Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Iren's First Quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be the Q&A session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star and One on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Giulio Domma, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for joining Iren conference call on our first quarter 2022 results. We will start with the presentation, which will be given by the CEO, Mr. Armani, and the CFO, Ms. Anna Tanganelli. The Q&A section will then follow. Now I will leave the floor to Mr. Armani. Gianni, go ahead, please.
Thank you, Giulio, and good afternoon, everybody. Let me start to quickly summarize some of the highlights of the quarter in page two. Despite the challenging energy and market scenario that we experienced in the first months of 2022, Iren is at full speed ahead on the execution of the 10-year plan we presented in November last year. In the quarter, we posted a strong performance on all key financial metrics, with EBITDA up 16% year-on-year, reaching a record EUR 363 million of results, and gross investments accelerating by 2.3x compared to previous year.
At the same time, our sound in optimizing working capital management, combined with a robust operating cash flow generation, allowed us to maintain a very stable net financial position throughout the quarter, with the net debt up only EUR 40 million versus the end of 2021. Once again, our results have been supported also by our effectiveness in integrating the energy value chain that have been strengthened in this quarter, thanks to the contribution of 122 MW solar plants acquired in February, which helped us to further improve our natural hedging strategy, even in a scenario with lower precipitation. In addition, we gave a boost to set up our renewable organization and management framework, which is now ready to quickly integrate further opportunities during the year.
Finally, we continue to demonstrate the capability to extract value from the integration of recently acquired companies, particularly in the waste business, leveraging also our development CapEx opportunities to grow our asset base. Moving on page three, our ESG results in the quarter. As you can see from the slide, we are on track and on some instances even ahead of the plan on all major ESG KPIs. Solar contribution gave us a strong acceleration in the achievement of our green transition targets, particularly on the carbon intensity. Now at 305 g of CO2 per kWh and doubling our green energy sold to our clients versus last year, well ahead of the 10-year plan targets.
We are on track also on our ambition related to local presence. In particular, we have been growing our district heating capacity, reaching 900,000,000 cu m in this quarter. Also the sorted waste collection activities contributed to performance in line with expectations, while EPC value of rebuilding projects quadrupled compared to last year. Finally, we significantly improved also our service quality levels compared to the initial targets. We demonstrated a strong increase in the client digital transactions now at 60%. We also almost halved the average waiting time of our customers on the call center. Furthermore, we had a 4% decrease in the water withdrawal per inhabitant per day, which is a proxy of the reduction in water losses well ahead of the plan.
Moving to slide four, which shows the key financial metrics of the quarter. As we mentioned, EBITDA was up 16.2% in the quarter, and EBIT was up even, a better 22.9%, at EUR 226 million. On the back of the following main factors, the integrated energy value chain contributed positively, for EUR 18 million as a net between, different elements, particularly the growth in the generation business and, a general, reduction in the, market activities, that is exposed, in a scenario with a high energy or growing energy costs. Taking into consideration our natural hedging policy and the financial commodity derivatives, the positive results overall, shows, an exceptional performance.
In the first quarter 2022, we saw also the kickoff of the capacity market, which contributed to additional EUR 17 million in the quarter. Organic growth weighted an additional contribution for EUR 11 million, sustained by investments mainly in the network with positive effects on the tariff compensating WACC reduction implemented last year by the ARERA. The increase in rebuilding activities was a positive contribution, and the ramp-up of the two biomethane plants that were completed last year. Finally, we have a EUR 6 million contribution from the photovoltaic plants that we acquired at the beginning of the year.
Please note that our first quarter results, net results, have been affected by a full year impact of the contributo di solidarietà decree of EUR 24 million, which includes the best estimates also of the new measures announced by the Italian government in May 2nd, including therefore the announced increase in the charge from 10%- 25%. Without this impact, the net profit would have been the industrial contribution to net profit overall would have set the net profit to EUR 142 million. The effect of the Sostegni ter decree, on the other hand, was limited in this quarter, but we confirm overall during the year a EUR 20 million estimate for the full year impact.
