Welcome to Holaluz H1 2024 results conference call. Thanks for joining us today, and pleased to be here today sharing with you our results for the first half of 2024. Here in the slide, you can see our forward-looking statement. Joining me today is Pau Valdés, VP of Finance. Today, I'll start by covering our business model and growth strategy, followed by an overview of our H1 2024 results, and then Pau will share an update regarding our financial statements and close with our key areas of focus. Who are we, and what do we do? At Holaluz, we deliver the largest and most impactful green energy community in Europe by unleashing the full potential of electrifying energy demand by scaling distributed solar and storage, thanks to the heavy use of technology and data. This is our mission, so this is our commitment to fully decarbonize the world.
We aim to transform every rooftop into a distributed green energy producer, and we have been leading the highly critical energy transition as a disruptor and innovator in the marketplace. We've now been a great tech leader in Spain for over 13 years, with our unique and differential business model combining solar plus storage and energy management operations, thanks to our technological platform. We connect distributed solar and storage with the thousands of energy off-takers connected to our network throughout our energy management technology platform. We have a leading customer value proposition in Spain with the strongest customer satisfaction KPIs. Holaluz is a highly established and recognized brand in the marketplace, and there is still significant growth potential ahead, with solar installation penetration currently only below 5% of the total market in Spain. We focus our customer propositions on five key drivers.
First, providing maximum savings to consumers through rooftop maximization. Second, managing an end-to-end relationship across both solar and energy management. Third, providing warranty savings through our flat-rate subscription product, Tarifa Justa. We warranty our electricity costs 100% from green sources. And finally, we continuously drive innovation. For example, we were the first energy company to offer five-year electricity bill at zero while integrating batteries to our solar system. We have built a highly regarded brand with high levels of customer satisfaction, with four of five stars in Trustpilot and 81% of customer awareness in Spain. We are also an ESG leader in the energy industry, having 73 out of 100 points in EcoVadis and ranked number one worldwide in the independent energy power producers category by sustainability. I'm also very pleased to share that we've achieved the SBTi certification in September 2024.
I now would like to cover our business model and growth opportunities ahead of us. We are transforming the current electricity generation model from a centralized oligopoly, which is polluting and expensive by nature due to the heavy cost of T&D, into a decentralized, decarbonized, democratized, and affordable clean energy model that leverages the proximity network. We are doing this through the rooftop revolution by enabling people to transform their rooftops into green energy generators and storers, and connecting them to energy off-takers through our energy management tech platform. But how does this work in practice? We have three distinct parts. First, energy management. We connect people to green energy by supplying electricity from renewable sources to hundreds of thousands of customers throughout Spain, whether they have solar panels or not. Second, solar plus storage.
We transform rooftops into green energy production and storage centers and manage the energy produced and stored throughout our technology platform. And third, the technology platform itself. We centrally manage the portfolio of solar and storage assets to connect them to the energy demand of our energy management customers, leveraging data and AI to offer all of the customers connected to our network the greenest and cheapest electricity possible. This dynamic creates a flywheel powered by our use of technology and data, optimizing consumers' production and consumption patterns. But why? Why focus on residential solar and energy management? The combination of residential solar and energy management is the fastest path to decarbonize the economy while transforming the current energy model of variable costs into a fixed cost model for households. This integrated approach delivers multiple benefits for customers and the company. And what is in for end customers?
Our superior product offering delivers maximum savings for customers. Consumers that have our Holaluz solar product plus battery plus EV charger plus heat pump have energy savings of 100% versus gas, get payback from three to six years, and are expected to save more than EUR 84,000 on average over a period of 20 years. What's in for the company? Very easy. It's the sourcing advantage. Through distributed generation, we can source directly energy from thousands of residential rooftops, and skipping T&D costs, since this energy that we are sourcing from those rooftops is produced, stored, managed, and consumed throughout the proximity network locally. That means that it gives us a cost-effective supply of renewable energy, which amounts to EUR 75 per megawatt hour for a residential customer.
This competitive advantage in price that accounts for EUR 75 per megawatt hour creates really a huge competitive advantage in price that is here for the long term, that lasts for the long term, because it's based on the change of paradigm of instead of producing centralized and spending lots of money in this T&D, it's produced, stored, managed, and consumed locally in the energy communities. These are significant growth opportunities in the solar market in Spain. First, Spain is ideal for solar generation, with over 10 million feasible rooftops that belong to residential customers. Second is the very fragmented marketplace with no substantial competition. Third, Holaluz, already a market leader with 3% plus market share and more than 60,000 solar systems managed. And four, Spanish government targeting a 170% increase in self-consumption of renewable energy by 2030.
