Hello. Hello, everybody, and glad to have you attending in person such an important event for the Iren Group. We are disclosing our first business plan with 10-year timeframe, the first one led by our CEO, Mr. Gianni Armani. The presentation will see also the participation of our new CFO, Ms. Anna Tanganelli, who has joined the company just 10 days ago, bringing in our group stronger competencies from her past experiences in international context. Now the agenda. First, the top management will give the presentation for all the audience, both financial community and journalists. The Q&A section will follow, only for financial community. Then Mr. Armani will be available for a Q&A section with journalists. Okay, we can start the presentation. Mr. Armani, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Giulio. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Iren's Investor Day. Today, we are presenting our new plan, is a ten years plan, together with our third quarter results very briefly. We'll guide you through a ten years long journey to lead Iren towards progressive decarbonization, a strong acceleration on investments on our investment capacity, focused on sustainable activities and low-risk businesses, with a continuous commitment on financial discipline. The next decade, just to clear and clarify the context, is going to be a crucial turning point for our country and in particular for the utility sector. Urgent need to reduce polluting emissions to fight climate change is pushing an ambitious transition that will reshape most of the economic sectors.
In particular, renewables will become the most relevant and efficient source of energy, representing over 70% of total electricity production by 2030. Waste recycling will increasingly represent an important share of raw materials into our economic cycles, as landfill disposal should be significantly reduced. The need to rebound post-COVID emergency will represent a new wave of public investments, an increase of +50%, fueled by NextGenerationEU funds. Only administration capable of executing investments will take advantage of this opportunity. In general, protection of natural resources such as water, reduction in consumption, and the effort to mitigate climate change will be crucial in the next 10 years. In this context, Iren represents an unprecedented opportunity for a multi-utility like Iren.
Decarbonization targets will boost investments on renewables, both electric and thermal, and will enhance value of sustainable infrastructure such as district heating. On waste management, excellence in sort of waste collection and adequate development of waste treatment capacity will be needed to close the gap, particularly on recycling and waste solutions. More efficient use of energy resources will require excellent networks, renovated, and more efficient buildings in general. Our cities will need to be more sustainable. To best capture this opportunity in our plan, we therefore structured our activities in three main pillars that I will illustrate. First of all, green. Leadership in green transition will be paramount, leveraging our sustainable footprint in all our businesses.
Local, reinforce our presence on local grounds will maximize business opportunities and synergies, also responding to infrastructure needs of local communities beyond our traditional scope of activities. Lastly, but not least, quality. Excellence in service quality across all businesses, Building around this distinctive trait will create and allow to transform Iren as the best choice for major stakeholders in our territory. In practice, what does it mean? Green means 80% of our organic investments concentrated on ESG compliant initiatives, 70% compared to taxonomy, EU Taxonomy. Thanks to the decarbonization effort and in particular, the leadership in circular economy. Local means 85% of our investments will be focused on our home regions, and Iren will be the preferred partners to foster economic development in our territory.
Quality, 50% of our investments are driven on the goal of achieving the quality standards of excellence in all our businesses. Let's go deep in what means each of these pillar, in particularly green. Referring to the decarbonization, the main goal of the group is to achieve by 2030 a reduction in carbon intensity from 330 g of CO2 per KWh to 175, in line with the science-based target ambition. An important step towards full carbon neutrality by 2040. The target will be achievable thanks to 2.2 GW of renewable capacity, solar and wind mainly, and exploiting heat sources currently dispersed in the environment to saturate our district heating network and studying innovative solutions to store and produce heat from renewable sources.
25% of our energy distributed on heat networks will be renewable in this sense. We aim to get a long-term hydrogen adoption on our network, making 95% of our network by 2030 hydrogen-ready. Further elaborating, we are green because we want to further strengthen our leadership in the waste business, excelling in particular in collection, improving our percentage of sorted waste to 76%, including and bringing our newly acquired areas to practices that are best in class. In terms of development of new treatment plants, we focus on material recovery, increasing fivefold the capacity in this area. 2.3 million tons of increased capacity is mainly focused on regulated urban waste management.
Also, we are investing in using water resources at the best, reducing our network leakages with a target of less than 20% and increasing the purified water by almost four times in our network. Going to the second pillar, local. Local because we are going to invest around EUR 10 billion in our legacy territory. Focusing on our territories will mean to increase our market penetration, expanding the areas in which Iren is perceived and is a multi-utility. On the right side, you see that this will be reached increasing our penetration on all our main businesses: waste collection, water, gas, and district heating distribution.
This will allow us to capture on our side the efficiencies and synergies that are across businesses and reinforce our brand reputation on the area in which we are present, being effective in capturing and executing new business opportunities. On this field, Iren is aiming to become the best partner for local communities in a wide range of new services, investing in this area more than EUR 1.6 billion during this plan. In particular, we have been already successful in expanding our public lighting and energy efficiency businesses, exploiting our the incentives that the public authorities have put on these businesses. I'm sorry. We have been able to take advantage of our operational skills and the ability to coordinate large networks of suppliers in the same areas.
Acceleration of public spending connected to next generation will widen the opportunities of collaboration with our municipalities in new infrastructure services in the form of project finance. The new potential areas come from electric mobility, for instance, both on the public sector with the development and the infrastructures needed for e-buses and for public charging. 4,000 charging points will be foreseen in the areas in which we own the electric distribution. In the private sector, with the installation of wallboxes, thanks to our market effort on energy sales. All in all, 65,000 charging points we are targeting by 2030. Moreover, urban renovation and public infrastructure will create several opportunities in the form of project finance.
In particular, public schools renovation projects or hydrological instability projects have been long financed by the state and now refinanced with EU funds, but never found active implementation across Italy. We are potentially able to put in place project to solve these issues, and more than 80 projects will be devoted to public administration initiatives. The last pillar, quality. The goal is to be best in class in service quality on two different aspects. First of all, excellence in network efficiency and reliability. We are planning to invest more than EUR 4 billion to develop our grid. In particular, electricity grid will have to sustain higher consumptions +40% by 2030, and reduced interruptions and failures, a reduction of -15%, being electricity the most strategic energy vector by 2030.
In the water sector, we are aiming to reduce losses, as said, below the target of 20%, of course, including the additional territories that we are foreseeing in our expansion, and considering that the average in Italy is around 40% overall. Replacing pipes and we'll also push on depuration facilities, increasing our ability to expand our capacity to treat water by 15%. In the meantime, gas assets will be fundamental for energy transition, and maintaining the highest standard of security is paramount in this context. We will reduce leakages to an already excellent performance of 4.3 leakages per 100 km per year, versus an average in Italy of 24. Finally, across all grids, digitalization will be the leading star.
