Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Grenergy's full year 2023 results presentation. I am Alberto Sánchez, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined today by David Ruiz, our CEO, Daniel Lozano, our Chief of Strategy and Capital Markets Officer, and Rocío Fernández, Head of Sustainability. They are going to take us through our business, financial, and ESG review. At the end of the presentation, there will be a Q&A session for sell-side analysts. I hand over to our CEO, David Ruiz.
Thank you, Alberto, and good morning, everyone. Moving to our highlights, slide on page number 3 of the presentation. I'd like to remark, highlight our solid operation execution, right? I think our pipeline in solar remains stable, at 15.3 GW. We have had some further growth in BESS in 11.3 GWh . This is from 10.7 last quarter, last update. I think we will still see some increases in following quarters in solar, but we are reaching really our sweet spot in some markets, the level of projects we believe we're gonna need for the coming years. I think on the other side, we will still have a lot of room for growing in BESS.
Our key projects are advancing, Oasis de Atacama, Quillagua, the second part of Quillagua, phase II of Oasis de Atacama; it's already under construction. This is, I think, great news. Very soon, we will also move phase III and IV, Víctor Jara and Gabriela, to the under construction status. I think, we have great news in the last few weeks on PPAs, M&A, financing, good progress on Oasis de Atacama. We just closed a new 15-year hybrid premium PPA for a total of 720 GWh per year. This is what we call phase IV. It's been signed with a global investment-grade utility, and it's a very important milestone for us. It's the largest and most important PPA we've ever signed.
It's the biggest that's ever been signed by the company. We're talking about close to $600 million in revenues in 15 years. This is way bigger than the PPA we signed with Amazon last year, and well, similar to all the PPAs we've signed with Copec. Yeah, and it's the third important PPA we've signed in the last 12 months, and we keep working on new PPAs in all 3 regions. I'd like to remark that we already have EUR 3.7 billion in revenues contracted for the next 15 years, which is something I believe quite remarkable and growing every quarter.
I think it's important to outline also our strategic deal with BYD for the supply of the first two phases of Oasis de Atacama for the battery supply. We keep negotiating hard to reduce CapEx, and I believe we might announce the procurement agreements for phases III and IV in the next few weeks. Could be either with BYD or other premium manufacturers. Going to M&A, well, we recently also announced the sale of 174 MW of solar, both solar and wind assets in Peru for roughly $150 million. This implies 1.3x enterprise value invested capital ratio.
After this deal, the equity proceeds already have on, on our build-to-sell activity, have already reached EUR 340 million. This implies 55% of our EUR 0.6 billion target that we outlined in our Capital Markets Day. We are still at the beginning of 2024, and we have already achieved 55% of the proceeds we outlined for the period between 2023 and 2027. I think it's quite remarkable. Going to... We've made a further step on our investment plan, in our project finance. We just announced yesterday the closing of EUR 175 million non-recourse financing for the construction of 300 million, 300 MW in Spain.
These are the projects that will get transferred to Allianz in Q2, at the end of Q2 next year. But it's been an important milestone for us. Strong set of results for 2023. Revenues more than EUR 400 million, and this is 37% up compared to the same period last year. EBITDA 2x higher, driven by asset rotation and energy business. This is, for the first time, more than 100 million, 105 for 2023. And net income is 5 x higher, despite higher financing costs in the period.
Just to put things in perspective, we are coming from EUR 101 million-EUR 113 million revenues and EUR 23 million EBITDA in 2020. So just to give an example, okay, the company in only three years has multiplied by 4 the revenues, and by 4x and 4.5 EBITDA, just to put things a bit in perspective. We are also achieving a substantial deleverage, especially on a pro forma basis, assuming the Peruvian disposals that have been closed in December, but will be reflected in Q1. Considering that, the total leverage was 3.7, and the pro forma corporate level leverage 1.1.
