the impact of this measure, you might recall we had announced EUR 11 million in H1 2022, and we now revised this number down to EUR 4 million.
In fact, hydro volumes reduced by almost 400 GWh versus September 2021, affecting also revenues from green certificates. On the flip side, though, the MSD market contribution from hydro accounted for EUR 10 million in the period. CCGT and thermal facilities continued to benefit from the contribution of the capacity market, which accounted for overall EUR 51 million. At the same time, the business reported a EUR -10 million decrease in MSD margin compared to previous year. In addition, production volumes contracted as a result of the temporary cooling difficulties, as well as a turbine failure occurred at the end of June, but will be fully recovered in Q1 2023. Overall, the MSD of the group was flat versus prior year and equal to EUR 70 million in total.
Heat showed a positive performance also in this quarter, despite a slight margin weakening linked to seasonality, and the expiration of [TEE] accounted for EUR -23 million over the period. The good trend of the energy efficiency business, i.e., Iren Smart Solutions, continued also in Q3, with its EBITDA increasing by EUR 16 million year-over-year. As far as the outlook for Q4 is concerned, we expect hydro margins to normalize over the next quarter, combined with a higher spark spread on gas plants, which is expected to more than offset the lower volumes linked to the turbine failure. Going to slide eight, you can immediately see from the chart that the market business unit margin performance shrank in Q3 as a result of the lower hydro production commented in the previous slide, combined with exceptional volatility of the energy scenario.
The strong reduction in electricity margins was mainly driven by the impact of extraordinary high prices on our unhedged volumes. On top of that, exposure to market prices was greater than expected due to, one, a lower naturally hedged volume as a result of the severely reduced hydro production, and two, higher supply volumes, given the unexpected lower churn rate of the period and higher summer consumption. This explains also the +27% volume increase to retail and SMEs clients, as shown in the chart on the top right. If you remain for a second on this volume chart, you can see that the lower electricity sold to business clients was a strategic choice made by the group to optimize the working capital, focusing on businesses with sound credit ratios, while the growth in wholesale volume was related to opportunistic transactions carried out in H1 2022.
Moving to gas margins, we already commented the performance during our last call on H1 results. Here, the decrease was linked to a spike in unhedged volumes associated with colder temperatures, in particular during March and April of this year, bringing us to purchase volumes on the stock market at exceptionally high prices. Last but not least, our customer base reached over 2.2 million customers by September end, of which electricity grew by +13% and gas by +8% versus year-end 2021. Now, looking at the next three months, we expect the negative EBITDA trend experienced by this business unit to finally terminate, and profitability to return to be in line with last year's quarter results, also thanks to an increase in hedged volumes in Q4. Okay, let's now briefly comment the key P&L items below the EBITDA on slide nine.
Depreciation was up EUR 45 million versus prior year as a result of the acquisitions made during the period as well as the increase in CapEx. Bad debt provisions increased by EUR 7 million year- over- year to take into account the exceptional growth in revenues occurred over the last 12 months. Please note that to date, we have not yet experienced any significant deterioration in our credit portfolio, nor in our past due receivables, although we remain very cautious for the remaining part of the year. We also released legal provisions for EUR 12 million in H1, following the positive settlement of certain claims with suppliers and other institutions. One comment on the cost of debt. Our average cost of debt fell by 10 basis points versus prior year to 1.6%.
This is a remarkable result, considering that the overall market, as you very well know, is actually moving in the opposite direction, and was enabled by our high share of fixed rate debt and by a prudent management of our financial resources, which brought us to secure, during the year, bilateral funding at favorable terms with several institutions. No particular remark on taxes, as the impact here is entirely linked to the contributo di solidarietà, which amounted to EUR 31 million, as we had already announced and booked in H1. Finally, minorities increased by EUR 8 million versus prior year, due to the good performance of all the not fully owned subsidiaries, such as TRM, which is the WTE of Turin.