The installation of smart meters and sensors and digital detectors will guarantee constant monitoring and a preemptive maintenance approach. On the other front, the other leg is to maximize service quality and maximize customer satisfaction. In particular, this means re-internalizing most of the interactions with our clients. This with two efforts. One is to insource part of the customer service that we currently have totally outside the company. The other part is by investing in digital platforms that will allow autonomously the client to use our platform and serve himself by himself. We are going to spread our presence leveraging on our territorial footprint, the physical presence of our stores, increasing 80% the shops.
This will allow to support clients with a phygital approach and with solutions that could be delivered physically to the clients. Finally, we will invest more than EUR 300 billion on digital, on our digital strategy, on an omni-channel experience that will target 100% of seamless and personalized customer experience. Enabling also to foster Iren Plus platform, that is fundamental for increasing retention of our clients, arriving to 30% penetration of our customer base in additional services and products. As anticipated, our ESG targets have been the foundation of our strategy.
About 70% in EU Taxonomy of total organic investments amounting to EUR 8.7 billion are related to sustainable activities contributing to 10 EU SDGs. That are evenly spread between water resources, circular economy, resilient cities, and decarbonization. Breaking down the ESG dimensions, we already talked about the environmental one in the previous pages. Talking about social, of course, the focus is on diversity and inclusion in the working environment. Particularly, the indicator of 30% women in managerial positions is an important target of which we have to invest. Support of local communities, as said, is an important target in our strategy, both on the ESG platform, on the ESG targets, and on the business targets.
Governance, of course, such an ESG focus will be needed to be supported with engagement and accountability of top management on ESG topics directly. What we are presenting today is therefore one of the most ambitious, actually the most ambitious plan that Iren has ever adopted. EUR 12.7 billion of accumulated gross investments, and then I will explain what I mean by gross, in 10 years. The average CapEx per year has been doubled compared to the last five years, reaching almost EUR 1.3 billion per year. On the right side, you see how the investments have been divided in the different areas. Let me highlight one additional element that is in this chart.
We have aligned our financial reporting to market best practices, rearranging our activities in a way that is more consistent with our risk profile. In particular, we have moved district heating businesses into the network area, giving its semi-regulated activities and since we align our view to our peers that already classify this activity in the network businesses. We also have put in evidence a fifth business area, Smart Solutions that include efficiency, energy efficiency, e-mobility, and other infrastructure services for local communities. This is for its market of reference, particularly mainly public administrations, and for its business model that is connected mainly to EPC investments, with contributions, with direct contributions and project finance.
The intense CapEx plan is driving also a significant growth, 7%, in EBITDA that will double our margins by 2030. In the plan horizon, we reinvest 80% of our operating cash flow into our business, keeping a healthy profitability all across the ten-year horizon. While maintaining a leverage consistent with our low risk profile, we confirm our commitment to BBB rating. A novelty in this plan is also other two additional elements. First of all, the inorganic investments are included in our CapEx plan. This is for two reasons. First of all, to give an idea of what is our complete target for debt evolution.
Secondly, to put in evidence the areas in which we are going to grow inorganically, giving a clear strategic view on our future actions. Secondly, we included a strategy of bringing with us partners along the way. In particular, this partnership model will be applied to the growth in renewables, of course, as the renewable market will increase. Secondly, in the gas network expansion, we have external growth that is concentrated on gas activities, which I will explain later on. Let's now dive in very briefly, of course, into our business areas that are many, and I will try to condense. On networks, we have EUR 4.9 billion of investments during the plan, half of which are concentrated in the water sector. That is our strongest element in this area.
60% concentrated on maintenance activity. Overall, RAB will double across the board. EBITDA is expected to increase 6% per year. Thanks to higher allowed revenues closely connected to RAB and to synergies. Higher volumes of heat distributed is going to be offset by the expiring white certificates in the district heating businesses by 2021. Going deep into the evolution of our energy networks, let me highlight that our ambitious plan of organic development in electricity distribution is doubling the RAB, and this is driven to upgrade our electricity distribution and to reduce the interruption time in the network.
We will reach EUR 920 million of RAB by 2030, surpassing that of gas at even perimeter. On the other end, on the right side of the slide, we show that the gas sector will see an investment of EUR 400 million in expansion supported by external parties. This is because we want to unlock operating synergies in our territories, and we want to enhance our local presence, as said before. Consolidation of multi-utility can be accelerated by integration and participation to gas tenders. Gas networks are the only tangible networks in Italy, and so they are the main drivers to multi-utility consolidations.
In addition on the network, just a brief look at the district heating business that we included, as said before, in the network activities, because it's a monopoly business with a very long-term concession. The earliest one is expiring in 2031 for us, and all the others in the subsequent years. When expiring, similar terminal value with a fair compensation is foreseen by all concession contracts. The low risk of marginality is reinforced by the fact that sale price is adjusted on volatility of commodity every quarter. Churn rate, lastly, is extremely limited to the least.
Development of this project are sustained by almost EUR 800 million in CapEx and district heating network with significant increase in size from 97 million cubic meters of pipes to about 130 million by the end of the plan. Moving towards waste, our CapEx that is foreseen in this plan is EUR 2.5 million. One-third of our CapEx is concentrated on collection, and that is because, of course, we have a part of expansion consolidation of our current participations in of Unieco particularly, but we also participate to tenders. But a great part of the investments are also driven by the renewal of our fleet. 100% green vehicle will be done by the end of the plan.
Full automation of collection processes to be achieved with just here and project. In addition, digitalization is going to be key, arriving to a penetration of 60% of the pay-as-you-throw model, of which we are leader in Italy. On the waste treatment, we are going to invest EUR 1.6 billion to build new plants and upgrade existing ones. 21 new plants are foreseen in the plan, half of which will come into operations in 2024. Expansion of waste-to-energy capacity and construction of the first waste-to-chemical plant will aim to recover the gap, the Italian gap on unsorted waste management. EBITDA growth will exceed EUR 260 million, with 10% average growth along the year.
On the waste collection, just very briefly, in these slides, it showed that we are going to push our collection, but to be faster in developing our treatment capacity in order to guarantee that our collection has always an end of waste coverage. Of course, treatment capacity is currently the shortage in the market completely. In particular, we will grow significantly in organic and in plastic. On plastic recycling, we are already leader in this market, having the highest recycling rate, and therefore, this will lead our developing projects. On the energy, we are going to invest other EUR 2.5 billion of investments, 86% of which are on the renewable area.