First quarter investments, as already mentioned, reached EUR 378 million, driven by the acceleration on renewable capacity, a higher technical CapEx, which allowed us to grow organically and to increase the number in energy efficiency projects. Finally, considering such a significant growth in the investments, it is important to underline our net financial position that remained very stable throughout the quarter compared to last year, and this will be better explained by Anna in the following slides. I will hand over now to Anna in order to go deeper into the business unit results and overall financial results.
Thank you, Gianni, and good afternoon to all of you. Moving to the single business unit results, starting with the business unit network on slide five. As you can see from the chart, the business unit maintained a stable profitability performance year-over-year, despite the regulatory revision of the WACC, which accounted for an overall EUR 3 million. This result was achieved thanks to the investments made in prior years in water and electricity network, and which are reflected in the 7% total RAB increase of the quarter. Quick comment on gas. Here, the limited growth in RAB is very much consistent with our long-term strategy of maintaining a stable gas RAB over time.
Overall investment of the period increased by 14% year-over-year, as shown in the chart on the top right, and were mainly related again to water and electricity network, and in particular to the revamping of wastewater treatment plants and to projects aimed at increasing the resilience of our electricity networks. Finally, the structurization activities functional to wastewater loss reduction continued also throughout this quarter, reaching more than 60% of the grid. Turning to slide six, the waste business unit posted a 26% EBITDA increase year-over-year to EUR 65 million, mainly driven by treatment and disposal activities, which benefited from a favorable energy scenario combined with an optimized saturation of WTE.
In particular, the EUR 17 million EBITDA growth in treatment and disposal were the result of a +39% rise in heat volume sold compared to prior year, as highlighted in the chart on the bottom right of the slide, and of favorable prices in the quarter. Strong margin contribution also from recoverable waste and from the ramp-up of the two new biomethane plants phased in during 2021, with biomethane production reaching 1.3 million cu m in the quarter. Quick comment on the amount of waste managed in Q1, as you can see from the chart on the top right. The reduction here is entirely linked to the decrease in other waste managed due to a lower intermediation of third-party waste. Moving to collection activities, the slight margin reduction versus prior year is mainly due to higher operational costs incurred to improve service quality.
Finally, the business unit posted overall investment of EUR 23 million in the quarter, up at least 5.6% compared to Q1 2021, linked to new treatment plants, particularly in organic fraction of biomethane production, plastics and paper, which should be operational by year-end, and to the improvement in digitization of our collection service. As for the energy business unit on slide seven, EBITDA increased by 78% in Q1 to EUR 165 million, thanks to a strong performance of our asset base, the contribution of our renewable capacity, and a positive scenario effect. This margin performance in the quarter incorporated also normalization of the underlying profitability following the contraction experienced over the last couple of years. This normalization effect accounted for approximately EUR 25 million out of the total EUR 49 million.
Please note that these results do not include the impact of our recently announced 2022 district heating bonus, foreseen by Iren for families in financial distress, and which will be corresponded to clients between Q2 and Q3 2022. As for Thermo, Q1 performance was driven by higher clean spark spreads, plus MSD of around EUR 15 million, and a rise in volume produced. As already mentioned by Gianni, Q1 saw also the kickoff of the capacity market, which contributed for EUR 17 million. Hydro, on the other hand, was affected by exceptionally lower volume, down 60% versus Q1 2021, reducing also the amount of green certificates recognized. Last but not least, the newly acquired photovoltaic assets contributed for EUR 6 million, while the strong performance of Iren Smart Solutions, i.e. our energy efficiency activities, resulted in a EUR 7 million year-over-year EBITDA increase.