As a result, net profit for the period was EUR 138 million, down approximately EUR 100 million versus prior year, which as you might recall, had been positively impacted by more than EUR 40 million for positive one-offs. Okay. Last but not least, let's now comment on the net financial position evolution over the period on page 10. Net debt increased by EUR 951 million year-over-year, mainly as a result of the net investments and acquisitions carried out during the period, which accounted for almost EUR 900 million, in line with our 10-year strategic plan. The net working capital performance, on the other hand, highlights once again, also in this exceptionally adverse and complex environment, our ability to effectively manage and continuously optimize our trade working capital.
Gas storage increased by EUR 290 million versus prior year as a result of higher volume, +14% year-over-year, and higher prices compared to September last year, in line with the security of supply commitments requested by the government. This effect is expected to be fully reabsorbed between Q4 in 2022 and Q1 2023. At the same time, the temporary elimination of system charges foreseen by the Italian government entailed an increase in receivables for around EUR 60 million. As a result, trade net working capital grew by only EUR 80 million over the period, despite the doubling in revenues and the bills installment payment measure introduced by the government.
Okay, I will now turn the call back to Gianni for a run-through of the action list we put in place over the period to counter the numerous headwinds faced, and for our closing remarks.
Thank you, Anna. Moving to slide 11, I would like to add some color to the actions that the group has taken to limit and eliminate the impact of negative external factors, in particular in Q3, that, as you know, is the quarter in which the performance of the company is normally less effective. Concerning the energy management, we secured 80% of gas annual needs from autumn 2022 to summer 2023, which we estimate around 2.4 billion cu m , taking into account the expected savings in consumption. The rescheduling of payments and invoice collection terms, coupled with an active recall of clients exploring artificial intelligence tools, allowed us to effectively manage net working capital, containing its increase. Strictly connected to the energy management is the topic of matching calls on energy derivatives.
At the beginning of the year, the group has made a strategic decision to sterilize all open positions in the European Energy Exchange, which is the market that is requiring daily margin calls. To stop any further activities on EEX, thereafter, all hedging transaction have been transferred to the OTC market, where Iren managed to secure contracts which don't require cash collaterals. As far as capital structure is concerned, at the end of September 2022, the group had almost EUR 1 billion of liquidity against debt maturities of EUR 384 million in Q4, and only EUR 52 million during all 2023 full year maturities.
On top of that, Iren had additional committed and hot money lines available from banks to support the daily activities on the energy market and further strengthen the liquidity and credit ratio vis-à-vis our rating agencies. Finally, the double-digit inflation we are already experiencing had a negative outcome on our operational costs. However, in the regulated businesses, it is possible to recover this higher operational cost in the tariff during the next years. In addition, RAB itself will be reevaluated using a larger deflator. On the non-regulated activities, the inflation cost will be recovered thanks to the significant ongoing performance improvement projects outlined in the business plan. Moving to the closing remarks on page 12.
Despite the tough environment, Iren reinforced over these nine months its investments towards the energy transition, thereby achieving several sustainable targets ahead of the 10-year plan that we approved last November, mainly thanks to the renewable and enlarged geographical perimeter on waste collection. Doing so, we also maintain our strong focus on financial discipline, effectively managing our working capital through several actions that we already described in the previous slides. Finally, it's worth mentioning that we expect a challenging last quarter ahead of us, where the stop of in repricing activity will be combined with the severe scenario in volatility. Nevertheless, the negative impact on market-wide profitability is expected to be compensated in 2022, thanks to a stronger estimated margin contribution from energy and waste views.
We therefore can confirm full year 2022 guidance, in particular EBITDA growth up 6% versus last year. Gross investments at EUR 1.4 billion in line with the 10-year plan favoring projects, of course, that ensure shorter time to EBITDA performance. In particular, net financial position over EBITDA at 3.4 times. Let me underline that this is our key target in the short term, and this uncertainties in terms of scenario is important to keep under control net financial position versus profitability. We are strongly committed to keeping these financial ratios under control. Any potential shortfall in EBITDA will therefore be offset by corrective action and to contain leverage. Thank you for the attention, and we can now move to Q&A session.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to slowly press star one and then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, it's star one and then one on your telephone. We are going to proceed with our first question. The questions come from the line of Javier Suárez from Mediobanca. Please ask your question. Your line is open.
Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for the presentation. Three questions. The first one on the financial position, the second one on the supply business, and the third one on the overall strategy balancing CapEx and dividends. On the financial position, the company confirms the target for net debt to EBITDA 3.4 times by the end of the year. Can you help us to understand which are the building block on that argument?
I'm particularly interested in your assumptions related to working capital absorption, what you are expecting by the year end, and why do you feel comfortable in a scenario in which maybe working capital absorption becomes an issue because of the macro situation, why the company feels comfortable that through its managerial action to contain that net debt to EBITDA at just 3.4 times by the year end? The second one is on the market division. Obviously there is a very difficult scenario that has become even worse for you due to the ongoing drought.
The question for you is what has changed for the company in terms of a commercial strategy in the supply activity or hedging strategy as well, and how the company intends to change both aspects to face the last quarter of the year and the year 2023? Because that is probably an area of concern, the capacity of the company to continue dealing with what seems to be a very complicated supply market. The third question is on the scenario. The question is a little bit of a higher profile in the sense that you are accelerating on CapEx. CapEx has almost multiplied by two, interest rates scenario changing significantly.
How do you see that equilibrium between a company accelerating on CapEx cost of financing that becomes more stringent down the road? How does the company tend to modulate these two moving pieces? A part of the question is also related to the capacity for the company to consider asset rotation as part of the strategy. It has appeared in the press the possibility of selling a minority stake in your gas distribution activity. You can comment on that. That would be helpful as well. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much for the question, so it's very clear. First of all, working capital, we, of course, have a seasonal effect that is very strong this year, that is the use of storage we reduce, of course the EUR 300 million that we have inflated in the storage facility. This is a reduction more or less of EUR 120 million-EUR 150 million in our working capital. In general, we have managed during this tough three months to rebalance our, let's say, incoming flows versus outgoing.
Therefore, by having tuned the days in which we get paid versus the days in which we collect, we are confident that we can keep that balance unchanged. Third, we have been very effective in managing our collection on clients. This is in part general effects in the market in the fact that the aggressiveness and the commercial actions by the market in general has reduced the churn. This has in turn reduced the number of or the quantity of last invoice that clients leave when they change when they switch suppliers. This fact this normally is the biggest source of bad debt in this kind of business.
Therefore, we expect this not to change in the coming months. Of course there is, in general, an effect that we can foresee with different prices. As market prices goes up, we generally have an increase in EBITDA, but also an increase of working capital. This also works when the price goes down. This makes us very confident in the ability to manage the net financial position over EBITDA ratio.
On the supply, of course, on one hand, as explained very well by Anna, we were exposed to sudden imbalance in our hedging policy, that was up to 20% of our total volumes, in part from unexpected higher consumption in the summer, in part by lower churn during the period, and finally by the reduction in natural hedging quantity. Of course, all these three elements have been counterbalanced by our hedging policy, and therefore we don't expect additional impact going ahead. It's worth mentioning that, of course, all these short-term impacts that we are experiencing in this phase in the market will someday change on the flip side.
It's good that the company is holding the position without having a strong impact going forward. Finally, on CapEx. First of all, there is a strategic element that we have to highlight both for renewables and the circular economy. The value of those investments has only increased in these difficult times. The urgency and the value of these investments is increased, and you can see it from the value that was generated by the acceleration in renewables this year. We see a strong value in those investments in the implementation of biomethane infrastructures and so on.
Secondly, we can state that arriving at EUR 1.4 billion of investments this year, we are already in a steady state position in terms of investments trend. The company is, with its cash flow, is managing this amount of investments well. Thirdly, we have accelerated, as you might have seen from some articles that we are accelerating the asset rotation policy that we produced in the business plan. We, as you know, have planned to find partners to finance the development on the gas networks.
That is a priority in our business plan, and we have several other initiatives that potentially can be activated in order to find partners to finance our investment opportunities.
Thank you.