This will mainly be led by the 2.2 GW of renewables that are driving EUR 1.7 billion of CapEx. EUR 200 million will be dedicated to renewable and renewal of hydroelectric concession that will unlock revamping investments. Additionally, a similar amount will be invested into batteries in order to develop 300 MW of capacity. The group also foresees some investments in increasing flexibility of CCGT to optimize heating production and to capture MSD opportunities in the medium term. In this plan also, for the first time, we clarify that we will divest on thermoelectric non-strategic assets in the second part of the plan as this asset has reached the maximum development that we could implement.
EBITDA growth will bring about EUR 170 million of additional margins, taking into account that we have expiring green certificates in 2026, and we are including disposal of assets in the thermal sector by the end of the plan. Specifically on renewables, that is the area in which growth is 400%, we need to clarify how this growth is going to be guaranteed. Of course, we are planning in terms of development to install short of 500 MW of new capacity by 2026. But we are currently negotiating projects for the next ten years above 1 GW of capacity, 80% of which is solar.
We are confident to be able exploiting our authorization capacity and the good relation with local authorities to accelerate this activity. Remember that this company is able to authorize the toughest plants in Italy as waste-to-energy is very complicated to find authorization opportunities. Renewables will be an opportunity to measure ourselves on this new market. Minority stakes, as said before, from financial partners will be foreseen in this area. In addition to guarantee that renewable growth is secured in terms of margin, we will take advantage of our natural edge on our customer base and adding 50% of PPAs in the market or tariff coverage on our development.
The group can leverage from its growing retail and business consumer customer base to cover long-term investments on renewables, and the integrated generation and sales value chain can exploit all the hedging opportunities in this environment. Moving on to our market business area, just very briefly, we concentrate our action on two dimensions, customer value growth, particularly, Iren Plus, as said before, is going to increase penetration, thanks particularly to electrification process that will encourage consumers to switch to electric vehicles or to electric heating, and this will discourage switch out.
On the other end, we are projecting 2.6 million clients, mainly from market liberalization tenders, where we expect by 2023, 500,000 additional clients from those tenders. On an EBITDA, we foresee a 2% increase up to EUR 180 million. This can be attributed mostly by cross-selling of new services, where the increased margin in electricity consumers will be offset by a reduced gas profitability. That is a combination of slightly reduced volumes and increased competition.
Going to the next slide, in order to reduce churn, we modify our acquisition strategy by modifying progressively our acquisition mix, switching from teleselling and door-to-door to web sales and inbound sales that have a lower churn and lower acquisition costs. There is something that is going on. Sorry. On the right side is explained what I was mentioning on the previous slide. We have a progressively growing consumption of electricity by almost 30%. It's not mine.
Nobody's coughing.
where we have a slight decrease in gas consumption expected on our network that is preparing for the energy transition full-fledged. Last but not least, sorry for this long multi-business representation. Let's just have a look at the Smart Solutions that I already anticipated. It's relevant to highlight that EBITDA will target EUR 60 million by 2030 in this sector. As anticipated, these investments, these EUR 1.6 billion, are significantly different in terms of financial structure compared to the traditional ones. They rely significantly on public funds and direct contributions, as EUR 900 million of these investments is in the EPC form, so is not build-and-hold model.
EUR 700 million will be on a project finance structure with up to 50% public contributions. The main actions that we are putting in place to grant the successful execution of the plan are innovation and digital investments. In particular, we are committed to develop a cutting-edge technology, particularly in businesses in which we are a leader. EUR 1.6 billion are invested on innovation, in particular. Of course, digital and predictive maintenance on network, as said before, and the blending of hydrogen on our gas networks. We are also investing on new value chains on the waste sector, where each individual sector and value chain of waste is an individual product that has a typical evolution.
On the other end, our carbon footprint will try to leverage on carbon capture and utilization technologies that will be developed and experienced and tested on our plants. The expansion of thermal and electrical storage capacity will be an additional source of innovation. Partially overlapped to these activities, of course, are the investments on digital that amount to EUR 600 million, 300 as said on customer base management, and the rest on simplifying processes and increasing efficiencies on our businesses. Now, after this very long representation, I hand over the presentation to Anna Tanganelli, our new CFO, that has jumped on this running cart to join us on the business plan and implement it. Thank you.
Thank you, Gianni. Please go easy on me today. First of all, good morning, everyone. It's really a pleasure to be here with all of you, especially with those of you who have been kind and brave enough to be here in person. Thank you also to those connected in streaming. I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities then to properly introduce ourselves, and get to know each other a little bit better over the next days, weeks, or even hours for those of you who are here. For now, thank you very much once again for being here to our Investor Day.
Without further ado, let's go back to the presentation, and let's take a look at our overall key financials of the strategic plan. As already highlighted by our CEO, our investment plan 2021-2030 is first of all ambitious. First of all, because, we are forecasting a little short of EUR 13 billion of gross cumulative investments, raising the bar versus the past by doubling the amount of investments foreseen by the old plan presented to you last year and more than doubling our last five-year average investment spend. It is also ambitious in terms of timing.
As you can see from the chart on the slide, our investment curve is ramping up fast with almost 40% of our total investment targeted to be carried out already in the first four years by 2024, and more than half, 55% by 2026, which also means that our investments are relatively evenly distributed across the business plan period. In addition, as already mentioned by Gianni, we are targeting almost 15%, i.e. EUR 1.8 billion, which have been allocated to inorganic growth, mainly at gas and water networks and in waste, although some inorganic development has been foreseen across all businesses, I would say. Inorganic development to be achieved through three main axes.
One is selected M&A activity and consolidations, for example, by increasing our shareholding interest in subsidiaries where we already hold minority stakes with the objective to fully consolidate them, and this is mainly in water networks and in waste. Second, we've foreseen a handful of assets and companies as acquisitions, mainly in networks and market. Third, the acquisition of new tenders, again, mainly in gas and water networks and in waste. Our investment plan is not only ambitious, it is at the same time also resilient, flexible and above all, sustainable. Resilient because if we look at the breakdown of our investment, approximately 70% of our investments are skewed towards businesses at regulated/semi-regulated margins, and therefore highly resilient and with a reduced volatility profile.