Very important achievements in ESG, as Rocío will give plenty more information about our new ESG roadmap for 2024 to 2026. Our Net Zero 2040 strategy has been approved. Our sustainability report 2023, it's a lot of work there, has been published today. I think it's the second year we do a third-party verification. Well, great improvements also in ratings. Moving to next slide, about the platform overview. Well, I already outlined that we have 15.4 GW of solar, 11.3 GWh of BESS. I think we are giving every time more and more information, right? And you will see in the following slide.
I think we already do have one of the best global platforms in the regions where we are in PV, and we really want to make a difference in BESS and in storage. I think we are creating a very attractive and well-balanced portfolio of BESS projects. Moving to next slide. Well, no major changes in solar from the figures provided at the Capital Markets Day. I think we're putting great efforts in BESS. I think they're bearing fruit. We have increased the total platform 0.6 GWh, 0.5 GWh increase in assets under construction to already 1 GWh of phases I and II of Oasis de Atacama.
As you know, there are many players now talking about BESS, but very few of us are actually building and closing PPAs BESS on PV and storage, and we were very proud of what we are achieving. Well, you can see also in the chart, in the table showing the portfolio of BESS projects, that actually there is life after Valkyria. Well, we have all the portfolio in Chile, whatever is already under construction, whatever is in backlog, will get into under construction very soon. This is Oasis de Atacama. But look at our pipeline in Spain. Well, we already got a two-hour BESS system in Escuderos project has been eligible to receive Next Generation Funds addressed to energy transition. It's been a very important achievement.
Look, look at Italy, U.K., Poland. So we can say that our pipeline of BESS is advancing at a very good speed in Europe, and it's also very well balanced in the U.S., where you can see 3 GW in early stage. So this is our intention to have a very balanced portfolio of BESS projects as well. Moving to next slide about PPAs. We have, you know, we really have a defensive business model. We want to have visible and predictable earnings, and thanks to our strategy to contract, we are contracting most of our energy production. PPAs are really critical to obtain financing and therefore to deliver projects, right?
Again, we like to show what we have achieved in the last few years and how this is getting the acceleration we are getting. We have a PPA signed for 3.5 TWh. This is 75% of our production from 2026 is being hedged with PPAs. Compare these 3.5 TWh to 1.2 TWh that we are reporting for 2023. And we are also achieving much higher prices in some of these PPAs, considering we are delivering energy at night. So we, you know, the size of the company will, in terms of energy delivery of energy, will become 3-4x bigger than it is now, only 3 years from now.
Only 25% of our output is solar merchant prices, and, well, in countries like Spain, we only have 5% merchant exposure in the Escuderos plant. The rest is contracted. We have, again, as I mentioned earlier on, already contracted EUR 3.7 billion of revenues in the next 15 years. That, well, that includes, obviously, the new PPA signed for Oasis de Atacama. Moving to the slide about Oasis de Atacama, again, good news. We already have a new PPA for phase IV. Again, this is the most important PPA we've ever signed. Only phase five is pending, and we might announce a PPA in the next few weeks. So all phases will be fully contracted.
We have already phase one and phase two are already under construction. We also announced the procurement of the battery packages for phase one and two with BYD, as I mentioned, right? So very, very happy. Everything, things are moving smoothly, and well, we will keep updating any information regarding this project, considering it's very, very important for us. And finally, some update on M&A, on build to sell. We already mentioned that we have already, in Valkyria, we've sold 447 MW in Spain for EUR 445 million. This is the enterprise value. This is implying close to 1.5x EV/IC.
We have very recently announced a very important deal for us in Peru. We are not leaving the country in any case, we are just rotating our 1.0 assets, and we are concentrating in new projects and new PPAs. So hopefully we will have some new build to sell activity in the country in 2025 and 2026. And the Peruvian projects have no associated debt, so the proceeds will immediately reduce our corporate debt in the same amount. So it's net proceeds of $150 million, sorry, US. Considering all the asset rotation of $643 million, this implies 40% of our target. We outlined between $350 million and $450 million for the period 2023-2026.
