Hello, and welcome to the EDPR 1H21 results presentation. My name is Stefano, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand over to your host, André Fernandes, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for attending EDPR's first half 2021 results conference call. We have here with us our CEO, Miguel Stilwell de Andrade, and our CFO, Rui Teixeira, who will run you through the key highlights of the business plan execution and also through the first half results. We'll move to Q&A, in which we will be taking your questions. This call is expected to last around one hour. Now I'll give the floor to our CEO, Miguel Stilwell de Andrade. Thank you.
Thank you, André. Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you're all doing well, and it's always a pleasure to take the chance to speak to all of you that follow the company so closely. Today we have a presentation which we'll go through, and then obviously open up for Q&A, as André mentioned. I'd start off by asking you to turn to slide five and talking about essentially the three pillars that we typically talk about. The first one is growth. Here, what we see is that on one hand, we're accelerating the growth. Clearly, we're adding 2.1 GW year-on-year, essentially consolidating a portfolio of 12.6 GW as of the end of June. We also continue to ramp up. We have 3.6 GW of capacity already installed or under construction, 0.7 GW added year-to-date, and 2.9 GW under construction as of June.
I think clearly you can see from these numbers that the operations are ramping up quickly. On the secured capacity, we have now 6.7 GW and visibility on an additional 3.7 GW of PPAs in our key markets, where we are shortlisted or currently under negotiation. Overall, strong short-term visibility on additional PPAs, and of course, we'll be participating in several auctions in Europe, which total over 30 GW of capacity until year-end in our existing European markets. We think there'll be quite a few opportunities there to secure some additional megawatts until the end of the year. We also continue to expand our footprint into attractive markets, where we think there are the good growth opportunities with stable regulatory frameworks. We've recently entered into Chile, you will have seen that. Vietnam, U.K. onshore, and also we have more visibility now on offshore in Poland.
Four markets where we provided some information to the market over the last couple of weeks. Moving over to the second pillar, asset rotation. Here we have a very strong execution of the asset rotation strategy, and I think that really shows the value and the quality of our projects, both wind and solar. We announced the asset rotation deal in Portugal, so we now have EUR 1.9 billion of asset rotation proceeds signed at extremely attractive multiples. On average, around EUR 1.6 million per MW, EUR 1.7 for wind, and EUR 1.25 for solar. We'll go there in more detail in just a minute. We also completed recently $500 million of asset rotation proceeds in the U.S., and we had a capital gain of around EUR 100 million, which is slightly above our business plan assumption of around EUR 200,000 per MW. The multiple is actually around 250x.
This EUR 100 million gain was booked in the first half results. Overall, asset rotation going well and as per the guidance provided in the first quarter. We're in good shape to deliver gains north of the EUR 300 million guidance we provided the strategic update. We'll be able to talk a little bit about that later on. It obviously depends on the timing of some of the regulatory approvals that we get for some of these asset rotations. On operational excellence, so the third pillar. In the first half, EDPR had a 31% load factor, so stable year-on-year. Reflected around 95% of expected gross capacity factor. I mean, it's particularly tough in the U.S. in this first half, so we had low resource, not just the ERCOT event, but just generally, there was much lower wind, let's say, than the P 50 for the U.S.
From a technical perspective, we continue to deliver good availability of around 97%, slightly above, slightly up year- on- year. Together with competitive and efficient operations. We had a 3% reduction of core OpEx per megawatt, which I think reflects our O&M strategy and cost control. Obviously, this is despite having to scale up upfront to cope with the growth acceleration. I'll go through these points in more detail in the next couple of slides. If we go to slide six, just a quick word just to detail a little bit the growth. The 6.7 GW of capacity I mentioned for 2021 to 2023, is around 64% of the overall target additions. Since the Capital Markets Day earlier this year, we secured 800 MW, around 800 MW, mostly in the U.S., and including quite a lot of solar. Return and risk profiles.
I know this is something that we get a lot of questions on, I would just really like to reiterate our disciplined investment approach, which I think is well-known, and we've been very consistent on this over the many years. We've secured capacity across all technologies and are above our investment thresholds, both from a return and risk perspective. Perhaps just highlighting two numbers. One is the spread of a WACC of around 320 basis points. I think I'd already given an indication on that in the last call. From a risk perspective, I think it's also interesting to note that we tend to invest only in long-term contracted assets. On average, we've had a contracted NPV above 60%. NPV over total, well, percentage of NPV contracted over total NPV. Disciplined approach or growing with a disciplined approach.
I think that's the key message. If we move to slide seven, perhaps just to touch on another point, which I think has been raised over the last couple of months, and we've talked about this, but I would just like to reiterate. Our investment policy is to contract major equipment upfront, already with fixed prices. When we take investment decisions, we are basing them on the latest real-time quotes, requested to suppliers. Once we have the projects, we typically lock in those prices. You can see here on the graph that the major equipment is 85% has already been fully contracted, 10% is partially contracted, and 5% the investment decision was already taken post increase of equipment prices, and so it's already incorporated into the PPA or the auction bids. We're passing through that cost inflation into the energy prices.