In particular, solar penetration currently is below 5%, compared with the 25% plus in other European countries with way less sun. Since 2019, the growth of solar in Spain has been exponential, with 2023 and 2024 being just a bump in the way, and there is a significant potential to drive growth. To capture these opportunities, our growth strategy focused on three pillars. One, scale. Second, data and technology. And third, optimization. Now, moving to our H1 2024 results. Please be aware that any comparison I mentioned will be on a year-on-year basis unless I state otherwise. In H1 2024, we were able to deliver strong underlying performance despite the persistence of significant industry headwinds. This is illustrated by a significant reduction in EBITDA loss of 78% to minus EUR 4 million, despite the industry headwinds driven by a revenue decline of 39% versus H1 2023.
We took this decisive action and successfully restructured and optimized our business with a materially lowered break-even point. We also reduced normalized operating cost by 46%, down to EUR 11.9 million, with limited disruption to the business. Approaching EBITDA break-evens through further embedding of efficiencies, delivered record-per-customer unit economics, key operational metrics across both the energy management and solar businesses showing very good progress, and now have a considerably strengthened financial structure of the group, following key financing actions and milestones including EUR 4 million financing, EUR 4.1 million monetization of rooftop loans, securing EUR 7 million in green Commercial Paper, and the standstill agreement with the primary financial creditors supported by over 94% of our banking pool. Most importantly, we continued leading customer value proposition and strong customer satisfaction KPIs, with four over five stars on Trustpilot and over 300,000 contracts that are broadly stable on year-on-year 2023.
Some metrics I'd like to focus on today. From a financial point of view, we expected normalized EBITDA to EUR 3.9 million. We achieved this primarily by a significant reduction of 49% in normalized operating costs, allowing us to also generate EUR 23.9 million in operating cash flows, and significantly reduce the break-even points for our solar business, down to 250 installations per month. Operationally, we now have over 300,000 contracts.
With a total of 16,118 solar contracts under management, we delivered 26% recurring gross margin in energy management and 52% one-off solar margins, all those being top energy industry metrics. All this, while focusing on delivering the best service to our customers and staying true to our core values, being a force for good. Maintained four over five-scoring Trustpilot, have 41% women on the team, saved over 2.7 million tons of CO2 equivalent, and achieved number one sustainability ESG ranking worldwide.
The company went from a normalized EBITDA of negative EUR 5.4 in H1 2023 to positive 3.9 in H1 2024, reducing the losses for solar by more than half and increasing the profits for energy management in more than 30%. Zooming into our energy management business, established business featuring good recurring cash flow and benefiting from the combination of the migration of our portfolio to the innovative flat-rate Tarifa Justa subscription product. Despite a 38% decline in revenue, we expanded gross margin to 26% with gross profit of EUR 20 million, mainly thanks to our Tarifa Justa proposition. Record per customer unit economics and historically low levels of non-payment, with bad debt down 83% to EUR 0.9 million from 5.3 in H1 2023. Enhanced overall profitability profile with positive EBITDA of EUR 3.9 million and normalized EBITDA increasingly by 40% to EUR 9.8 million.
Ongoing investment in the technology platform and implementation of AI tools to increase efficiencies and maximize savings for customers. Now, let's zoom on our solar business. Our solar plus storage business offers consumers the largest energy cost savings and is now nearing EBITDA break-even following ongoing focus on optimization. We narrowed our normalized EBITDA loss by 53% to minus 5.9 despite a 44% reduction in revenue. The delays in revenue were mainly due to the weak Spanish solar market as a result of higher interest rates, continued lower electricity prices, and next-gen subsidies coming to an end. We continued to improve our operational performance with a focus on optimization, selling price, and flexible asset penetration. This enabled us to expand gross margin to 52% due to increasing average installation size and selling price, thanks to the attachment of batteries.
We also reduced the break-even point to 250-250 installations per month from 600 at year-end 2023, as a result of cost measures, efficiencies, and diversification of customer acquisition channels. Battery attachment, as said before, in installation reached 30% in H1 2024, and it was even higher in September and October, reaching 50% plus, triple market rate due to best-in-class solar plus storage product offering customers no electricity bills for five years guaranteed by contract. Here you can now see the P&L for our solar business. As we previously mentioned, the 45% decrease in revenue was mainly driven by a continued challenging environment in the residential solar market, with at least a 26% decrease, as highlighted by UNEF.