But talking about proceeds, as I mentioned, we have already achieved 55% of the EUR 0.6 billion target we outlined. So I think we are really, really on track on this side. So I hand over to Daniel for the financial review. Thank you.
Thank you, David. Let's move on to the financial review that's starting on slide 9. Total output increased by 24% due to new capacity and better load factors. Contracted volume increased as well by 34% to 797,000 GWh in 2023, and represented 64% of our total electricity production. Realized price increased by 13% due to both higher merchant and PPA prices within the period. Then on the right side, you have a summary of the main financial KPIs, KPIs that we are going to explain about later. If you look at slide 10, we can see that in 2023, total revenue reached EUR 400 million, +37% YoY, and EBITDA increased to EUR 104.5 million, more than twice the previous year figure.
The development and construction division was driven by the disposal of Belinchón project in Q3, producing close to EUR 70 million EBITDA, and two distribution asset in Chile to PMGDs, EUR 11 million with very high margins. In Q4, there was no asset rotation. The energy division was driven, as I said, by higher output and realized price. Finally, regarding retail and supply business in Chile, is again, a bit positive this quarter, with close to EUR 1 million. Its total EBITDA for 2023 was EUR -0.4 million, due to the first semester of the year, and we expect this business to be EBITDA positive during 2024. Moving on to slide 11, we can see that full year 2023 total CapEx reached EUR 366.3 million.
That is 88% higher than the previous year figure, reflecting the acceleration in our execution. Project CapEx was EUR 337.2 million, split 37% in Spain and 63% in Latin, mainly PMGDs and Gran Teno, utility-scale project we have just connected. It also includes, this figure includes CapEx from projects rotated, Matarani in Peru and Tabernas and José Cabrera in Spain. Development CapEx was EUR 29.1 million. Regarding CapEx per megawatt, is at all-time lows, with panels at 10 cents per dollar. Now CapEx is around EUR 0.4 million, excluding the, excluding the interconnection line, thanks to the expansion of the global industrial capacity and plus polysilicon production. Due to CapEx deflation and PPA levels that we are closing, IRR remain stable... and attractive at double-digit levels, more than offsetting the impact from higher interest rates.
Then in slide number 12, we have the cash flow for the period. Some key messages, working capital outflows was EUR 27 million in 2023, implying a substantial improvement from the EUR 76 million outflows registered in the first nine months of the year. As well, we have an increase in CapEx that has been mainly funded with project financing, and the corporate facility signed with Santander and backed with Erste. And finally, we are closing the period with a cash position of EUR 120 million. Net proceeds from Belinchón had a positive effect in our treasury balance position of close to EUR 90 million.
Now, if you can look at slide 13, our net debt increased to EUR 579 million, mainly driven by the CapEx acceleration, although the total leverage ratio declined to 5.6 x, from 6.4 x a year earlier. However, including the disposal of our Peruvian assets, we will have had a pro forma net debt of EUR 460 million and a pro forma leverage ratio of 3.7 in 2023. Likewise, our corporate net debt will have been EUR 170 million, and our pro forma corporate leverage at 1.1 x. Also, bear in mind that our recent news regarding the closing of the financing for Tabernas and José Cabrera imply, implies shifting corporate debt into non-recourse debt for the CapEx already incurred.
This will contribute to further improve our corporate leverage ratio. As announced in our Capital Market Day, held in November, our investment plan for 2023 to 2026 will be self-funded, thanks to our asset rotation strategy, as David said, which already 55% of it has been completed, and the corporate and non-recourse financial deals plan. That's all for the financing part. Thank you. I'm going to hand you over to Rocío, who is going to explain our ESG part.