Out of the total of the 6.7 GW, you can see we have around 90%, which has pretty much no exposure, and 10%, which has just a partial exposure. Bottom line, when we talk about the 320 basis points spread to WACC, you can see that there's a very limited impact of cost inflation on this. We would expect to be around the 3% spread to WACC, even in any scenario. If we move on to slide eight, we can talk about pipeline. Because growth and pipeline go hand in hand. We continue to accelerate the ramp-up of our pipeline. Thinking about the future, not just about the short term, but also about our pipeline over the many years, over the next decade. We're already up 5 GW since the capital markets day.
I think one of the things is that we really believe in, and I think our teams have shown that year in, year out, that the track record and the quality and the diversification of the pipeline, it allows us to do good capital allocation across different regions, different technologies, and in different types of processes. Whether it's RFP, centralized CfD auctions, bilateral PPA negotiations. I think we've managed to really, as I said, be disciplined and really think intelligently about capital allocation across the geographies and across the technologies. We're confident that we'll be able to secure the additional growth in the short term. As I mentioned, we have almost 4 GW of PPAs under negotiation in which we're shortlisted, and as I mentioned also, there are 30 GW to be awarded in Europe throughout the auctions until year-end.
Our target would be to reach around 9 GW by year-end. Also, I wanted to highlight the collaboration agreement we entered into Amazon, that came out recently. We already have almost 500 MW of PPAs executed to date, and we see several additional short-term opportunities to explore in the different markets under this agreement. We would expect this, let's say, this relationship to scale up quickly over the next two months. I think that's a good example of us being able to partner with really credible counterparts, to secure PPAs in many different geographies. Not just in the U.S., but also in Europe and potentially even in Brazil. Let's move forward to slide nine. Talking a little bit about the expanding the geographic footprint.
First, I'd like to say that we're really pleased with the fact that we had a successful entry into Chile, Vietnam, onshore in the U.K., also the visibility on offshore in Poland. These are geographies we've been looking at for quite a while, really trying to identify the best opportunities so we could make our entrance. These countries, as you know, have strong growth potential. They have good visibility on long-term contracted remuneration. You can see here, I'll just go into a little bit more detail, it's basically markets I think that are fully aligned with our growth strategy. Just going quickly one by one, Chile, very solid renewables market, very stable macroeconomic for Latin America. It really allows us to consolidate our presence in Latin America. Good renewable targets.
Already 77 MW secured with a 20-year PPA, and then with a good quality wind and solar pipeline with visibility to market, either through distribution auctions, there's one, for example, even next week, and there'll be others also in the future or through a direct PPA bilaterals. Vietnam. It's really a first visible step to establish ourselves in Asia Pacific. We've been there for a while, but I think it's the first concrete, visible step that we've shown to the market. We think there are really good growth opportunities here in the region. Asia now has a tremendous energy consumption. It has also strong commitments to decarbonize. We think it's also a very interesting market in which to establish ourselves.
We'd already indicated that we will be deploying at least 5% of the business plan to new markets, in Asia, which would include, let's say, Asia-Pacific. In this particular case of this project, we're talking about an attractive 20-year feed-in tariff for a solar asset. Poland. Poland, the Polish government, as you know, now has a strong commitment to establish the offshore industry in Poland. This program is backed by the European Union, and I think it was an important step for Ocean Winds, which, as you know, is the joint venture we have with ENGIE to grow in offshore, to establish its presence there. It would be, in principle, a 25-year contracted asset. Just a word on the U.K. onshore. As you know, we've been in the U.K. now for a number of years in offshore through the Moray East and West projects.
There's a very strong government commitment. There's a renewed ambition with the CfD round and also ambition around the net zero by 2050. I think that gives us a lot of confidence that there will be a good path for growth in the U.K. In this particular case, we're talking about good assets, a good pipeline, very much linked to very concrete milestones. Let's say the price is conditioned on achieving those milestones and on achieving them with a very specific execution. Moving on to slide 10 on asset rotation. Here, just six months into the business plan, we already have $1.9 billion of proceeds secured. That's around 25% of the $8 billion target we'd given for the full five-year plan. In addition to these, we have another transaction ongoing in Europe, which I think I'd already indicated. It's a very advanced stage.
We expect to be able to announce it in the very short-term. Overall, I think this shows very strong execution, and we are very happy with the multiples achieved. You will have seen this also in the Portuguese wind transaction, which we announced recently. I think showing in general that across the board, whether it is in the U.S., in Portugal, Spain, as we showed also last year, or the transaction we expect to announce very shortly, that it will have attractive multiples. In case of the U.S., as I mentioned, EUR 100 million, EUR 250,000 per MW, which is above the business plan assumption. Overall, as I mentioned, on track to exceed the business plan target and deliver capital gains north of the EUR 300 million.
All in all, asset rotation execution, solid. We continue to see very strong appetite for investors. We'll be focusing now on completing the transaction still this year in 2021. Also, obviously, starting to prepare additional asset rotation portfolios for 2022. I'll now hand over to Rui, who will walk you through the first half results and then come back at the end for some closing remarks. Thanks.
Thank you, Miguel. Good afternoon to you all. I would like now to move into the first half results. If you flip to page 12, we had strong performance in Europe and Brazil, also delivering on the capital gains, potentially impacted by the Q1 1-off ERCOT event, and the lower generation that we experienced in U.S. during the first half of 2021. We achieved a EUR 654 million EBITDA, EUR 142 million net profits in the first half of the year. In total, we have EUR 118 million of capital gains at the EBITDA level. That's EUR 97 million at net profits. On top of the EUR 100 million gain on the U.S. asset rotation that Miguel already covered before. We have also positive price adjustments from the 2020 transactions, both in offshore and the Rosewater build and transfer.