Moving to slide eight. Here the performance of our market business unit in the quarter, in particular for what concerns electricity margins, needs to be read in light of our integrated value chain management and natural hedging strategy. The minus EUR 28 million year-over-year contraction in electricity margins in the BU was, in fact, almost fully recovered by our generation assets performance, as we commented in the previous slide. As for gas margins, the decrease here was linked to a spike in volume associated with colder temperatures, in particular during March, bringing us to purchase missing quantities on the spot market at exceptionally high prices. Finally, strong increase in retail clients acquisitions in the quarter, now at 2.05 million, i.e. plus 60K versus end of last year, with new clients mainly acquired from electricity free markets.
The growth of the customer base was directly related with the increase in electricity volume sold to retail clients and to small medium enterprises, +30% versus prior year, which offset the reduction in B2B. Also, gas reported higher volume sold to retail and small medium enterprises, +9% versus last year. Let's move now to slide nine to briefly comment some of the key elements below EBITDA. I would say no major remarks here, neither on D&A, which was up EUR 9 million versus prior year on the back of the robust investment curve, nor on provision, which remained overall stable across the period. As for financial charges, average cost of debt remained in line with the target reached at year-end, at 1.7%, down 10 basis points versus 1.8% of Q1 2021.
As mentioned by Gianni, as for taxes and the resultant net profit, here both were affected by the impact of the contributo di solidarietà decree for EUR 24 million, which, as Gianni said, includes our best estimate also of the new measures announced by the Italian government on May second, including, as said, the announced increase of the charge from 10%- 25%. Without this impact, net profit of the quarter would have been EUR 142 million, up 27% versus prior year, which in turn included a EUR 12 million positive one-off impact associated with the Unieco debt restructuring. On page 10, we show the net financial position evolution from December 31st to March 2022.
As you can immediately see from the chart, net debt remained very stable throughout the quarter, thanks to a strong operational cash flow generation, a disciplined working capital management, and the positive impact of derivatives, mainly commodities. Working capital, in particular, increased only marginally in the quarter by EUR 82 million, thanks to an optimized management of the supply chain and despite an increase in trade receivables linked to the increase in turnover, the rise of commodity prices, and the impact of bills installment payments. The disciplined financial position evolution enabled to largely offset the EUR 378 million gross investment of the period, which included technical investments for about EUR 140 million, the acquisitions, mainly, i.e., the solar assets in Puglia for EUR 166 million, and EUR 52 million of energy efficiency projects gross of public contributions and incentives.
Thank you, and I will now turn the call back to Gianni for our closing remarks.
Thank you, Anna. To wrap up, before we go to the Q&A, I would like to highlight just a few key messages for 2022. The coming months, we will concentrate our forces on delivering our plan, of course, with maintaining a rigorous working capital management and exploiting our natural hedging policies and assets. We also will continue to execute our own investment plan, especially accelerating the development of our renewable capacity, with an objective to reach by the end of the year a photovoltaic and wind capacity of 250 MW, that is half of the target that we had for 2026.
We are very confident to be able to reach this important milestone, given the extensive pipeline that we have under management at the moment, more than 300 MW. We will develop and continue to monitor the evolution during 2022. Given all the above and supported by the sound results of this quarter, we confirm our 2022 full year guidance. We therefore thank you for the attention, and we can now move on to the Q&A session.
Thank you. Dear participants, we will now begin the Q&A session. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. The first question comes from the line of Roberto Letizia from Equita. Please ask your question.
Yes. Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I have several, so we'll start with a few and then maybe do some follow-up. I would like to first ask you what's the trend in the hydro reserve during the last month? We had some recovery. I was wondering if you envisage an improvement in the potential hydro production for the next month. You just touched the guidance for the renewables and the pipeline, which is 300 MW. I was wondering if you can comment about the opportunity to expand it in the next month and through which channels. Can you please elaborate on the macro scenario, hence the coverages, hedgings you are currently putting in place and risk of missing gas supplies, how do you intend to manage?