Flexible because given the ten-year horizon of our strategic plan, we wanted to make sure that our investments were at all times modular and flexible. Mandatory or maintenance investments, as you prefer to call them, have been targeted at 30%. In addition, we have also identified a pipeline of potential additional opportunities valued at around EUR 1.8 billion, which are currently not included in the plan, but which could be relatively easily and quickly activated in case needed. As said, above all, our investment plan is sustainable. Sustainable because 80% of our investments are towards sustainable activities aimed at achieving our Sustainable Development Goals. In particular, 70% of our investments are compliant with the EU Taxonomy.
Also financially sustainable, as we will then better see explained in the following slides, because on top of the robust cash flow generation, which is forecasted by the strategic plan, we are also estimating EUR 2.2 billion or 20% of external funding from third parties to support our investment plan, of which one point four billion euros to come through direct or indirect public contributions or subsidies. When I say indirect, I mean basically EPC. Around eight hundred million euros are expected to come from let's say as capital contributions from minority partners or investors supporting our development in gas networks, sorry, and in renewables assets.
If we now look at our profitability, I think it's immediately visible from this slide that both our EBITDA and our net income are expected to double over the strategic plan, so over the decade between 2020 and 2030, growing at 7% and 8% CAGRs respectively. The growth is already forecasted medium or actually short and medium term because both the EBITDA and the net income are expected to grow significantly by 2024. You see here, EBITDA is expected to grow at an 8% CAGR and net income at a 9% CAGR. If we focus briefly on the EBITDA, you see from the chart what we are expecting to create almost EUR 900 million of value between 2020 and 2030. Let's now see how the EUR 900 million are broken down.
EUR 600 million are expected to come through organic growth, basically as a result of our investments in renewables, in the new waste plants, and in water networks mainly. EUR 220 million are expected to come from inorganic growth. This number ties with the EUR 1.8 billion of inorganic investments we commented earlier. We have foreseen a little bit of asset rotation, and EUR 120 million are expected to come from efficiencies or performance improvements.
This number is net of all related emerging costs and is a result of a pretty granular list of performance improvement projects, I would say, across all business units, and mainly focused at processes optimization and digitalization. Finally, you see here in the last bullet that the contribution from the positive evolution of the commodity and energy market is expected to be fully offset by the expiration of our green and white certificates over the decade. One last important takeaway I would like to leave with you on this slide is that not only our investments are resilient and balanced, but also our profitability, as the share coming from regulated slash semi-regulated profit is expected to remain constant or even slightly above 70% across the strategic plan. Moving on to the next slide. Let's now take a look at our capital structure and balance sheet profile.
Here, I would like to mention two key points. One is that the robust cash flow generation we already commented, combined with a little bit of asset rotation and the external funding we also saw before, will more than absorb and offset our organic and inorganic investments. Here on the chart, they're displayed as net. Therefore, the incremental debt required is gonna be around EUR 1.6 billion, both by 2026 and by 2030. Second important point is on the chart on the right, is then our net debt evolution, which as you can see, is very sustainable, very viable, also compared to the EBITDA.
If we look at the net debt on EBITDA ratio, we've really put a lot of focus and attention on calibrating and optimizing our investment spend to make sure we, with our net debt on EBITDA ratio was always under 3.5x , which is a little bit our internal pain threshold, let's call it that way, across the whole strategic plan. We are therefore very confident in confirming our commitment to maintaining our BBB rating across the plan. Now moving briefly to take a peek at our debt and liquidity strategy. I will leave you, I would say, one key message for all the four quadrants.
Looking at the top left, you see that the net debt we commented on the chart on the slide before translates into an average financing need across the plan of around EUR 400 million per year. Again, pretty contained, very viable, very manageable, especially if we consider in the first two, three years of the plan, this number is even lower because it's approximately EUR 250 million. Also, if you compare it with our average bond tickets, you know very well, we've issued in the past, which have been in the range of EUR 500 million or even higher. If we move to the right, we have estimated a decrease in cost of debt over the decade.
This is thanks to, first of all, the expectations of the evolution of the interest rate swap. Not just that, because that's gonna probably slightly increase in the future. It's also linked to our inherent debt structure, which you can see moving again to the left at the bottom, because we have pretty long maturities. You see that we have almost our entirety of our debt is at fixed or quasi-fixed rate, which gives us confidence about our decreasing cost of debt curve. Finally, one very important point. We will continue to maintain or even, if possible, slightly increase our share of sustainable finance, which is already best in class in the industry at 63% of our total debt structure.
Before I pass the mic back on to Gianni, one quick last piece of important and positive news which gives us confidence and should give you substance about our achievability of the strategic plan and that we are on the right path towards its execution, which is our nine months 2021 closing results. Very briefly, because you see here a lot of numbers, I would say positive performance of all the key financial KPIs. I'll let you read it, and then obviously we are ready to answer any questions you might have. I really only want to comment the EBITDA, which is up 12% compared to nine months last year. Main contributors here have been, I would say a handful.
First, there is a change in scope, which weighs around EUR 28 million related to the acquisitions made last year in waste of Unieco and I.Blu. Second, there is an effective leverage of the energy and the commodity market, which weighs another EUR 16 million. Third, there is obviously the organic growth as a result of the investments made in networks and waste. Then there is a positive contribution and performance of volumes. Last but not least, also a EUR 6 million of efficiency over the period. With that, I'll give it back, hand it back to Gianni for our closing remarks. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Anna. Thank you for being so patient. To summarize, we have presented you a very ambitious plan that boosts investments with low risk businesses. Actually, regulated activities are increasing in our plan horizon. Strong environmental focus and sound financial discipline. Before handing to Giulio for a Q&A session, let me add a couple of final considerations on our 2021 guidance, the 2022 outlook, and our dividend policy to be applied during the plan. In particular, for the 2021 guidance, we confirm the guidance presented in August. Let me highlight how the company is able to maintain its promises, even in the turbulent times that we have been facing.
990 million euros of EBITDA by the end of the year, and 300 million euros of net income, and 800 million euros of investments, which is on the way to reach the path that we have presented in the plan. Overall, net debt to EBITDA is going to be around 3.3. For 2022, we project a further increase in EBITDA with a growth at least of 6% versus 2021, with a target of investments above EUR 1 billion, and net debt to EBITDA between 3.3 and 3.4 target. Finally, we confirm our dividend policy until 2025, with a growth of 10%, significant improvement in our distribution of dividends.
Keeping around 50%-55% just for the Excel purpose, the dividend payout ratio for the rest of the years. Now I leave the floor to Giulio that will manage our Q&A session. Thank you all for having the patience to listen to our presentation.