Thank you, Daniel. Good morning, everyone. I invite you all to follow the details of the progress in ESG matters during the fourth quarter of 2023. I am pleased to announce that the three goals committed for this period were successfully accomplished. Firstly, a climate change risks and opportunities internal report was elaborated according to the TCFD recommendations. Secondly, the results of the work environment surveys were presented, with the aim of implementing actions to boost talent retention. Last but not least, the Net Zero strategy by 2040 was approved by the board of directors. Our Net Zero strategy implies to meet specific targets for the greenhouse gas emission reductions, including not only Scope 1 and 2, but also Scope 3 of the carbon footprint. Now, let me give you further details about the Net Zero strategy. Moving on to the next slides.
For Scope 1 and 2, which means direct and indirect own ESG emissions, the commitment is to reduce 60% of this emission by 2030. For Scope 3, meaning indirect emissions from our value chains, the goal is to reduce 50% of these emissions in a relative unit by sales. To achieve this ambitious target, many actions have to be done. For instance, the purchase of 100% renewable energy, or the selection of green providers of panels and batteries. Moving on to our position in ESG ratings, I would like to emphasize the fact that, in general terms, Grenergy maintains its leadership position in the most prestigious ESG ratings. During the last quarter of 2023, some scores were updated, providing us better results than the last year in EthiFinance and S&P as well.
CDP was also updated along Q4, and regarding the other indexes, such as Sustainalytics, MSCI, and ISS, our score were improved in 2023 compared with the previous year, and also in comparison with our key peers. So that's all from my side. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you very much, Rocío. We are now moving to the Q&A session. If you have any question, please send a message to the administration using the chat available in the tool. Just let her know that you want to participate, but you do not have to write down your questions. Please limit to one question per analyst in the first round, and you might have the opportunity to follow up later on. Let's give a minute until we receive questions. Okay, our first question comes from Fernando García from RBC. Fernando, please go ahead.
Can you hear me? Yes, no?
Yes.
Okay. Thank you, Alberto, and for taking my question. Sorry, I have two, so-
Yeah
... this time. First question is if you can update us about Valkyria asset rotation plan, and particularly about Ayora. And in case that there is any delay versus expectations there, you have other options to finance your business plan? Then the second question is, well, I was reading your presentation, that you have 75% of the 4 phases of the Atacama project already contracted. I don't know, this might be indicating that you are ahead of your plan there. So if you can update us about this project execution. Thank you.
Hi, Fernando. Morning. Hi, how are you? Thanks for your questions. I think the first one is about Valkyria. Well, as you know, when we launched Valkyria, the very beginning, one option was rotating 49% of a large portfolio of one. I think I reckon it was like 1.1 GW. And that included already also, apart from Belinchón and the plants that we have transferred to Allianz, it included also Escuderos, Ayora, and I think the first phase of Clara Campoamor. We have achieved two transfers already. We have achieved already the proceeds that we were targeting with the transfer of 100% of Belinchón and Allianz. But we have already explained that we keep working in further rotations, and particularly in Ayora.
It is, I think it's well advanced, but you know, these deals, they really need some time. I think we have a fantastic PPA, and Ayora plant has also the same PPA of Tabernas José Cabrera with Amazon. I think it is the best in class. And we are very confident, so we have several options on the table. One is very advanced, and I think we will provide information in the next few weeks. This is about Valkyria. About Oasis de Atacama, again, we are very happy with how things are going. I'm showing this in this update from the Capital Markets Day. That was less than three months ago.
We have already signed the most important PPA in terms of, in economics, right, which is phase IV. It's already been signed. We're only missing the last PPA for phase V, but that's for our 2026 construction line of 2025. We're already under construction, all phase I and phase II. It's already being procured, the battery packs from BYD for phases I and II. Well, we gave guidance on our expectation for CODs in the Capital Markets Day. So it's phase II, Q3 2025, and phase III, phase IV, Q4 2025. Phase I, as early as Q4 this year. We stick to those dates.
Obviously, we have a great incentive to anticipate and start generating energy as soon as possible, because every month means quite a few makes really a difference. So we will try everything in our hand to anticipate the COD, or at least start selling energy to the grid as early as possible.