Then how do you think the repricing campaign to final customer is actually going, and what do you expect to recover in terms of unitary margin profitability for the next month? Thanks a lot for the moment.
Of course, if I had the capacity to foresee any precipitation, I would be very rich. I mean, we can estimate the value of our reserves in terms of snow accumulated in the mountains. Unfortunately, we have to confirm the lower precipitation that have been affecting all the Alps, particularly the Northwest Alps that affect our Hydro production. This is, of course, going to be extended during the year. We are foreseeing overall 800 GWh of production for the full year, overall. This is included in our forecast in the guidance. In terms of pipeline on renewables, as said, we have several streams under which we are developing the pipeline.
We have of course, in an earlier stage, internal developments, particularly on properties that we own around our facilities, that will have a higher delivery date, a longer delivery date. But we are also cooperating with several developers, and we have recently acquired a significant ready-to-build opportunities that will be starting construction in the summer. Therefore, we have a clear view that we can reach the target that I said in the conference call, 250 MW by the end of the year. On the macro scenario on gas coverage. Correct?
Yeah.
Yes. On the hedging, we have currently hedged our hydro and photovoltaic production at 90% at a price of an average price of EUR 95 per MWh. That is overall 900 GWh of production covered. 100% of WTE production at 130 EUR per MWh. Our 62% of clean spark spread on Thermo at 5.5 EUR per MWh. That's it, more or less. 95% of six clients that have a fixed price are covered, which results in more or less amount to 2.3 TWh. Okay.
[audio distortion]
I'm sorry, I was missing the last question you had on the coverage.
Yes, the trend on the repricing for the contracts to retain.
Yes. We are not experiencing at the moment scarcity in the commodity availability. We see more difficulties in getting the commitment on prices on winter. We therefore are going to extend our normal policies on the acquiring storage capacity during the summer. This will be, let's say, in order to have a stronger, let's say, position during the winter. The regulation is protecting the economic exposure on this on these practices, even though this will increase temporarily the working capital in this on this element.
Okay. That will be in the guidance.
We have included in the guidance an average EUR 100 billion of working capital increase for this reason. You asked also about the repricing campaign. Am I wrong?
Yes.
Yes. We, of course, we have been delivering last year, more or less to our clients, given our hedging policy, on average, 30% lower prices than the market, 25% on electricity and 35% on gas. We are currently still providing to our clients, more, let's say, lower prices than the market, on, coherently with our hedging policy. We will, in any case, need to start by the summer with different ways, a few repricing campaigns that will target the expiring contracts that we have in our books, and particularly those that have the lowest prices and that are not aligned to current market prices.
Thank you, Gianni .
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Enrico Bartoli from Mediobanca. Please ask your question.
Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three. The first one is on the energy businesses. You highlighted this some performance in terms of margins from the heat production and from CHP. If you can provide some details of the drivers of these solid margins, if you have some positive impact from your procurement policy on the cash side that maybe is going to be replicated also for the next quarters. Second question is more general, is on the guidance. Actually, you confirmed the targets for the full year despite the very strong results in the quarter.
I was wondering, let's say, if you think there would be some potential considering the strong results this quarter, to eventually increase that, or you see some, let's say, some risk, going forward in the next quarters. In this case, if you can elaborate, what can be reversing the very strong results that you had in first quarter. The third one is related to the waste business. Actually, you highlighted some reduction in the volumes, not from the residential clients. I was wondering if you expect some impact from the slowdown in the industrial production that we have been seeing in the past months.
What is your outlook, the possible impact that you could have over the next quarters, should the trend continue? Thank you very much.
Yes. First of all, on heat, we had our performance that has significantly improved versus last year, as you have seen in the numbers that Anna has showed. This is, let's say, different elements that contribute to this. EUR 25 million are basically the realignment of two negative years that accumulated, the 2020 and 2021, amounting overall to EUR 25 million. Overall, the margin that we normally expect from this business is 60 EUR per megawatt hour thermal. We, in the last year, had around 40 EUR vis-a-vis the EUR 70 that we had this quarter. There is a second element that will gave a good contribution.