Thanks. Thanks, Gianni, Anna. Before starting the Q&A section, just a couple of instructions. First, we take all the questions from the room, then from the streaming. For all the investors in digital connection, please follow the instructions on the screen. You are always so fast. Please, Javier, Roberto, it's up to you. Who want to start?
[Non-English content.]
Okay. [Non-English content.] Okay, Enrico.
Thanks. I was in a very good position.
Yes.
Thank you for taking my question. Enrico Bartoli from Stifel. First of all, first question is on the waste business, which is continued to be a main driver of growth, even in the new plan. You highlighted 21 new treatment plants to be developed. First of all, if you can provide your general view on the opportunities in the Italian market that you expect. You detailed the many kind of, let's say, different technologies, plastic, paper, wood. Just your general view on the opportunities that you see there. Considering that 14 plants are already authorized, if you can elaborate on the timing of the contribution of the CapEx acceleration, if this is going to be mainly by 2026, or in the second part of the plan.
A second question is regarding renewables. First of all, you highlighted that 80% of capacity will be PV. If you can, I guess maybe the remaining 20% is wind, if you can provide some details on-
Beg your pardon? Could you repeat?
The 80% of the additional capacity is going to be solar PV. I was wondering what is going to be the remaining 20%, the kind of returns that you expect from investment there. You indicated that around 50% is going to be PPA and tariffs. How you see the evolution of the possibility to develop a PPA market in Italy and the outlook for the auctions. Lastly, in general, I would be interested in your comment on the, let's say, execution risk that you see in this plan, because it's, of course, a big jump in the CapEx compared to the old one. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. First of all, we have a significant development on the treatment capacity that it's, of course, a general opportunity for Italy. There are a number of regions, part of which are the one that are in our territorial scope, that have a gap in terms of construction of new plants. Particularly Liguria and Toscana are significantly short of treatment capacity. Therefore, we follow the need for this response. We are, as said in the presentation, foreseeing half of the 21 plants which amounts to 10.5. I let you guess where the 0.5 missing is going to be invested by 2024.
So by that time, we will have half of the EBITDA implemented. Of course, that is for all the authorized plans then, probably we are already planning to issue more authorizations on new initiatives. Going to the development needs, we are pushing our investments particularly on organic waste, where we had very limited presence. We activated our first Iren plant. We have a plant in our participation in GAIA in Asti, but we have now a new plant in operations in Cairo Montenotte near Savona. We have authorized plants, specifically one quite large near Reggio Emilia, and others are going to cover more or less our ability to feed those plants.
The ability to have feedstock able to feed this plant is going to be, particularly in the north, crucial. Therefore, we are aiming to include our plants into the regional planning, as is normal in Emilia-Romagna, but has been the leading interpretation that is written in the ARERA document for consultation that is currently going to transform the business into a regulated one. The other area in which we're going to invest is plastic. Our participation, I.Blu, as said in the presentation, has the highest rate of regenerating plastic using also plasmix. That is a significant fraction of the plastic that others cannot recycle. This allows us to be much more competitive in winning tenders on feedstock acquisition.
We are very developed in the products that come out of the recycling cycle. You might have read that we are very strong in the steel businesses in which our plastic can be reused. Finally, waste-to-energy. It's a general gap across all Italy that we are aiming to fill in order to guarantee end-of-waste solution and the substitution of the closing landfill concessions that are going to be progressively offset in Italy. On renewables, 80% is solar. We expected that part of the solar will have access to the public tender for a tariff, but that we will see in the next simplification decree.
The 20% remaining is going to be, in general, wind. We have minor projects on revamping our hydro plants, but we are not including that additional capacity in the plant. 50% of PPA or tariff takes into consideration the shift in attention to long-term negotiation that has been linked to the recent turmoil in commodity cost. Now, more and more, even business clients are looking for a long-term negotiation, and especially if they link into a consortium, and so you are not exposed to individual credit rating and individual existence of the business client, then PPA is probably the right moment to develop the PPA market in Italy. In terms of execution risk, as Anna said, the project is coherent and, in general, flexible.
Among the flexibility, we have developed another EUR 1.8 billion of opportunities that have the number 13 and are ready to enter into the playing field as the opportunity comes. Thank you.
Okay. Javier? Roberto?
Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions and for running this presentation in presence after two years of segregations. I would like to stick on renewable and, because this is one of the newest part of the business plan. Can you give us some visibility on your ability to build up the pipeline short term? You indicated, if I'm not wrong, one gigawatt in the next three years. I was wondering, how far are you in the negotiation already, if this is predominantly on grounds, I guess, from your words, that it maybe should be solar on agricultural lands that you expect to be freed to participate into tender probably. Is it everything is greenfield you are negotiating on the grounds? Are you expecting to buy out pipelines in the market? Can you give visibility on this?
I was wondering if you included relevant investments in the hydro businesses, meaning not the water service, I mean the hydro generation, and this refers to the tenders that will probably happen. Recently, government pointed out you have to go to tender by the end of 2022. I was wondering how much the capital commitment is actually not producing returns because this is an investment to increase the probability of renewable, but probably not generating EBITDA that will come later on if you are able to win the tenders. I would like to ask you what kind of assumptions have you included in terms of power prices, at least in the short term, say in the shorter time horizon, then we'll see what happen in 2030, but actually within the next three, five years.
I was asking you to tell us how much return dilution have you included in the plan in terms of allowed return determination from the authority, just to understand what kind of losing EBITDA will have in the coming years, maybe recovered by efficiency actions, but that's an interesting point for us. Thanks a lot.
Okay. Thank you. First of all, on the pipeline, our approach, as said in the presentation, is mainly to focus on greenfield, and that is in a couple of dimensions. First of all, we are developing actively on our grounds, so close to our plants. We have a significant footprint in our territories. The development of projects and they reach comprehensively around 100 MW of internal projects that we can develop on our land. Then we are negotiating with individual developers for existing authorizations that are well ahead in the process and that conservatively we put in the next 10 years in terms of implementation.
These authorizations are a mixture of agricultural land and industrial investments. I would say 30-60, more or less, or 40-60. 40 industrial and 60 agricultural. Mainly large grid-scale investments, and mainly in solar. We have one negotiation for a wind development. We have currently in place an exclusive negotiation for an existing group of plants for 150 MW, which is partly tariff-covered and partly at market parity. Of course, the way we are going to go ahead is to create bonds with the developers and to build internal authorization capacity.