Thank you, David.
Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much, Fernando. The next question comes from Jorge Guimarães from JB Capital. Jorge, good morning. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the good presentation. I would have a question, as we are limited to one, on the evolution of CapEx cost for batteries. You are now saying it's EUR 180,000 per MWh , so my question is: When do you expect to see the CapEx of batteries being profitable enough to do merchant arbitrage in the Spanish market? So when do you see LCOS of batteries being competitive in Spain?
Hi, Jorge. Thanks for your question. It's, which is always very interesting. Well, when we say $180, we are considering everything, not just the battery, but all the balance of plant, everything included. This is already below, you know, when we started our Oasis de Atacama project, we were talking about $220, $230, and it's still, we managed to get an IRR. So things are going down. We expect to see some further reductions, right? But keep in mind, for Spain, it's, you've got different economics than in Chile. It's not just about the battery CapEx, which is obviously a very important driver, and I think batteries, we believe they will definitely go down in the next few quarters, right? That's our expectation, at least.
But we also need a capacity market in place. This is another very important, and we still don't have visibility on that. The government has promised that, at some point this year, Q2, Q3, there will be a capacity market. It's basically happening in every country in Europe, but you've got different mechanisms, and it could be like in Chile, that you get automatically a payment for capacity, or it could be auctions or, you know, there are different systems. That's another driver. And the other driver, obviously, in every market is the gap between day and night prices, right? The wider the gap, the more, you know, the better, and the easier for the introduction of storage in the market.
We are very, very confident, I'm very sure that it will happen in Spain. Whether the boom occurs in 2025 or in 2026, 2027, will depend on, well, CapEx evolution, regulation, and other factors.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Jorge.
Thank you very much, Jorge. Our next question comes from Paul Sarram from Kempen. Good morning, Paul. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, and thank you for taking my question. I think you mentioned that you achieved 55% already of your target revenues for BTS, with only 40% of target volumes. So does this imply there could be, in the end, an upside on the revenues that you could get your from BTS? Or do you prefer being maybe more conservative and and retaining more asset on the balance sheet by sticking to 100% of target revenues? Thank you.
Thank you. It's a very interesting question. Well, I think first, I think it's great we do have flexibility. First, we obviously want to make sure we achieve the EUR 0.6 billion target. We are really on track, considering we are in early 2024. But whether if we reach that level and we see opportunities to go beyond this level, if we have opportunities to accelerate our build-to-own plan, and if we believe that the right way to finance those opportunities is our further asset rotations, then we will, of course, we will look at whatever we think is better for the company and for the shareholders, right?
But first, we want to make very sure that we meet our targets in terms of proceeds, and we will obviously study any other alternatives. Right?
Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much, Paul. Our next question comes from Anis Zgaya , from Oddo. Anis, please go ahead.
Yes, so thank you, Alberto, and thank you all for the presentation. I have one question. Well, I limit myself to one question. Could you give us an indication on the expected EBITDA in 2024, including already the disposals already announced, and taking into account the energy business contribution? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Anis. Thanks. Thanks for your question. We can't really give a guidance. Obviously, we have a guidance in mind, but we just, I think, for the first time, provided some guidance in our Capital Markets Day for 2026. Correct me if I'm wrong, Alberto, but we were targeting 150, between 150 and 200 EBITDA from energy sales-
Right.
in 2026, and a run rate between EUR 250 million-300 million, obviously, once all the first four phases of Atacama will be in place. The EBITDA, it's been EUR 105 million last year. Obviously, we will try to increase that figure. That's all I can say. It really will depend on our build and sell, right? I don't know, Alberto, if you want to add anything on this, but we really don't provide guidance for the year. You analysts have other peers, right?
Thank you, David. Alberto, you want to add something?
No, I think that everything has been said by David. Yeah, it's too early and too many different moving parts, so it's still early days. We're not ready to provide guidance for the full year.