We changed and optimized our hedging strategy last year, which resulted in a positive effect with the change in the prices in this quarter. Particularly, we forced our hedging policy to look at the previous quarter prices that are matched in the tariff, so that we offset totally the commodity risk on the district heating business. This has had a positive contribution. Plus, we have to keep in mind that we had to intervene in order to protect our, let's say, smaller clients, in order to replicate what has been implemented for the gas business by the government with the law.
Unfortunately, district heating was excluded by the contribution that the government has implemented in the law. We implemented a similar policy on our district heating clients, and this will result in a negative effect of EUR 60 million in the future quarters. This has been included in the guidance already, so it will be offset by other positive elements. You said we had actually on the volumes on industrial production implemented this year a significant reduction in our exposure to business clients, limiting particularly our exposure to the clients that are more close to us. We had a reduction from 3 TWh last year of contracts to 2.4 TWh this year.
I mean, our active policy is not giving us a specific clue on the risk for further reduction, I mean, on industrial production, on the other businesses that we see. I expect that most of the industrial players, especially with larger consumers of energy, will have the reduced production, given the impact of energy costs. On the guidance, we have included all the risk that we see, and we managed to compensate those. As I said, we have had to deliver a bonus on the WTE.
We have included the full impact of the changing law that was implemented by the government for the current energy the increase in energy costs. We also included the reduction in water precipitations and hydro production. All this said, of course, we are looking for, I mean, potential to increase the targets, especially the results. We'll see if we can promise a better guidance in the future. That's it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. We have another question coming from the line of Roberto Letizia from Equita. Please ask your question.
Yes, thank you. Please, I'm not sure if you said it already, I missed it in any way. What's the expected total amount on the full year from the additional taxation as per the decree that you already included in the first quarter? A few other topics. Can you please comment what you think about the optionality of having the Golden Power rules applied to the hydro concessions going forward? Can you just give us your view if you believe that may be a sort of protection for the Italian players in the next rounds of potential tenders? That would be helpful to have qualified view on that. The GSE has recently talked about the chance of entering the market through direct PPA or long-term contracts offered in the market.
I was wondering how do you see that if that's any type of risk embedded into the participation of a new player in that market or not? Very recently, just a few days ago, among the interventions on the renewables, the government is talking about the possibility to expand the biogas production around 20% without requesting authorization in case technically those plants have the opportunity to expand production more. I was wondering if that's the case for Iren plant.
You may potentially not be able to achieve that target. Thanks a lot for these additional clarifications.
Okay. On the taxation effects, we have included the full impact of full year impact in this quarter of the contributo di solidarietà. The last decree, I mean, the last discussion that was in place with the government.
At least our best interpretation.
Yes, our best interpretation. Of course, bearing in mind that there is no law that we can read. We just applied the different percentage that was stated in the declaration.
The EUR 24 million, that's including the 25%?
Correct.
Yes. Correct.
Okay. Thanks.
We have, of course, applied also the Sostegni ter effect. The impact on the solidarity provision included that impacts the renewable production. This doesn't have a significant impact on the first quarter, given the fact that the production was totally hedged, the price that is lower than the one that is stated in the decree. I mean, the production that is affected by that decree. On the full year, we confirm that we have included in our guidance EUR 20 million impact overall.
Would you feel confident in giving a net income guidance for the full year?
On the net income, you have to apply the taxation. Okay. That's it. I mean, 30% taxation, I would say.
Yeah.
No, no. For the net income, not the taxation.
Beg your pardon?
For the whole net income, not the taxation. A full year, if you feel confident to have this.
What we know.
You want to know what is the average taxation that we expect by the end of the year?
I think he wants to know the guidance.
No, I'm sorry. If you feel confident in providing a net income guidance for the full year, including those taxation effects you mentioned.