This will allow external contribution from developers to accelerate, thanks to the contribution of our team, but will multiply the efforts in the development scheme. Of course, early stage focus will reduce the investment in terms of cost of acquisition of the plants, extracting most of the value from building up the plants.
If I may, Gianni, that's why I forgot to mention earlier, all the investments related to renewables are not included in the EUR 1.8 inorganic investments. Given what Johnny just explained, they have been classified as organic, although obviously we don't exclude opportunities to acquire assets in the future.
Yes. In general, we would not be a participant or to a tender for existing generation capacity. On hydro generation, as said in the presentation, we are including in the plan the continuation of our concessions. Of course, increasing the cost and the cost that is linked to the prolongation of our concession. We are the only player that has not gone to court against the local authorities on the increase in the annuities that are to be given to local authorities. We will continue to keep a strong close relation with our regions. We foresee, however, an opportunity for the country to relaunch and to accelerate investments that have been long deferred in the hydro production.
We have already built a number of opportunities to repower our existing concessions. We foresee that a project finance scheme could be the best solution to accelerate investments and to guarantee a competitive setting for concession prolongation. On power price, I will ask the details to my colleagues if they have them.
The PUN has been estimated at EUR 75 after decreasing prices, I mean, I would say, across 2022 to reach in the second half a point of EUR 75 per MW.
Yes. We have closed 85% of our hydro production at EUR 95 for next year. Rate reductions from ARERA. Let me phrase this. We perfectly respect ARERA independence, and I think that ARERA independence is a value, an enormous value for this sector. I think that is reflected in your evaluations. All the businesses that are linked to ARERA regulation have a better interpretation from investors. It's clear that an independent evaluation of and a review of WACC targets is totally expected, and I think is also fair. Of course, authority over the years have been proven to be very keen on supporting investments, particularly in this situation of energy transition and ecological transition in general.
I will see that there will not be an intrusive regulation in order to discourage investments. We will expect, of course, a sort of minor impact from the WACC reduction. I remind, however, to everybody that our regulation is also sterilized from the inflation evolution, which is directly linked with RAB growth. This is something that has to be added on any projection that is going to be played along with the reduction in WACC.
Javier, it's your turn, please.
Many thanks for the presentation and for taking my question as well. On the first query, the first question is for the new CEO of the company. What is your imprinting on the new business plan? I think that the company has been doing a very good job during the last few years, moving on a strategy. I would like to know, when you landed into the company, where do you see that the company has to change path and strategy? Looking at what you have just said, I would say that you are much more inclined to develop capital and resources to the development of renewable energies. There is a big opportunity on Smart Solutions.
Maybe there is less focus on thermal generation and less belief on its future role, and also, a call for, gas networks utilized for the development of renewable gases. Is that a fair statement on what do you think the company on how the company should change the strategy for the next decade? Any view on how the new management team is changing path for the future would be very helpful. This is the first question. The second question may be for the CFO is on the financing. This is a company that generates an operating cash flow EUR 900 million, and the CapEx is well above that EUR 900 million in terms of average CapEx per year.
If I'm dividing the total CapEx minus the organic CapEx, you have something like EUR 11 billion of CapEx. That is EUR 1.1 billion of CapEx per year. That means that structurally the debt of the company is going to increase and also you need to put on top of that the dividend. Is that a fair statement, that you see the company growing debt by EUR 300 million-EUR 400 million per year in the future? That is leading into numbers for 2030 that where the net debt to EBITDA is at 2.5x , and the dividend payout is just at 50%-51%.
It's not that too conservative, way too conservative, because if you are mentioning 3.5x net debt to EBITDA, and you are landing into 2.5x by 2030, and the payout is just 50%, it's not that a cushion that you have within your business plan. The last question is on CapEx, maybe again, back to the CEO. The government has made an effort with the Simplification Decree. There are new European funds. The Competition Decree has been issued. The question for you is, do you see a positive impact from EU funds? I guess the answer is yes, looking at your presentation. Overall, with the Simplification Decree, is that something that should be materially helping the company to deploy CapEx?
On the competition decree, do you, don't you see the first version that we have seen as a missed opportunity to promote new waste-to-energy facilities in Italy? Thank you.
If you want, Gianni, you can start with.
Yes.
That you can give one short answer. First of all, a couple of points. Yes, definitely debt is increasing. We saw, we commented earlier, the incremental debt required will be EUR 1.6 billion. I think, though, we need to mention, I would say two additional elements. One is the cash flow generation you see over the decade is around EUR 11 billion. Able to offset, I would say, the majority or almost the majority of the organic, inorganic growth. You need to consider that the gross investments are obviously EUR 12.7 billion, but the net are EUR 11.3 billion, that you saw on the chart of the sources and uses, because we are expecting, as we commented earlier, contributions from the public, so subsidies in the range of EUR 1.4 billion.
This includes the EPCs. On top, the second point is on top of the cash flow generation, which is in any case, in my opinion, significant, considering also the industry where I come from, so it's definitely a big number. On top, we've also considered some asset rotation. As we said, the contribution of equity from minority partners in gas networks and in renewables. All our renewables investments are not gonna be 100% funded by Iren, obviously. Yeah, just I think, I hope I answered your question. It's a combination of different things, but obviously, yes, also debt is increasing. The 3.5x net debt on EBITDA is our maximum threshold. We want to make sure we are always below that.
The maximum peak, I think is maybe, I don't know, in the next few years, because the ramp-up of the investments is high, but it's never going above 3.4. It's always below, and we will make sure that is kept.
Well, normally in these cases, you should elaborate on what you are going to do, not what went wrong in the past. Actually, nothing is wrong with Iren. Iren is a perfectly healthy company, performing very well by inertia. It should go along in this path with very, I mean, little effort. Actually, we could even return a great part of our cash flow to our shareholders and ask them to have a better investment strategy. That is, of course, a pathway that we evaluated.
I see in Iren a machine that is capable of implementing and putting on the ground significant investments of which the country has a great shortage. We can make and create, extract value from this ability. The ability to bring local institutions to understand project finance structure, to understand the need for certain investments. This is something that Iren is already able to do. We are presenting and we are tendering, participating to a tender to a project that has the restructuring and the energy efficiency objective to restructure 800 public buildings in Turin. EUR 1 billion overall of project finance, which is pretty significant.
Other projects are going to be presented in Reggio Emilia and so on. This on energy efficiency shows that we have been able to illustrate that kind of solution that is not very common in all the Italian authorities, and to put it on the ground. Of course, we are able, not being a constructor, not being a real estate company, to organize all that is needed to implement what is required. Looking at 110% incentive, we currently have 400 building initiatives around our regions. This says that we have an industrial and engineering machine that is capable of investing much more than it was doing before. Secondly, we have faced a significant competitive pressure on the commodity market.