I think it's important also to note that last year, we booked in the first half 2020 offshore gains of EUR 145 million at the EBITDA level, so that's EUR 141 million at net income, therefore, this explains a big chunk of the delta that you see here year-on-year. The performance in Europe and Brazil continues very strong. It added EUR 40 million year-on-year. Below EBITDA, we continued to improve the overall financial results. In particular, I would highlight our average cost of debt, reducing from 3.7% to 3.2%, so that's 0.6 percentage point year-on-year. In the top line, U.S. impacted by the Q1 one-off ERCOT event that we discussed last quarter, also by the below-average resource and the 2020 COD delays.
I think the good news is that the teams have done a tremendous job to push these projects throughout the pandemic, and we now have the 791 MW 100% fully operational as of June 2021. Which of course, will contribute to the results throughout the second half of the year. Just a quick note on a more technical point, I think it's worthwhile mentioning. In the first half of 2020, our P&L tax in Mexico, which is now at normalized level, year-on-year, it comes from a positive P&L tax that we booked last year relating to some net operating losses that we generated in 2020. This is, of course, as I mentioned in the first quarter, this is partly offset by the U.S. R&D tax credit. Just this technical note on this point. Moving to the balance sheet.
Net debt will slightly increase year to date to EUR 3.56 billion. Still down EUR 1.1 billion from the first quarter, naturally as a result of the EUR 1.5 billion capital increase and the EUR 240 million asset rotation equity proceeds. Just also to let you know that already in July, we secured around $650 million of tax equity proceeds for our U.S. projects, which will be further reducing net debt. Just a last note here, still on the tax equity, it decreased around EUR 300 million to EUR 0.86 billion as of June. This is mostly driven by the deconsolidation of the tax equity related to the asset rotation deal. If we move now to slide 13, on an operational perspective, our portfolio increased to 12.6 giga. We added 2.1 GW year-on-year. As Miguel said before, we have 2.9 GW under construction. I think this is important.
Just, again, to remember, 0.9 net GW of asset rotation deals. 237 MW in Spain with Finerge. Then in U.S., several transactions, 102 MW build and transfer with NIPSCO, 80% of 363 MW with CC&L, and 68% of 405 MW with Greencoat Capital. That was the last one that we announced in June. Overall, the 12.6 GW portfolio, by the end of June 2021, quite well-balanced between North America, Europe, and Brazil. Approximately 56% in North America, 40% in Europe, and around 3% in Brazil. If we move to the next slide, page 14. In the first half, we achieved a 31% load factor, a good recovery in Europe and Brazil, although partly offset by the ERCOT event, and the low resource in the U.S. In Europe, we reached a 28% load factor. That's one percentile point above year-on-year.
A strong recovery also in Spain and Portugal. North America, we achieved 34% load factor. That's a 2 percentile points drop year-on-year. This represents about 94% of our expected load factor. As I said before, impacted in one hand by the one-off ERCOT event in the first quarter and overall low resource during the first half of the year. In Brazil, 34% of load factor. That's an 8% percentile points increase year-on-year. This is good resource, 105% versus the expected load factor. Good recovery from this market. Overall, 31% load factor in the first half. Also worthwhile mentioning that technical availability at 96.9%, very high level and slightly above last year. Good performance on the technical side. On page 16, highlighting the electricity output. It increased 5% year-on-year, naturally on the back of the capacity additions.
We generated 15.3 TW hours of clean energy in the first half. This is equivalent to avoiding 10 million tons of CO2 emissions. Naturally contributing to our effort towards climate change. Europe generation increased 14% year-on-year, mainly impacted by higher installed capacity and what I said before about the strong resource in Iberia. In North America, output decreased by 1% year-on-year. This, of course, reflecting in one hand, the new capacity and operation, but this is offset by the lower load factor. Brazil increasing 27% on generation. Again, here, driven by a high resource, a new capacity being brought into operation. All in all, during the first half, between North America, Europe, and Brazil, we generated about 59%, 38%, and 3% respectively of the total output. Naturally, very strong contributions from North America and Europe. If we move now to the economics on page 16.
The average price, by the end of the first half, at EUR 51 per MW hour. This is very much reflecting, I think, our good competitive portfolio, and naturally, also the addition of new capacity that, of course, brings to lower prices. In Europe, average price decreased 6% to around EUR 77 per MW hour. This is due to the change in the asset mix in Spain. Of course, above expected production in Spain, also with the tariff extension in Portugal and the new additions. This, of course, partly offset by the rest of Europe, 7% positive performance. In North America, average price decreased 3% to $43 per MW hour. This is mainly impacted by the, of course, hedges that we have in U.S. and Canada, on the back of the new capacity being brought into operation.