No, I think it's better not to. That's why we didn't give it the last time, given all the uncertainties related to the contributo di solidarietà decree. I think as we said, it is the best estimate for EUR 24 million. I think we want to see how the final decree looked like. I think we would stick for now to the EPS guidance, which we confirm.
Yeah.
Obviously, the net income would be the result of it as a consequence, aside, obviously, this EUR 244 million. I think maybe one-
One thing that we can confirm is the guidance on the dividend.
I was going there, but please tell me.
Yes, I know. Because of course, we expect this year to be an extraordinary one, and therefore, it doesn't even make much sense to estimate the exact number that will result from all the different applications of the taxation decree. We have included the maximum estimate that we can see now in our estimate, and we're able to confirm the guidance. We are also able to confirm the dividend policy because, in any case, any exceptional taxation does not impact overall our plan and therefore our ability to distribute a dividend over time.
Our net financial position is confirming the ability of the company to generate value and to have a sound returns on the investments that we make.
That's perfect. Thanks a lot. I have interrupted you on the other question. Sorry for that.
Thank you.
Yeah.
The next question comes from line of Enrico Bartoli from Mediobanca. Please ask your question.
Yeah. Sorry, a couple of follow-ups or so on my side. First of all, on the renewable business. I was wondering if, on top of the capacity that you showed in the last slide, if you are working on additional transaction, if we can expect some M&A going on over the next quarters. I was interested in some comments on your side on the measures that the government has recently approved, trying to speed up the authorization processes for the renewable projects. If you expect that this would provide some additional opportunities compared to what you took into account in the targets of your business plan.
The second one is related, so some comments of the CEOs that I read regarding the WTE projects in Rome. If you are, I guess you are interested, if you can give us some details on the role that you could have in that the project. Finally, on the working capital evolution, if I understand well, in the guidance, you have only EUR 100 million of absorption by the end of the year. I guess that you are not seeing any, let's say, significant impact on your working capital from the current energy scenario and from the measures taken by the government in order to delay some payments from final customers. If you can provide also some comment on this. Thank you.
On the pipeline, we have a strong development. As you recall from our acquisition from European Energy, we also had a ROFO on their pipeline that amounted to 450 MW. This is, of course, a source of significant opportunities. We are closing a deal to start construction on two projects currently, one in Lazio and the other in Sicily. We have finalized a signing of two authorizations in Basilicata of solar plants. We have several other discussions on plants that are at different stages of authorizations. They have a significant probability to obtain authorization by the end of the year.
We also have acquired an authorization for 8 MW for the first Iren wind plant. We will start also that the development of that technology. Of course, we have several opportunities, and the projection of the investment target include that kind of development in the guidance. In terms of authorization process, of course, the bureaucracy is one of the unsolvable problems of our country. We have seen in the recent decrees that at least the government has for the first time tried to understand what are the problems that affect, I mean, the slow rate at which authorization have been given.
The fact that already 2,000 MW have been authorized compared to the previous years in which overall in Italy less than 1,000 MW were authorized a year is a significant improvement. We will try to see what will happen. We are confident also that authorization has been a sector in which major players major utilities have not invested enough. This is quite weird. Most of the players in the market are developers with very little capital, and therefore the extended period of time under which authorization are developed is partially due to the fact that very little money is invested in this area.
We believe that speed and capacity to invest can be a significant edge in having success in this area. We have managed to build an organization, as I said in the speaking notes, that is going to deliver significant results in the future. On WTE, we have, of course, as you know, in our plan, several projects that we are developing. We are definitely able to contribute to Rome, and personally, I would be very happy to improve the performance on the waste collection and management in Rome, given the fact that I live there. Of course, I mean, we will see if the participation to the tender makes sense for us, given the conditions under which the participation is requested.