This is mainly due to the difficulties that a company like us that is a medium-sized company has in entering the digital business. We can exploit the fact that we are not so strong in digital, but we are ramping- up. We are very local. We are very concentrated. It means that we have a higher probability of having higher clients per kilometer, square kilometers in our territory, and this leads to the possibility to invest in a network, service items like shops that can create and improve customer service. Customer service focus is then across our businesses.
We have to be being monopolistic of many services. You have to be excellent in all of them because if you fail to be excellent in the water business, then you cannot propose yourself as the best energy provider to your clients. Demand of our clients is, in a way, a stimulus to excellence in general for Iren. Therefore, what the focus of the plan is to accelerate our and to put on the ground our capacity for investment. Incidentally, we are in two businesses that have great opportunities for investments. Energy and waste. It's easier to go on the flow than against the flow. We are going on the flow. We are not inventing something new, and we are going to do it very fast and well.
That is exactly what is in the. An additional opportunity is linked to what you were mentioning on the NextGenerationEU. There is a general need for the Italian Republic to relaunch public investments. The stratification of. I've been in the public health administration, so I know very well. The public administration has stratified a number of laws that makes it impossible. We will have a huge amount of money to spend, and we will not be able to spend them by 2026 if we don't organize ourselves with spending machines. Of course, in the past, we could say that we are not spending, so we are saving money, and that is how we have a big debt.
We are not restoring schools, but we are saving money, and that is a trade-off that has some sort of value. If the money is not yours, there is no trade-off to evaluate. You have the money, it's not yours, and you need to spend. If you're not able to spend them, then it's definitely a failure. In this element, we can add value. We can add value because we know exactly what our community needs. We are present in our territories, and this creates a value of local footprint more than going abroad or expanding our presence, going national, and so on and so forth. Being local represents an opportunity, unprecedented opportunity to exploit, to increase the possibility to create investment opportunities. Of course, investment opportunities must have the threshold IRR that we are looking in our plan. Thank you.
Dividend. One last thing maybe we forgot to mention on the dividend payout.
Yeah.
I'll leave it to Gianni. One quick remark because I forgot to say it. Obviously, we are to your point with our net debt on EBITDA ratios then decreasing to 2.5, as you can understand, it's a 10-year horizon. We wanted to show a signal that our robust cash flow generation will at some point reduce our leverage. At the same time, I'll leave it then to Gianni to comment, it's difficult to make forecasts of dividend payouts by 2030. I think it was important for us today to confirm that the dividend, the DPS is confirmed from the last plan, but there are no changes, at least up to 2025.
We wanted to give you an indication of comfort, but obviously the dividends, considering our net result is more than doubling, will be significant also thereafter. Obviously, let's reconvene in a couple of years.
Yes, in 2025.
Exactly.
No, it's exactly that. The payout that we are foreseeing for the second half of the plan is totally only for Excel purposes, as I mentioned during the presentation. We are not committing. I mean, it makes sense that we should have a payout policy beyond 2025. Currently, we have a priority on the short term to accelerate our company, and then, of course, we have time to adapt our dividend policy by 2025.
Please, Roberto. Ranieri, Intesa Sanpaolo.
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions, and thank you for the presentation. One general question is on the business plan and the CapEx plan, which is huge. Nevertheless, an ambitious, you know. Nevertheless, your CapEx plan is going towards a future with a potential interest rate increase. Some other headwinds like global supply chain issues. My first general question is how you are going to put some countermeasures on this kind of an outlook and or which are the assumptions you are doing, especially on the interest rates? My second question is more specific and is on biomethane. Could you please tell us what the government is doing with the authorization process and the decree they are discussing?
Basically, do you have any news on that? Because as far as I see, there are some delays in permitting and authorization of biomethane projects. My third question is on tenders. If I got it well, you also talked about the gas tenders. Which are not going on very fast. Do you expect this one to be a risk, and which is the value at risk of gas tenders not completed in line with your assumptions? My last question, if I may, is on the PPA contracts. You talked about a 50% PPA component.
If you want to maintain or increase your infrastructural profile, do you think you can go above this level also for the new renewable projects? Thank you very much.
Okay. I'll try to answer on interest rates.
Yes.
You saw that our projections are to decrease our cost of debt. Yes, you're right. Let's say, the interest rate swap trend is slightly increasing year-over-year. Still, it remains pretty favorable. You also have to consider that, again, two comments. One is our, let's say, embedded cost of debt or interest rate, or actually the interest, the bond issues that we've issued over the past years have been at very favorable interest rates. Let's say inherent in our debt structure, we have a pretty favorable interest rate. We need to consider obviously the new rates for all the debt to be refinanced or to be issued. I think in the short- to medium-term, this remains pretty favorable. We see actually a decreasing cost.
You're right, obviously, if we look longer term and beyond the second half, and you can see it here on the chart as well, when we reach 2026, 2027 or even 2030, probably our cost of debt will even again slightly go up. When we say up, this should be around 1.6% by 2030, obviously I don't have a crystal ball, so we will have to see then in the next years. Let's say we are very confident about the first few years also because the amount to be refinanced or to be, or new debt to be issued is pretty small. As I said, our inherent interest rates are very, very low, very favorable.
To add on that, as mentioned, we have 70%, 60% of which is fully regulated investments and 70% regulated or semi-regulated. Significant edge on the variability of interest rates is embedded in our activities. What remains out is basically renewables and part of other investments in the market. Let me highlight a basic intuition. The market in general is short of renewables.
As long as it will be short of renewables, it will call for in general higher returns in order to incentivize and therefore investing, at least in the current scenario. That said, we can stop anytime because our plan is very flexible. In the current scenario, there is a shortage of infrastructure. If we are able to offer renewables infrastructures to the market, and of course, the cost of the investment is in line with the market, the return should be there to grant the existence of the plan.
On biomethane, we are happy that the horizon had been extended on the first simplification decree to 2026, and this has unlocked part of our plans that were not being forecasted to be implemented by that date. Therefore, we have in our slides an expansion on this sector. On gas tenders, it's true that they've been stopped, and now a number of gas tenders have been unlocked.