We are going to proceed with the next question. It's from the line of Roberto Letizia from Equita. Please ask your question. Your line is open.
Yes, good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. My first one actually goes on the repricing activities on your clients. I guess repricing is having a stop or a slowdown also due to the government intervention. I was wondering when do you actually expect your price to go back to market level, and when, on average, you see the average expiry of your existing contracts which will allow you to get the final margin to client improving. I have a question on the gas storage, just a clarification to be sure on the margin evolution going forward. You had a lot of fill up of gas storage as many other operator in the market.
I was wondering if this gas is already covered by selling contracts, in a sense that the gas you filled in today has been filled at very high prices, while the price for the regulated customer is going down with the new way the government is, the regulator is looking to assess it. I wanna be sure that the gas you filled in at very high prices is not having any margin issue in the coming months because it has been already attached to selling contracts. I was wondering if you can touch, please, the upcoming potential regulatory risk. The new prime minister is already anticipating some action lines for the coming months, which touches again the issue of the extra profit taxation.
Don't know if you had any chat with them, any thoughts on what can be done on these, on this field, and what kind of risk may exist for a company like you. A final one, you confirmed the EBITDA guidance. I was wondering if you can give us a net income indication. In case you cannot provide it, you, if you can at least give us what do you expect in terms of D&A and provisioning, so basically difference between EBIT and EBITDA, including provision, consequently for the full year, just to give us a better chance to assess the net income for the full year. Thanks a lot.
You are asking for the absolute value or then?
The breakdown [crosstalk].
The breakdown of the elements.
No, both of them. I'm curious also about the amount of overall provisioning that you were gonna do this year. Certainly, yes. Thanks.
No. Okay. First of all, repricing, as we mentioned on the first half, we were projecting EUR 50 million of extra margin on repricing. This is, of course, been forbidden by the Aiuti-b is intervention. We offset all of it already in the forecast with compensating actions on the energy business unit and waste, of course, for this year. We have, of course, a discussion open on, as you might have read, on the deadline at which this Aiuti will be applicable.
We, together with the authority for energy, consider the end of the contract as the end of the application of the Aiuti-b is, whereas the antitrust has a different opinion. We of course are confronted with this opinion, taking into account that the regulation that was approved also by the European Commission implies that if you enter into a private contract, you have to give to compensate for eventual losses that should be put in place in order to compensate for this. For this year, this discussion that's not happening, but on the current forecast for EBITDA, we still have to program and to see what is the impact for next year.
Of course, we have so many things that are open for the next year that we can, we will give you the difference, I mean, the value as we close the 2022 results. On storage, we have, of course, the storage implementation was done during a very high price period. Of course, current prices are very low. This is because the demand is extremely low. This of course is not representative of what, you know, what are all the prices that we will experience during the winter, the real winter.
Of the total amount of storage, we have 50% that is hedged with the two-way contract system that was implemented by the tariff, and 30% is hedged with a six with a fixed price. We have the remaining 20% that is exposed to the value of our client contracts. On extra profits, of course, we have no ability to forecast what the authorities have in mind. What we can say is that the decrease in net gains from the company profits. The company is a representation of the fact that our company at least is paying extra profits but is not making extra profits.
It's, I think this should be evident also to the government. Therefore, probably, new resources will need to be found in order to offset the part of the extra cost that the clients are bearing, but I think they cannot be taken from the energy companies. Otherwise, you will, as a consequence, as a state, have an impact on investments and other, I mean, more profound crisis. On net income, we can say a few things. We can say that we project net income in line with that we registered before 2021.
is more or less EUR 70 million, that is the extra provisions that are registered this year and are not registered as positive extra provisions...
Yeah, yeah.
That were registered in 2021.
Positive fiscal one-off.
Positive fiscal one-off. This is our expectation. D&A is around EUR 500 million, EUR 520 million, more or less.
We're talking about a net income in the region of EUR 240 million. Is that correct? You mentioned EUR 200 million the year before.
Yeah.
More or less.
Around that area. Okay. Thanks.