Of course, if we see that there is no opportunity for us, so we will not participate. Of course, we will not leave this tender empty if unattended, if nobody is going to go there. On working capital guidance, Anna, can you help me?
Of course. Very briefly, obviously, we will continue to have a disciplined working capital management, working both on the supply side and on the customer side. Obviously, linked to the seasonality, we see, in any case, a normal or ordinary worsening of the working capital, obviously, in the next months. This is, as I said, pretty normal and linked to our quarter evolution. The EUR 100 million that you mentioned are on top, let's say, of this ordinary working capital evolution across the quarters, because we factored in the potential government measures, so the bills installment payments, just to mention one, which might impact and so erode a little bit of the good start we had into 2022.
As you might remember, we closed 2021 much better than our estimates, thanks to working capital. We think these government measures might erode a little bit of that buffer. Having said that, as I said, we fully confirm our overall guidance also in terms of net debt and on EBITDA.
We also are performing very well on the days of payment. We have a positive contribution overall on the energy value chain, and this is very important with the increased energy prices. We have not experienced any significant increase in the bad debt in this area. The request for deferral of payments is not significantly increased compared to the last years. These are all positive indications. Of course, they are not definitive, but we see that we can continue to manage effectively the overall working capital for the business.
Excuse me, Enrico, have you finished with your questions? Thank you. The next question comes from the line of-
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Roberto Letizia from Equita. Please ask your question.
Yes, thank you. Sorry, but the operator cut me out before I had the previous question on pending that were on the GSE entering the market offering long-term contracts and PPA, the Golden Power on Hydro. What do you think? The possibility to expand biogas productions with no authorization up to 20% as recently indicated. Thanks.
Yes. There was no intention to cut you off.
I know. Don't worry.
On PPA, actually. Of course, it would be very interesting for the market to institute a GSE market for PPA. Meaning that GSE could play as the counterpart of last resort for any PPA, and this would significantly decrease the risk that should be assumed on the counterpart risk that should be assumed on this contract. We are also considering, however, I mean, in the absence of this opportunity right now, the possibility to close PPA with our customer base or considering our customer base, basically extending the hedging evaluation on the multi-year horizon.
We are looking for to close contracts with existing renewable capacity in order to respond to this need. On hydro, I mean, Golden Power is hard to be applicable unless I mean, it would make sense to apply this power to players that are outside Europe for any energy infrastructure, I would say. The current crisis shows that the control of the energy value chain is of the relevant importance for the overall geopolitical stability of the region. In terms of impact on our side, we see very little impact.
Actually, I mean, all the discussion about the extension on the concession, I see very little opportunities for the player to obtain regulated extensions. The de facto extensions we are already obtaining in the last 10 years or so. Bureaucracy is a guarantee for extension, but in this case. We believe that probably a private partnership model would be more applicable to Hydro concessions. This kind of contract would extend the concessions in, let's say, in a regulated form, with the possibility to unlock investments to repower these plants. We believe that is a way to go. In general, we are trying to work on this with our institutions. Biogas. I'm sorry.
I'm very into gas these days. I don't know why. We will have, by the end of the year, the full production from two plants that were put in operation last year, Santhià and Cairo Montenotte. By memory, we should arrive to more or less 9, 000,000 cu m , short of 9,000,000 cu m by the end of the year. We are also implementing the doubling of Santhià and the construction of Gavassa, a larger plant in Emilia region. Plus, we have an additional plant that we are awarding in terms of construction in Tuscany. We have a program that is going to invest significantly on biogas in general in our plan.
We are concentrating mainly on our for collection the organic fraction that we collect from urban waste. We are not present in the let's say.
Agree. I'm done.
The agricultural waste, let's say, production. We, of course, that is a different business model, and we are not yet active. Our target on the plan is to reach 40,000,000 cu m per year in biomethane from urban waste.
Thanks a lot. I'm done. Thanks.
Thank you. There are no further questions, and I would like to hand the call over back to Mr. Armani for closing remarks.