While in Mexico, the price increase is in line with the PPA escalator. In Brazil, average price relatively stable at BRL 246 per MW hour. Like for like, if we are to adjust for sell downs, Forex and the Q1 one-off ERCOT event, average price decreased 2%. As I said, reflects in one hand, a good competitive portfolio with new additions that drive lower prices. This reflect good NCFs. I think a good portfolio with low CapEx per megawatt, but very importantly, very much in line with what it is our expectation in terms of value creation. If you move to slide 17, and we look to the revenues. Revenues decreased by 6% year-on-year. Although if you were to look at it on a like-for-like basis, it would be relatively stable, 0.5 reduction versus the first half 2020. Revenue is total EUR 856 million.
Of course, with the impact from the sell-down, which is about EUR 69 million year-on-year. Lower average prices, that presents around EUR 22 million a year if you are excluding sell-downs. Forex translation and others, which is about EUR 38 million year-on-year. This, of course, not being offset by the capacity additions and the resource, which would be a +EUR 72 million year-on-year. On a like-for-like basis, as I said, this would be relatively stable, only a small decrease of 0.5% year-on-year. On the core OpEx, I think this is very much in line with our growth acceleration. OpEx, if you look at it on a absolute value, it increased 7% year-on-year. Although if we were to adjust, look at the core OpEx per megawatt, it actually decreased 3% due to our O&M strategy, which, as you know, is something that we developed and it's one of our capabilities.
Cost control, and this is despite the fact that we are front-loading the need to cope with the business plan and the growth embedded into the business plan. I think, just to highlight, we are relatively obsessed about our operations to make sure that we achieve operational excellence, make sure that we maximize technical availability, and keep costs under control. As a result, our EBITDA, that you can see on page 19, totals EUR 654 million. Rather balanced, 50/50 split between Europe and U.S., reflecting what is, in our view, a low risk profile of EDPR portfolio. If you move to net profit on page 20, net profit total, EUR 142 million. Naturally, this is a reflection of the drop in the top line performance, and the lower gains, on the capital gains, I'm sorry, year-on-year.
I think it's important to highlight that on the financials we improved, overall, particularly the cost of debt, that, as I said before, it reduced to 3.2%, so that's a 0.6% reduction or 0.6 percentage points reduction year-on-year. I think here is what I would like to highlight again, the negative P&L tax year-on-year that I explained before related to the Mexican tax, the Mexican tax in 2020 and the R&D U.S. tax gain in 2021. Net debt in slide 21. As of June, net debt is at EUR 3.5 billion. I would again highlight here the conservative risk profile. 90% of that is at fixed interest rate.
It is also important to highlight that we have currently a significant contribution from U.S. dollar-denominated debt, which is also the result that, once we cashed in the capital gains, sorry, the proceeds from the capital increase, we were also reducing the EUR-denominated debt. Right now, U.S. dollar-denominated debt is at 78% of our overall debt. Also, again, highlighting that tax equity reduced to around EUR 860 million. This is very much the result of the deconsolidation of the tax equity related to the asset rotation deal that we closed in June. As I said in the beginning, I think it is important to share that already in July, we successfully secured the tax equity proceeds for U.S. projects, a significant amount, $656 million. That, of course, will be contributing to reduce the overall net debt.
Just before I hand over to Miguel Stilwell de Andrade, maybe a quick comment about some of our ESG indicators, which is at the core of EDPR on slide 22. Very strong commitment to operate within these very high ESG standards. If I start by the environmental strategy, on climate change, we avoided 10 million tons of CO2 emissions, as I said before, during the first half of the year. Our emissions represented are only 0.2% of the avoided ones. Regarding circularity, we have improved our waste recovery to 76%. On biodiversity, we have no significant spills and fires, and we had 40 near misses that were recorded. Again, highlighting that we are continuously performing under very demanding environmental criteria and making sure that we perform drills to ensure that all our employees, suppliers, they do have the appropriate training to prevent impact if necessary.
On the social dimension, our team, EDPR team, increased 23% year-on-year, very close to 2,000 employees, 31% of which are women. Highlighting that 35% of the new hires during the first half of this year are women, which is very much in line with EDPR's commitment to reach 36% of women in the team by 2025. Regarding health and safety, year-on-year mostly reflects the increase in installed capacity and capacity under construction. On this point, I would like to highlight that we are very serious about this, continuously assessing, improving opportunities in health and safety, both for our employees and our contractors. We'll be looking very serious always at this variable. Just a final note on our communities, we maintain our EUR 5 million cumulative investment in access to energy, which about EUR 0.7 million in social investment.
That's lower year-on-year, given the COVID-19 response plan that was implemented in our local communities back in 2020. With this, I will now hand back to Miguel for the closing remarks. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Rui. Just to finalize the presentation and just a few words on the overall environment and outlook for renewables as far as we see it. If we turn to slide 24, I think the first comment I'd make is that we continue to see really strong and very supportive environment. If anything, the outlook of growth for the sector has only improved. The overall commitment to support both the energy transition and the decarbonization, I think, continues to be reiterated globally. There have been important updates both in the U.S. and in Europe. In the U.S., following Biden's American Jobs Plan, the Senate is now working on both infrastructure and reconciliation bills, these include additional support on investments in electricity grids, which are critical for renewables growth.