The change would only be around bad debt provisions. I think right now we have made an estimate. Obviously, if the bad debts should deteriorate over the next month, which are the critical ones, that might obviously impact the net income as well. For now, I think you are ballpark correct.
Yes, that's clear. That's clear.
Of course, we expect, I mean, part of the investments that are now registered and start to have a RAB will be rewarded, I'm sorry, a RAB tariff when the tariff will catch up.
Once again, if you do have any questions or comments, please slowly press star one and then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. It's star one and then one on your telephone. We are going to take the next question. It's from the line of Emanuele Oggioni from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please ask your question. Your line is open.
Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for the presentation. I have a few questions. The first one is on your expectation about the price cap on infra-marginal technologies to be applied in 2023 based on the European Commission proposal, currently over EUR 180 per MWh. Do you think the Italian government would have set this threshold and, in general, the mechanism proposed by the European Commission, which protect the current already sold volumes sold forward, so the hedging policy?
The second question is related to if you can disclose the volumes and prices already hedged for next year, which will be still so protected by this new regulatory scheme. A further question is on the antitrust inquiry against your practices on energy contracts with final customers. I would like to understand the maximum fine in the worst case scenario, what could be. The final question is on the agreement with SACE to support the installment of energy bills. You have recently signed this agreement.
The question is, if you are planning to have a facility also on net working capital needs and very final question is on the cost of debt. It's true that in the nine months it was stable, or even lower year-on-year. I wonder what is the marginal cost for refinancing currently, at both variable and fixed interest rates, and also for bank loans and also for bonds at fixed rates. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. First of all, I would like to highlight the fact the antitrust issue. You asked for the maximum fine that we expect. It is very hard to imagine a fine in general, because we didn't do anything that damaged our clients, not at all. We have been, let's say, put under discussion by the antitrust for the letters that we sent before the implementation of antitrust letters that we recalled right after the Aiuti-b is decree. No client has been or has seen modification of the terms of the contracts during this period. We see very little that the antitrust can build in terms of fine in our.
Of course, it's not that it doesn't generate an impact. We were foreseeing, of course, to change the conditions in terms of the contracts, particularly the fixed prices values at the end of the contract, because this is how the contract is defined, and is signed by two parties. The antitrust is focusing on this point, but is like looking in the future. It's not. We have no contract that has expired in these months since the approval of the Aiuti-bis decree. In terms of price cap on infra-marginal production, we have, of course, there are two ways to implement those. First one is, actually three.
One is to continue the Sostegni ter evaluation, so to extend the period in which you apply the maximum value of market price to the, let's say, the renewable production that has been in a way incentivized by the government, or via a concession mechanism extension, or via specific fixed remuneration. This is a way. You've seen this year the impact of that provision for us is EUR 4 million. We had a maximum of EUR 11 million estimated at the beginning of the year. This is more or less the impact. Of course, you have a different implementation that is to put a cap at EUR 180 million on all.
I'm sorry, at EUR 180 per MWh on all the renewable production and WTE production. This on the other end should not have a huge impact on our numbers. Of course, we had experienced an average higher price on photovoltaic production, but a lower average price on WTE production. Overall, we don't expect a significant impact in the case of application of this provision. Of course, I'm more in favor than, I mean, these measures that put a cap and leave the market as it is to systems that provide a long-term modification of the, let's say, market dynamics.
There is a trade-off between time and price that renewables would favor, because most of the investments and the cost of renewables is very supported by the investors at the beginning of the implementation of renewables. There is a trade-off that all investors are willing to share with the counterpart, a lower price vis-à-vis more certainty on the remuneration during the years. This trade-off can be placed into a market and, as normally you would do it with the right incentives. This probably would give to the regulator a higher remuneration and higher value that can be transferred to clients and would lower the cost of capital for renewable investments, facilitating future investments in this market.
I think of the three choices, the first two should not have a significant impact on our business. The third, of course, reduces the embedded risk in the investments on renewables, and we would favor it because it gives also long-term expectations on remuneration that is more, let's say, a long-term solution.