... I think you will have an easy, once we publish the first quarter, you will see the, well, the build and sell EBITDA coming from our Peruvian rotation there, yeah, right?
Mm-hmm.
It will give you an idea.
Mm.
And I think we are providing a lot of visibility on the plans that will be operational this year. So it might be-
Mm.
A bit easy to predict, right? Then maybe Ayora will make a difference, right? But that's. I think it's gonna be a very predictable year, right?
Yeah. Okay.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Anis. There are no more questions for the time being. I don't know if anyone wants to follow up.
Yes, if I may, if no one's taking the chance, so it's Paul Sarram from Kempen. I have a question which conceptually on Oasis de Atacama, you know, it's a large project that also the first of the kind for you. The phase I will be, I think, the most important in terms of, you know, setting a track record of what you can achieve and if you can achieve in say, in time. Conceptually, what would be, in your view, the main risk or the main execution risk for this project? Is it, I don't know, maybe not getting the battery packs on time? Is it about the construction? Anything, yeah, any insight on what would be the most important risk there?
Well, it's a very good question. We have, I think the last, I would say, two years, we've been assessing all potential risk. Is something that is relatively new for us. I would say that the market is more mature than what many think. Yeah. I mean, compared to when we started in solar back in 2007, 2008, I think it's really new, the solar, right? But I believe batteries are quite a mature technology, what we are buying, right? Keep in mind, this is very similar technology to the batteries you find in EVs. There are already some operational projects in Chile.
There's a large project, not as large as Oasis de Atacama, but it's quite a relevant project, of AES Gener, that has been in operation for a few months. We are monitoring that, that very well, and things are going so far fine. It's not exactly with our BYD manufacturer. I think it's been supplied by Fluence. There is another one operational now that, from a Canadian developer, Innergex, yeah, and it's been running already for 3 months, quite well. The first phase of Oasis de Atacama, the first 2 phases, well, the PV plant is already connected. It's already interconnected, so no risk there, right?
So whatever we see, we want to make sure this is already an extremely important project for BYD because, you know, they have made a lot of publicity on this deal, and I think they have a lot of, a lot to lose if, if... This is really a flagship for BYD, and we really believe that it's great that they see this as a flagship project. They are setting local teams in Chile. I think they might get a lot of business for them, right? And I don't know, I think we feel very, very confident. BYD is supplying just the battery pack, the battery packs. They will get shipped in Q2. They will arrive Quillagua in Q3, during Q3 for phase I, during Q4 for phase II.
Everything is fine. We have already procured and signed all the contracts, the bonds are in place. I think we have a very good set of guarantees. I don't know. I don't see any concern, but it's true that it is the first project, so we are monitoring. It's also very important that all the technology regarding inverters, converters, is being supplied by Ingeteam, that it's a Spanish company. They have a lot of experience in storage, and, well, they're gonna be our partner. They're gonna be next to us. They're a large supplier. They've already been supplying us inverters for many years, so we have a very close relationship. So I think BYD, Ingeteam, it's a flagship for all of them. So I don't know, nothing can go wrong, really.
This is what we believe.
Okay, that's, that's approved. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you very much, Paul. We have received no further questions.
Sánchez, if I may?
Sure. Yes, Jorge, please go ahead.
Thank you. Just a follow-up. I don't know if you already answered this, but do you believe that this recent fall in power prices could create... I know that you have been selling Spain and not buying, but probably are vindicated now by the prices you obtained, and prices probably will come down. Do you believe that markets, given all the correction, is already, there are already opportunities for you to buy projects in Spain again? Or it's you prefer to wait on the sidelines until effectively prices go- prices are already at long-term levels? So
... You have been first to get out. Are you considering to get in again?
Yeah. Okay, well, that's—I believe that Spain will be a land of opportunities, right? But mainly for hybrid plants, PV storage, or standalone plants with storage. Look at the boom—what is happening now in Chile, yeah? And Chile is, let's say, two years ahead of Spain, with prices collapse during the day, the PPA market got quite difficult for solar profile. But look at the boom now. No single plant now can be conceived without BESS. And we are really getting advantage of our position in the market.