In June, we also had positive news from the IRS decision to extend the PTC and the ITC eligibility by two years. This takes into consideration already some delays related with the COVID situation, and I think it's positive for our investments in the U.S. We have several, both wind and solar farms, that were at plant commission over the next couple of years, which can benefit. In Europe, the Fit for 55 legislative package enhances, again, the widespread political support for decarbonization. It elevates the renewables growth targets, includes also mechanisms for the sector, including reforms for the EU Emissions Trading System. I think it's also worth highlighting that there's increased guidance and financial support for contracting of renewables PPAs by SMEs, which is in line with our expectation of a growing PPA market in Europe.
Again, I think definitely calls for strong fundamentals and unprecedented growth in renewables, which I remind you, I think I've talked about this in the past, but according to the IEA Net Zero Roadmap, expected to represent 90% of electricity generation by 2050. Now if we just turn to the last slide, probably just summarizing in seven points. First, basically summarizing the, let's say, the various messages that we've, both Rui and myself, have passed over the presentation. First, we have the 6.7 GW already secured with good returns and a good risk profile, and protected from the recent CapEx cost inflation. I think that's an important message I'd like to highlight. Secondly, we continue to ramp up the pipeline, and we have significant short-term visibility on additional growth.
The third is that we continue to expand our geographic footprint. We continue to tap further growth opportunities in attractive markets. I think fourth, I'd say asset rotation execution has been very strong, with already EUR 1.9 billion of proceeds, with attractive multiples and on track to deliver north of the EUR 300 million in capital gains. The fifth, financial performance, strong positive contribution from Europe and Brazil, impacted by the Q1 one-off ERCOT event by lower generation in the U.S. and lower capital gains year-on-year. Stronger Europe and Brazil, weaker U.S. However, going forward, and I think this is the sixth point, the U.S. 2020 projects are now fully operational as of the end of June. Given the good performance in Europe and also the attractive asset rotation multiples, we have a positive outlook for the remainder of 2021.
Seventh, and just a final point on this slide. In terms of growth outlook, we continue to see a strong and very supportive environment. I think EDPR is very well positioned to capture that opportunity. I'd just like to say that on a personal note, for the team as a whole, we are really enthusiastic about the prospects for the business in the several regions, and I think this is an extremely exciting time for the sector. We see very strong demands for PPAs from off-takers wanting to participate in the energy transition. I think people are certainly much more aware nowadays about, let's say, the opportunities that exist in terms of off-taking. There's also very strong demand from asset rotation investors with very attractive multiples.
Only a couple of months have gone by since we announced our business plan, but we've already secured a significant amount of projects and of asset rotation deals. We're all here very much focused on executing the plan and also very confident that we'll be delivering the targets we set out in the capital markets day. Once again, thank you for attending the first half call, and I think we can now move to Q&A. Thank you. Over.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question or make a contribution, just press star one on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from the line of Sara Piccinini from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and many thanks for taking my questions. The first question is a clarification on the capital gains that you expect by year-end. The EUR 101 million that you indicated, that just excludes the transaction in Portugal, correct? Many thanks. This was the first one. The second one, it is clear that the recent spike in commodity prices is not affecting your returns, so you don't expect an impact from that. If this situation persists, what do you expect in the long term to translate in terms of CapEx per megawatts on your projects? Another question is on the debt. Looking at your cash flow, the cash CapEx seems to have increased mainly due to the working capital related to PTC. This level of working capital, that obviously is related to the expansion now, it is expected to be partially reabsorbed by year-end?
Could you give an indication on the level of net debt that you expect for 2021? Many thanks.
Okay. In relation to the first question, I think the best slide for this, if you look at slide 10 in the presentation, you have the various transactions that have already been announced. As I said, there's another one that we expect very shortly, in relation to these that are here on the slide. The first one is, the EUR 101 million, is just in relation to this first transaction, okay? The Bright Stalk and Harvest Ridge. We have Indiana Crossroads, we have the Portuguese one, we have Riverstart, and we have the Indiana Crossroads Solar build and transfer. These, we have two build and transfer here. Just to go to your question, we are expecting more than EUR 300 million of capital gains in 2021. EUR 101 million comes from this first transaction.
We are following, let's say, the regulatory approvals and the completion of these different transactions. We'll provide updates over the second half of the year, as to how we see these developing. There's just some uncertainty about whether all of these will fall in 2021 or some of these will move into 2022. In any scenario, we are quite comfortable with EUR 300+ of capital gains. In relation to your second question, basically the cost. I think, again, there's a good slide here to see on slide seven. If you see, and I know it's a small footnote at the bottom, but it's footnote three. It actually talks about the overall impact on the project CapEx of around 5% for wind and 10% for solar.
I think the key point, and that's really what I wanted to stress, is that decisions that are being taken today or yesterday or tomorrow, are based on these increased equipment prices. This translates into higher PPA prices or higher auction bids throughout the sector for anyone who's basically participating at the moment. This could be another EUR 1 or EUR 2 of increase in the PPA or the auction bids. That's the sort of the type of range we're probably talking about. The key point is that for everything that's under construction, or pretty much everything that's under construction or already secured, we don't have that risk. For decisions being taken now, we are obviously incorporating the latest information, if we win, we are locking in those prices as well. Hopefully that answers your second question.
In relation to the third question, I will probably pass over to Rui. Say it.