Actually, on our territories, Emilia and Liguria in particular, but also Piemonte, the acceleration probably because local authorities are more efficient, the tenders are going to be present in the next few years. On PPA, as said, there is an opportunity in the market. The market is looking for a longer-term hedge, not to be exposed to the variation, and therefore, we are looking to that opportunity. But the shortage of renewables opens up also the possibility that more renewables are going to be admitted to public tenders. Tariff is also an opportunity that we are looking.
Of course, we have our customer base that can construct a long-term edge, especially if we shift our customer base to longer term contracts. Thank you.
Please, Dario Michi.
Thank you for taking my question and the occasion to meet, in person. I think the missing point is on the M&A. If I'm not mistaken, in your business plan, you have factor in, bolt-on acquisitions. As this is a 10-year business plan, what do you expect at the end of this plan? I mean, sooner or later, we will have to face larger scale M&A, probably. What's your view on this?
My view is that we have a strong majority from our affiliated shareholders. I don't see in the near term, or at least in my horizon, a major acquisition of Iren by or to another player. Definitely the areas of collaborations can be there. We are excellent in our areas in several of our businesses. If I'm talking about A2A or Hera, if that is what you were mentioning, definitely I can see that we more or less have similar performances with of course different styles. There is no clear industrial leader in each of the area that we manage.
Of course, a larger scale could be interesting in order to expand beyond the Italian territories. As said, we are being local, we can generate a huge amount of opportunities. We don't need to go in other countries to develop them if we can go deeper in creating value to the communities that we serve. That is exactly what we are going to do.
Please don't discount the M&A included in the plan, because you're right, maybe there is not a mega deal, but definitely the EUR 1.8 billion of inorganic growth is also through M&As. Small ones, definitely, but not given for granted. There are acquisitions of assets, of companies, consolidation of subsidiaries, so we increase our stakes. Even on the renewables, we will see. For now, they're not included, but obviously, we will scout opportunities. Please take into consideration with some M&A is already embedded in the plan, and it's not, as I said, for granted, so it's pretty relevant.
Second and last question on the district heating. Many thanks for the focus you raised on this business. I was wondering, there was an article in the press yesterday mentioning new important projects in Turin. If you could detail this and also on the potential introduction of incentives on this business, if any, or if it makes sense in your view to introduce them.
Well, first of all, our expansion incorporates the acquisition of a part of the areas in the western part of the metropolitan area of Turin. There is an additional large expansion in the east part, northeast part of Turin, taking advantage of the heat that is currently dispersed in the environment by Iren CCGT plant. Of course, this project is significant and brings Turin area to be the largest district heating network in Italy overall.
This business is particularly relevant and efficient in the north of Italy, and we have, i f we look at the pollution emission of different pollutant than CO2 in the metropolitan area of Turin, the effect is evident because the rate at which different pollutant are present in this area is basically only driven by public transportation and individual transportation, whereas all the rest is set to zero, so the public heating and so on, thanks to the district heating network. This of course is very different to other areas in the north, and therefore additional investments should be needed. Of course, this business has not been regulated, which is on one side a good thing, the return is higher, but on the other side has not created a clear return on initial investments.
Since the exposure that you have to rolling out a network initially is very large, because you have to make a great part of the investment without having clients connected, is not very distributed in Italy in terms of initiative. We are fortunate enough to have the possibility to gradually improve our networks and increase. We have several initiatives, and we are looking at EUR 200 million of incentives that are included in the PNRR funds. We assume that by 2026, probably district heating initiative will be granted the opportunity to get more contribution, given the fact that other areas will be short of delivering by the date.
Okay. We have a question from Federico Pezzetti, Intermonte
Good afternoon to everybody, and thank you for the presentation from myself as well. I have three quick questions, if I may. The first one is on hedging. Given the current scenario, macro scenario of high volatility, and given that we have a new CEO and new CFO, I was just wondering if there's any new thought about your hedging strategy. Related to this, wondering if you could give us, maybe share with us some sensitivity to movement in commodity prices over the plan period. The second quick question is on CapEx, just on maintenance CapEx, if you could give us an idea of the run rate of maintenance CapEx going into 2030, the exit of the plan.
Related to this, if there's how can I say in the EBITDA target of 2030, we are missing a significant part related to CapEx made in the last few years of the plan or if that's pretty much all the investments are in the EBITDA target. Very, very last one on ESG, which is a master theme. No, it's on remuneration. Just if you could share with us, maybe a little bit more on how much of the variable is linked to ESG targets and maybe a little bit of color on what are the drivers, the parameters that are key to the achievement of your remuneration, your variable remuneration. Thank you very much.
First of all, we highlighted that 30% of our investments are mandatory, meaning that those are the minimal investments or the maintenance investment. Let's assume that in a scenario in which maintenance is not discouraged, and investment are not discouraged, this is a large number. Of course, in a case of, let's say, a regulation that is negative on investments or remuneration of investments, that number could even be compressed. There is no initiative, specific initiative on compressing that figure. Let's say that out of the overall EUR 12 billion investments, one-third is maintenance.
We also saw that out of the EUR 1.8 billion, EUR 600 million comes from organic growth. It's basically a result or effect of the organic investments made. I don't want to say it's 100% secured, but it's definitely very, let's say, very stable or reasonably to be achieved.
Okay. On the coverage, we have a 20% coverage approach to take into consideration the variability of the market and the variability in volumes, of course. I mean, as has been seen in the third quarter results and in the projection that we have for the end of the year, this, let's say, criteria has been very effective, having totally offset the impact that, of course, we had on the market. On our market view, has been offset by hydroelectric residual not covered production and the waste-to-energy production.
This enables us with, if we compare the prices that we presented in August compared to that of now, we are projecting the same end results by the end of the year, with completely different price scenario. The 80% coverage strategy is totally replicated next year. As said, for instance, on hydro, by memory, we have covered 80% of our production with EUR 95 per MWh.
Right. ESG, I just spoke of.
ESG. No, M&A goes.
Okay, yeah. Sorry, you had a question on ESG? Ask.
Ah, remuneration of-
Remuneration of-
Okay. I'm sorry. I don't have the exact detail on how much is going to be part of our remuneration, but it will be included both on the short-term evaluation and on the long-term evaluation that will be of course approved by the board after the approval of the plan. So I don't have the exact figure. There is the commitment of the company to have a significant target on ESG objectives. Well, thank you very much. I think that we have been running a little bit late. Thank you for your questions and for your presence. I leave you to a little,
Coffee
Arrangement and coffee, a little bit anticipation of dinner, of lunch, actually, or dinner, I don't know. Then, I turn to the colleagues of the press.
Thank you.