On hedging volumes, I cannot give you the figures. I can give you a trend. We are expecting to reduce the amount of energy that is exposed to a fixed price in the supply business, reducing by half or more or less the amount of energy that is exposed to a fixed price solution in 2022. In addition, we have a policy to cover 80%-95% of total fixed price energy contracts. This is the terms that we will apply when we build our energy portfolio in 2023. I leave then to Anna to respond on SACE and cost of debt.
Yeah. On SACE, yes, we are looking at the RCF line. We are, let's say, assessing an access to this line through a simplified procedure for an amount, which is, I would say, limited, maybe around EUR 100 million. We don't have necessarily a need to secure this line, but it's available, so why not? We have, as Gianni had mentioned already, several uncommitted lines and half money available to manage both our operations and our activity on the energy market, but also to potentially, let's say, manage also the working capital needs. We don't expect, let's say, any particular need. Having said that, as I said, it's available, so why not? We are looking into it.
In terms of cost of debt, this also was mentioned by Gianni. We don't have any immediate refinancing need. We have around EUR 384 million, so less than EUR 400 million of bonds maturing in Q4. We have enough liquidity to reimburse that. Then in 2023, there is only a very small tranche maturing, which is around EUR 50 million. Having said that, we made some simulations, and thanks also to some pre-hedging we did on interest rates, I would say in the next one or two years, our average cost of debt should not exceed 2%, let's say in the next, as I said, 12 months-24 months.
Thank you. Very clear.
We are now going to proceed with the next question. It's from the line of Davide Candela from Intesa Sanpaolo. Please ask your question.
Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for the presentation and taking my question. I just have two. The first one is on your gas procurement activities. You said that you procured around 80% of your annual needs. I was wondering if this is due to the fact that you didn't find some gas affordable on the market or is just an opportunistic solution you perform due to the fact that or assuming that there will be lower gas consumption in this winter. If it is the case, actually you can be 100% or close to 100% procured for your annual needs. Just a clarification on that and about your strategy on gas procurement. A second question on CapEx.
It seemed to me that you lowered a bit your guidance for the full year for about EUR 100 million. I was wondering if for the remaining part of the year, so the fourth quarter, assuming approximately around EUR 300 million, if you have some levers to, if it's the case, to comply with your leverage guidance to lower such CapEx in case you need it, and if such. So basically if these CapEx are not all mandatory and you have some flexibility on that. Thank you.
Okay. First of all, on CapEx, we, as a matter of fact, limited our CapEx performance on the last part of the year, focusing only on the CapEx that is immediately adding EBITDA. I mean, the deferral of the CapEx is not an issue if it's we are talking about a few months. Of course, it's a more strategic approach if you have to defer it for a larger number. As said, we are not seeing a significant reduction in remuneration of our CapEx. Actually, part of the CapEx is becoming more and more remunerative in particular renewables. Therefore, we have not defined a strategy to reduce it significantly versus the business plan. As said, we are already at the regime level that we expect for the 10-year plan. Therefore, we can keep this cruise velocity.
Of course, we have a full flexibility given the fact that 70% of our CapEx is for development CapEx. Therefore, we can stop our strategy in case we see a significant value destruction in making investments. As long as there is an opportunity for CapEx, we can meet our financial needs, finding partners to follow us on the way. I think, the market is full of people that is looking for investment opportunities. It needs only an industrial partner that is able to deliver the good opportunities, and Iren is exactly what we see.
On gas procurement, we have decided to not fulfill the 100% coverage, because, of course, we see some flexibility going ahead to be exploited. In particular, our thermoelectric production is fully hedged on the PSV prices, given the fact that I can buy gas on the spot and produce at a significant clean spark spread margin. We can exploit this. Of course, we foresee the risk of having a reduction in the consumption from clients, of which we don't want to be exposed. Therefore, we committed to 80% of contracts in the short term. I don't know if you have to add anything.
No.
Thank you. Clear.
We have no further questions at this time. I hand back the conference to you for closing remarks. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Looking forward to talk to you about the final end of the year results. Have a nice day. Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.