Thank you, Miguel. Hi, Sara. On the working capital, just bear in mind, I think I made that comment in the previous call, in the first quarter call. We have been running some cash management strategy, as we knew that we were having the cash in from the capital increase, EUR 1.5 billion, so we're anticipating some payments to suppliers. That's why we should now, from now on, see a more normalized working capital. As for year-end, I would say that net debt should be below the EUR 2.5 billion.
Very clear. Many thanks.
The next question comes from the line of Alberto Gandolfi from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I have three. The first one is on asset rotation and the underlying profits. Given you're achieving much better multiples or better multiples, higher multiples than you were expecting initially, I guess the question is, why aren't you selling fewer gigawatts? You can achieve the same gains but retain more assets and boost more the underlying profits. I'm quite curious to see why you stick to the same actual gigawatt and you just basically book more gains. I'm asking you this because I guess that personally, I would not put the same, whatever, 15x EBITDA multiple on a rotation, but I would on something that has maybe 20 years of a residual life. I guess it could help your multiple. If you can elaborate on the way you think about this, would be great.
Secondly, on cost inflation, I think you've been very clear on what is FID. You've been very clear you think that afterwards, there's a generalized cost increase is going to impact everyone at the same time, so it's a pass-through. I totally agree. Can I ask you if you see any difference within onshore solar and offshore? We're hearing from some developers that in offshore, there's no such a thing as a fixed cost really, because there's a too big leeway between order and delivery. Do you think some manufacturers could, at some stage, trigger force majeure if steel prices were to go up again from here? Is there any legal, let's say, basis for anyone to do that?
Last question is that we are hearing there is a second draft on the Spanish clawback mechanism. I was wondering, I know that's a question also for tomorrow or well, the day after tomorrow on EDP, but when it comes to EDPR, do you also share the view that there seems to be a higher chance that the initial proposal is improved? Thank you so much.
Alberto . Great to hear from you. In relation to your first question, it's a great question. Our commitment is really to the overall proceeds, as you rightly say, because this is essential. Taking a step back, what we want is also to balance growth, and let's say, leverage. In the case of EDP, it would be also dividend. In the case of EDPR, it's not so relevant, the dividend. If we are okay on leverage and we are growing at the pace that we want, we have a commitment to sell a certain amount of proceeds to keep that leverage ratio in place. If we achieve that with fewer megawatts, then that's fine.
As I say, our commitment is not so much necessary to a set number of megawatts, it's more to the proceeds and to the, let's say, the financial ratios that underpin the rating and the balance sheet. It's a great point. If we do get much better multiples, then we would be able to sell fewer gigawatts and still keep the balance sheet where we want it and keep the growth also where we want it. In relation to your second question. You've clearly, we're aligned on the various points that you mentioned and that we mentioned. In terms of offshore, I believe the practice here is more to hedge some of the underlying materials.
Even if there's not a specific contract for the overall, let's say, turbines or the different components that go into the actual CapEx, there's a certain amount of hedging in place for, let's say, the commodities that are underlying that. To a certain extent, we feel comfortable. It is obviously longer term, but there's a certain amount also of risk management that goes into the management of offshore. In relation to the third point, I'll probably pass over to Rui, who's our Spanish expert.
Thank you, Miguel. Thank you, Alberto. Hi. Yes. We don't have any official different decision, other than what is presented at this draft for discussion of this CO2 clawback. Nevertheless, there's some rumors that we have been hearing in the market, and also based on what could be the interpretation of the regulator report. If this applies to assets built from 2003 onwards, the impact at EDPR would be at around the 200 MW, 250 MW. I think it would be an immaterial impact in what concerns EDPR.
This is great. Can I ask a very quick follow-up? I am so sorry. Everything was super clear. 1 on offshore, maybe Miguel, can I ask you say that you hedge some of the underlying material, but I know that the liquidity on some of these steel curves is not very high. How close to delivery you begin to hedge? Or I don't know what percentage can really be hedged out of these risks? I don't know, you are exposed for two years, and then two years just before you construct, you are safe or you say sell out. Thank you.
Alberto, I can talk to you about the policy in terms of the specific numbers or more specific hedges that are in place. Probably, we'd better take that offline, and I can get you more concrete numbers. To be honest, I don't want to talk off the top of my head because I don't want to mislead.
I'll take on that offer. Thank you so much.
No problem.
Apologies for the follow-up. Thank you so much.
No problem.
The next question comes from the line of Ayesha Khalid from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for the presentation. Everything was very clear. A lot of my questions have already been answered. I just wanted to touch upon how you see EDPR's average achieved selling price evolving in the next few years, especially in the context of new capacity and new geographies that will be coming on, and obviously excluding the negative effect from the Spanish asset mix. Second question, if I may, on CapEx and hedging CapEx. Could you touch a bit on what that 10% or 15% of partially contracted equipment include? That's it from my side. Thank you.
Okay. Nice. Thank you. I'll take the first one. You're going to reduce the average price. Again, please bear in mind that once we are installing new capacity, naturally we are installing projects that have lower LCOE. Therefore, it means that just the PPA pricing, everything else being equal, is going to reduce over time. Again, it doesn't mean that we are compromising the profitability, it's just the fact that it's an LCOE reduction. Yes, with the new additions, you should expect to see, I would say, gradually, a reduction in terms of the overall average price. Miguel, do you want to take the.