I think that a similar situation could eventually happen in Spain, so it will be a fantastic—I mean, the great news is that, okay, we contracted all our portfolio, all of Iberia, and I think it's one of the best decisions we have ever taken, right? And I think our projects are very well hedged and protected with PPAs. Well, this wave is in Spain, will be over one day, and a new wave will start or come similar to the one that we are looking at in Chile, right? This is what we believe, but we need to do our homework. We need to make sure we execute, and we deliver Oasis de Atacama in 2025.
I'm very sure we will, there will be other jurisdictions and other geographies where we could replicate this success, whether it's Spain or it's Texas. There are many sunny places in our portfolios.
Thank you.
Okay, our next-
Yeah.
Our next question.
Sure.
Please, if you want to ask any question, send a message to the administration of the chat, and we'll give you the floor. Our next question comes from Anis Zgaya from Oddo. Yeah. Anish, please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you, Alberto. So, I have a follow-up question on PPA market in Europe, because I see that you are starting negotiation PPA in Italy and in Poland. Could you give us an update on PPAs market in those countries? In Germany as well, if you could. Thank you very much.
Okay. Okay. Well, we as you know signing PPAs is also about a lot about credibility, and I've seen we are gaining a lot of credibility.
Considering we're a small company, right? But we are very high in the rankings. I think in the Pexapark ranking for 2023, we were number 3 after Iberdrola and Statkraft, but very close. It was just in Europe, considering the PPAs we have closed with Amazon and LyondellBasell . And we are now talking to, I would say, everyone. As you know, some of the large, larger. Well, now, the larger buyers of energy are technology companies like, you know, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, the Magnificent Seven, as they are called now. We are basically talking to all of them in all the regions, right? You know, sometimes it's driven by data centers, AI. Microsoft is extremely active.
Amazon has so far been the largest buyer, but followed by Meta, but I think Microsoft is catching up. AI is very, you know, they need a lot of more energy due to their new AI data centers, right? And, and this is great news, right? They, they, you speak to them, and they say, "Okay, I need, energy north of Italy, Lombardia. I need energy in, in Spain, Madrid, or in Aragón, because I'm gonna have the data center in, in, in Zaragoza, and I need in the Berlin area. I might need, 100 GW in, in Poland." And these are the kind of conversations we're having.
So I believe that there is also a possibility that, you know, normally in our business, project comes first, and then you find the right PPA. But I think the business might change, and in some cases, the PPA comes first, and then you look in the market for the right project to match that PPA. Germany is definitely... The problem with Germany is that there are very few projects really ready to build. There will be more coming, but it will be a very interesting market to match PPAs, especially with large technology and industrial companies. It will be the largest PPA market in Europe.
It has been in Spain so far, but because there were so many projects, but I think Germany will be a very interesting market for PPAs.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, David.
Thank you.
Okay, there are no further questions.
Hi, actually, I just want to ask one, a quick one.
Sure.
So if you look at the Spanish solar prices, they're effectively zero now for a week. Is it still possible to sign a PPA in Spain, even if you wanted to, you know, offer a low price? And then there's a lot of developers that put down the down payments for the grid connections. What happens if you don't develop that grid connection? Do you lose the down payment? Do you get it back? Does the connection get re-tendered? Now, what's the outcome with the pipelines?
Mm.
that you expect to happen? So that's the question on PPAs and pipeline. And then the other one is on data centers demand. Having discussed it with Pexapark, it seems that, you know, you need 24/7 stable power supply for data centers, and you have a great offering with the hybrid PPA, but that only ships you, I don't know, 3, 4, 5 hours. How can you make an offering to data centers during the night hours? Or, you know, could you maybe partner up with someone, some other flexible solutions? How can you work out the offering for data centers?