Our revenue decline at the lower base and installations thanks to a significant increase in average installation price, which was EUR 10,521 in H1 2023, driven by a higher percentage of battery cells penetration and higher average sales per installation. The higher average selling price and battery penetration alongside with our efforts to reduce cost allowed us to expand gross margin by 8% points. We also reduced operating cost by a remarkable 46%, delivering a normalized EBITDA still in losses of EUR 5.9 million, but improving by 36% versus the same period of 2023. Here you can see a breakdown of the P&L for the energy management business. Revenues declined by 38% at a lower rate than energy prices, which saw a 56% decline for the same period. Our portfolio remained broadly stable with historically low levels of non-payments and churn.
Again, operational excellence delivered cost reductions and consequently profitability in normalized EBITDA, reaching €9.9 million, which is 39% higher versus the first half of 2023, as well as EBITDA as per statutory accounts , which moved from losses to a €3.9 million profit in June of 2024. As we previously mentioned, a key highlight for the first half of 2024 is the enhanced profitability profile despite the year-on-year decline in revenue. On a consolidated basis, revenue declined 39%, driven by the headwinds mentioned earlier. We've been able to significantly reduce our cost base and expand our profitability profile, delivering an increase of 78% year-on-year in EBITDA, consolidating normalized EBITDA, reaching €3.9 million in June, compared to the losses of the first half of 2023. Moving towards the balance sheet, total assets amounting to €124 million, almost €50 million less than December figures.
Long-term financial investment reduced by EUR 7 million, mainly explained by the sale of the 800 loans via hour subsidiary Rooftop Revolution, which generated a EUR 4.1 million cash in, helping to strengthen the financial structure of the company. The debtor balances also experienced a relevant reduction, basically explained by, first, the impact of Tarifa Justa, a product that flattened the billing zone along the year and supplemented the low prices environment, significantly reducing the billings for indexed products. Finally, there's a 9.2% reduction in B2C debtor balances and also the treasury decreased by EUR 6 million. Net equity reduced by EUR 13.7 million, mainly due to the results of the first half of the year. It must be noted that even though the consolidating net equity is negative from the legal and accounting perspective, what matters is the net equity of the parent company, which in June amounted to EUR 41.5 million.
In terms of liabilities, long-term borrowings amounted to more than €20 million, including €13.5 million of long-term debts and €6.5 million of derivatives. Short-term liabilities decreased by €33.9 million, mainly coming from short-term borrowings, financed at SEPA, BNP credit lines, and commercial papers. Holaluz has made significant progress in strengthening the financial structure of the company, with growing support of the financial market. In April, a €4 billion factoring agreement was signed to finance the invoices issued to Ayuntamiento de Calafell. In June, 800 rooftop loans were sold, generating a €4.1 million cash in without affecting the operating activity of the solar business. In July, €7 million of MARF e mission commercial papers were renewed in nine quarterly installments until 2026. And finally, in September, a standstill agreement was signed with more than 94% of the banking pool, enabling the negotiation of restructuring the outstanding financial debt.
More in detail, there's a waiting period until December 2024, the commitment for the financial institutions to keep working capital instruments under the existing terms, and a grace period on the principal repayment of the loans for the same duration. Our key areas of focus as a business. We are focusing on these six key areas. First, further reduction in operating cost and continued lowering of group break-even position, thanks to leveraging tech and AI implementation. Second, achieved break-even with continued focus on installation size and flexible asset penetration for solar. The third, further strengthened the financial structure through restructuring of debt and securing additional short and long-term funding. Fourth, running out of existing products and continuing innovation. Fifth, maintaining an optimal gross margin of 15% plus and achieved group profitability on an adjusted EBITDA basis.
And last, continued growing the strong brand recognition and market share in solar, maintaining leading customer satisfaction KPIs. We believe in the long-term potential of our business. H1 2024 has been a period of progress despite the persisting industry headwinds and challenges. Decisive actions successfully restructuring and optimizing the business and financial structure strengthened. Key operational metrics showing very good progress across both energy management and solar businesses. Highly established and recognized brand with continued leading customer value proposition and strong customer satisfaction KPIs. Much more to come with continued focus on efficiencies, innovation, and financial structure. Strong industry dynamics and tailwinds remain in place, although no significant upturn expected in the near term. However, the company is able to continue making good progress without an upturn and well positioned for when the broader market backdrop improves. I am proud with the progress we have made.
Having delivered a strong underlying performance, significantly reduced our cost base, and expanded both our profitability and cash generation profiles. Before wrapping up, I'd like to thank the Holaluz team who have worked relentlessly to deliver these results and all of our stakeholders, customers, suppliers, and creditors for their continued support as we continue to focus on our goal to fully decarbonize the world. Thanks for joining us today, and please get in touch with our investor relations team with any questions you might have.