On the CapEx hedging, in relation to the 10%, essentially, we'll have part of the equipment. What it means literally is part of the equipment contracted, for example, could be solar panels. We'll have that partially contracted, maybe not necessarily the BOP. The CapEx includes several different components. It's not just the major equipment. In the case of solar, it would be panels, it would be inverters, it would be also the BOP. In the case of wind, it would be the turbines, and it would be, let's say, the BOP. Those would be two key pieces or the substations associated with that. What we're saying here is essentially some of these may not be totally contracted, but overall, it ends up being a relatively small exposure, or only 10% is exposed to some of these cost inflation.
It ends up being relatively limited in terms of impact.
Okay. That's very clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Jorge Guimarães from JB Capital. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Some of my questions have been answered already. I have two. The first one is about hedging in Spain, for next year, if you are taking advantage of the current high market price environment to hedge. I know that forward curve is very odd, at least. It's at very high levels nonetheless. If you are hedging something for 2022. The second one would be a clarification on some comment, I believe, from Miguel, that you at EDPR expected to reach 9 GW of secure by the end of the year, if this is correct. Thank you very much.
Great. Jorge, so hi, it's Rui. Thank you for the question. In what regards the hedging strategy for Spain, as you know, 2021, we have 100% hedged at around EUR 50 per MW hour. For 2022, we have about 86% at EUR 45 per MW hour. For 2023, we have around 63% at EUR 50. I think that right now, and again, bearing in mind that there is part of the unhedged generation is regulatory hedged. Which means that the current market-
Sorry, Rui. Just a clarification.
Yeah.
Sorry to go back to you, but you say that you hedge 86% of 2022 at EUR 45 and EUR 63 of 2023 at EUR 50. 2022 is hedged at a lower price than 2023. Is that correct?
That's correct.
Okay.
Again, just bear in mind that the rest of this is the part that we hedge, because there is a regulatory hedged.
Yes.
Which means that at the current market prices, it's a EUR 60 regulatory collar.
Effectively, you hedged 2022 at a level below the low value of the collar.
No. Again, this is for the component which is not under the regulatory hedge. Okay.
Okay.
You have volume, which is under the regulatory hedge.
Correct. The regulatory, okay.
Okay? Okay.
Also on the 9 GW, which I mentioned. That's exactly right. That would be, let's say, our target. We're currently at 6.7. We're working on, as I mentioned, a lot of different PPAs and participation in auctions, which we hope to get visibility on over the next couple of months. We expect that the secure capacity will increase significantly or substantially over the next couple of months. I think we'd indicated the 9 GW, if I'm not mistaken, also back in the Capital Markets Day, and that's what we're working towards. Obviously, that's a stretch target, if you want. By definition, it's not locked in today, so it's a target, but that's what we're working on.
Okay. Many thanks for your answers.
The next question comes from the line of Arthur Sitbon from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. The first one is regarding the slide six that you show on your value creation metrics and return criteria for renewable projects. I was wondering what type of long-term power price assumption you make to get to this level of return, given about, well, less than 40% of the NPV, as I understand, merchant. My second question is, if you could comment on consensus on 2021 net income. It's around EUR 500 million. As I understand, it implies quite a strong improvement in your results in H2. Are you comfortable this can be achieved? Thank you.
In relation to the first one, what I would say is that, our long-term power prices are typically very aligned or even more conservative than some of the third-party consultants that we see in the market. Your standard depends, obviously, on the different markets, whether it's in the U.S. or in Europe. In Europe, you have the different markets. It's built bottom up, looking at the energy mix of each geography, how it evolves over time, the different inputs, namely CO2 prices, gas prices. Setting the marginal price over that period, renewables penetration. We have a fully developed model for each of the different geographies, and then we benchmark it also against third-party providers. Relatively standard, let's say, power price curves. In relation to the second question, which is the 2021 net income consensus, we feel comfortable with that number.
As you say, the second half, well, we have several transactions which we're also expecting to close in the second half. As I mentioned, the EUR 300+ million of capital gains coming in, as well as obviously the operational performance that we expect in the second half. My comment is, we are comfortable with the 2021 consensus.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Olly Jeffery from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Two questions from me, please. The first is just on the U.S. corporate PPA market. The U.S. corporate PPA market delivered 14 GW a year in 2019 and 2020. My question simply is, do you think we've reached a peak in terms of the annual corporate PPA market because there are only so many Amazons and Facebooks in the world, so what's your outlook for the market for this decade? The second question on the corporate PPA market is, if we move to the Biden administration's plans of moving to direct pay provisions for U.S. renewable tax credits, do you think that will make the market for corporate PPAs more competitive, as that might reduce the need for tax equity funding and therefore might make it more competitive yourselves when competing against other developers?
Lastly, just on your point on consensus, where you feel comfortable with the EUR 500 million. I believe this other deal that you're potentially talking about getting through, which could be quite a significant capital gain, if that were to come through, would you expect to have a significant increase on the EUR 500 million, or does your comfort with the EUR 500 million exclude this other gain that might come through? Thank you.