Okay, very interesting questions. The first one, about Spain, you know, the government introduced some flexibility on the CODs. So I think this has released some pressure, because before we were all thinking, oh, most of the projects need to get connected in June, July 2025, and that's no longer the case. And you need to, in many cases, you need to identify the semester where you are intending to connect, but you could, you know, throw the ball to 2026, even 2027, early 2028. And I think this is releasing some pressure, right? And, well, many of us believe that... Okay, you look at the prices now, it's really affected a lot about wind, right?
If you have a windy day, prices are going down to zero, right? It's, let's see, this spring, summer, with introduction of a lot of solar. There will be pressure on merchant prices, right? We believe that you need to be... But at the same time, you have many new e-projects, industrial projects, mainly data centers. You've got some battery projects. You've got a large one in Valencia, you've got another one. You've got 3-4 large projects. They're looking for energy, and they need energy, right? And they're willing to buy you energy from solar plants as long as whatever they can fit in their curve, and then they look for the remaining from wind or other sources, right? Jumping to the other question about data centers.
Yeah, data centers needs 24/7, but, well, if you need a lot of energy and you need guarantees of origin, right, there's a quick way of getting those from solar plants, and this is the way that Microsoft and other buyers think, yeah? Still, there are places like Chile. In Chile, we're talking to Microsoft, we're talking to Google, we're talking to Amazon. They need 24/7, and it's the first market where we are already... They have all the energy they need during the solar profile, so no more PPAs there. And we are already having conversations of PPAs at peak hours or, you know. But you can have, like, a very large project, and the energy you store, you can...
You deliver that energy at night at the highest price, and then you can hedge at 24/7 with a client, that's no problem, right? So that's another way of doing it. It will eventually happen here, right? But still we don't see—we are being approached by some buyers. Okay, they are reading that we are closing hybrid PPAs in Latin America. It's one of the first places where this is really happening. Maybe Australia as well, and some places in California. But these hybrid premium PPAs, based on PV storage, is something quite new, and we are being approached by several large buyers, but still the price we need...
Okay, if the PPA price for solar, it's maybe EUR 40, we might need EUR 100 for a hybrid, and they're willing to pay 60-something, but not EUR 100. So we have a missing gap, missing money. Whenever there is a capacity regulation, this will go down. If the CapEx storage will go down, will get reduced. I think we will eventually get there, right? But we are not there yet in Europe, I think.
Maybe just to quantify the opportunity, how is there, like, some sort of rule of thumb for, if you could teach us investors know how big it can be, or, you know, I don't know, teraflops per megawatt hour or some sort of metric that people use to quantify how much incremental power demand there could be from data centers?
It's really difficult question. Many countries are now rejecting new data centers. I think it's the case of the Netherlands. Well, Ireland benefited a lot, but they recently said that, "Okay, there's no room for new. We have no energy," right? And I think it's a great opportunity for Spain and Portugal, right? Because, in particular for PV and BESS. And I think many data centers are moving to places. It's also the case of Hungary. I believe there are also some geopolitical support from China on the Hungarian battery large projects, right? The BYD, CATL, they are announcing.
But Spain has a great opportunity, considering we have a very small interconnection with France, so the energy prices in Spain will be lower than in the rest of Europe, in Spain and Portugal. And that's a great opportunity to attract data centers, and I think it's already happening, right? Where do you see that increase in demand? Yeah, I think it will start in 2025, 2026. Another question we made is, okay, to the buyers: What time do you need for a new data center to be in place? And they said it's something between 30-36 months. So it's not that much, it's not that long. Yeah, it's something that could get developed quite quick. But it's very interesting.
They're the largest buyers of energy, and it's happening everything very quick. And many countries in Central Europe don't have the possibility of supplying energy to more data centers.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Alexis. This marks the end of our results presentation. If you have any further question, please take it offline through the Investor Relations team, and we'll get back to you. Thank you very much, everybody, for your attendance, and you can disconnect. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Have a great day.