Thanks for the questions. I think in relation to the first one on the U.S. corporate PPAs, we still see a very strong demand from corporates. Obviously, our PPAs in the U.S. are half around corporates, the other half are around typically local utilities that are also buying. On the corporate side, we continue to see a lot of activity. What we see, and it's an interesting also evolution, is that in some cases, you start seeing smaller companies also wanting to contract. Sometimes they won't have the sufficient consumption to take a full project, but they'll take half a project, and so you'll put two together to get a full project done. We've already seen that happen as well. I don't have the perception that we've peaked at all. I think there's still a lot of demand.
I think the fact that the PTCs have also been extended means that renewables continues to be very competitive. Obviously, the corporates are taking advantage of that. I think that would be my comments on the first question. In relation to the second question, direct pay will certainly make it simpler to finance these projects, and it will probably reduce the cost of capital for everyone, including ourselves. I think it will increase, again, the attractiveness of renewables in the U.S., not just because of the sustainability angle, but also because it just makes business sense to contract renewables at the moment. It's very competitive from a pricing point of view. We are favorable to the direct pay, and we actively defend it as being a simpler way of financing the renewables. That would be on the second.
We'll obviously still need some tax equity structures, which I think is good for larger players like EDPR. Still, we are proactively in favor of direct pay. In relation to the consensus and the EUR 500 million, that's based on looking at the transactions, having a certain view on the probability that they will happen this year and certain permutations of these different deals. Based on what we think is the likely probability of those coming through and the permutations of these different deals this year, is what drives us to be quite comfortable with the consensus. Could be slightly higher, depends then on what gets through all the regulatory hurdles in time before the end of the year.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Manuel Palomo from Exane. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good afternoon, Miguel. Just a couple of questions on my side. One is a sort of a follow-up after your previous answer on small companies being interested in PPAs in the U.S. Are all those PPAs with the smaller companies that you mentioned for as-produced electricity, or given that they are smaller and maybe they cannot bear with the as-produced electricity, they are requesting as-consumed electricity? That would be my first one. Second one, it's maybe a different approach to the asset rotation. My question is, when you approach an asset rotation deal, do you prioritize any specific type of asset? I'm specifically curious about the duration of the PPAs associated to the asset since I mean, my view, the asset rotation is a strong lever that helps to de-risk the company. Any color on this would be great. Thank you.
Okay. Palomo, in relation to the first question, the smaller companies PPAs. We also see pay as produced. It's not necessary that they need to have pay as consumed. That typically comes down to what you're willing to accept. As you know, we privilege a lot having pay as produced, and that's what we're most comfortable with. It doesn't mean that we will only do that, but we certainly encourage clients to go in that direction. Obviously, move to pay as consumed, it has a higher risk, it has a higher price as well associated with that. I think it's something that trade-off needs to be made, and it needs to be explicit because, obviously, for the project, it's completely different to be exposed to a pay as produced or a pay as consumed.
We do see pay as produced, even for smaller companies. In terms of the second question, if I understood correctly, do we prioritize from our side? We typically look at a couple of different criteria when we're choosing the portfolio. It should have sufficient critical mass. It needs to be a decent size, sort of, let's say, EUR 300 million-EUR 500 million range is normally enterprise value, is normally a size we would aim for. It needs to have some geographic logic, mix. Typically, should be either in the same country or, in the case of the U.S., more or less the same. It can be diversified in the case of the U.S., but in Europe, it should normally be in the same country.
That you don't have a lot of different regulatory, let's say, frameworks that the buyer is having to analyze. In terms of PPAs, obviously, a lot of these buyers like having visibility on the cash flows, typically, you're talking about infrastructure funds or pension funds. That's why we like these type of assets to contract in the first place and then also to sell them, because there's predictability on that. They should have a minimum amount of time of either feed-in tariff or CfD or some regulated tariff, so that the investors can get comfortable also with the cash flow profile of that. That's essentially how we sort of think about putting these portfolios together. Hopefully, that answers your question.
Yeah. Thank you. Very clear.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Our next question comes from the line of Jose Ruiz from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Most of my questions have been answered, I would like to ask one question, which I should have asked in today's, in the EDPR conference call, but I cannot wait. Is there any possibility of Portugal going ahead with a Clawback Mechanism, basically following the proposal from Bloco de Esquerda? Thank you.
Sure. Yeah. Listen, on this, I think there have been statements by the government basically indicating that they would not go down this path. It's something which has been raised in Spain, in Portugal, as far as I've heard, the public statements made by the government have been to the extent that they would not want to impose sort of the Clawback Mechanism similar to what's been done in Spain. That's, I think, been a very clear statement. If you want, afterwards, we can get you the exact quote and the date it was said, the Secretary of State for Energy was questioned by the Bloco de Esquerda, that was his reply. Based on that, I don't really have any additional comments except to say that that's what our assumption for the market.
Thanks. Very clear.
Yeah. Thanks.
We have no further questions on the line. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. There are no further questions, so I will hand you back to your host to conclude today's conference.
On my side, and Rui and André , just to thank you all for being on the call. Thanks for all the questions and for your patience. It was extremely stimulating and, I guess, let's speak soon, and we'll keep you, obviously, as I mentioned, updated on any additional asset rotations that we do, that we expect to be in the short term, and also on basically how they develop over the next couple of months. We'll keep you updated as usual on everything we go and do. Thanks very much. Take care, and have a good holiday, if you're going on holiday soon. Rest, take care, and we'll be back in September. Thanks.
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