Thank you all on the line for your time and availability this morning to join us on our full year 2023 results conference call. As per usual, we have our executive committee with us today. We have Rodrigo Costa, our CEO, we have Gonçalo Morais Soares, our CFO, and João Conceição, our COO. Rodrigo will start with his opening remarks, and then João and Gonçalo will guide you through the main operational and financial highlights of the year, and we will then move to the Q&A session, on which you will be able to be taking your, your questions.
Okay. Well, good morning. Thank you, Madalena. I think today, even as we announced a good set of results, we are not really the big news in Portugal. You know, the big thing is the elections coming out in a couple of days. The year was good in spite of all the licensing and construction delays we had. I think we also had a lot of political events that were also a distraction, but we were able to keep moving and deliver in our multiple fronts. I think overall, we should be happy. You know, both in Portugal and Chile, we achieved a good set of operational and financial results.
We kept moving on our energy transition journey, where we see plenty of projects coming forward, and that will keep us very, very busy in the coming years. I think this is, you know, a very positive aspect, that the fact that we—if we look forward, you know, we feel very confident that we have a lot of things to do, and they're, you know, a very good framework. In a nutshell, you know, a good year. I think we kept on being very well regarded from an operational point of view. Again, the financial results were quite solid, with some non-recurrent contributions, and that being said, you know, the thing that is still an issue, but I'm sure we will talk about that.
We made also very good progress on a new front, on the ESG front, and we will go through those, some of those results also. We believe that, you know, the energy transition is also a very important catalyst in our internal transformation, creating opportunities for our teams as well. It's really helping us to attract new talents to the company, and 2023 is a year where we saw that in a new way and very positive. Now, we will go through the presentation, and we will share the main events and results, and then we will go through the Q&A as usual. Gonçalo?
Thank you, Rodrigo. Good morning to you all. So as Rodrigo said, I think we are presenting strong set of results, be it at the EBITDA level, at the CapEx level. I think, both of them, were good news. There are some non-recurrent that impacted, namely the last quarter, but I think they were all, positive. So looking at the EBITDA, it grew, 5.5% to EUR 514 million. And this is basically on the back both of international and national, businesses. On the domestic side, impacted overall by the rates and a good cost performance. Net income grew 33.5%, almost to EUR 150 million. Net, if you look at recurring, the growth is only 15%, but still growth, strong growth.
You can see that this is impacted not only by EBITDA, but also by good financial results and by some non-recurrent effects, namely on the tax side. Net debt came down almost 5%, without taking into account the tariff deviations, showing strong cash flow. Tariff deviations increased as we already have acknowledged that they would. The good news that these big changes have been happening are going to stop as the rate-raising situation is ending of this year, but I'll come back to that and comment a little bit more. Okay? CapEx, very strong performance, more than EUR 300 million, almost EUR 300 million only in Portugal. So I think that we are accelerating and recuperating some of the projects that we had before.
More on the operational side, I'll pass to João. João, you want?
Thanks, Gonçalo. Good morning to you all. From the operational side, the most important issue to highlight is the fact that we have recovery the share of renewables generation, within the electricity, consumption in Portugal. As you may remember, in 2022, we had quite a dry year, and as a consequence, hydro generation dropped significantly. In 2023, we get back to the, to the values, on the right trend, and we reached the 60.6% of renewable share within, the electricity system. Quality of service. We kept the high levels of, quality of service, and in a moment, I will go through a couple of figures.
Within ESG, the good thing is that we have, we have improved in several ratings, ESG ratings, and we consider to be above the sector average within these ESG ratings. Jumping to slide seven, where you have a couple of figures. So in terms of consumption, electricity consumption, there is a slight increase in consumption, a 0.8% electricity consumption. Although if we do the adjustments to the weekdays and the temperature adjustment comparing to 2023, this increase reduces a little bit and to 0.3%. Having said that, our forecast is that we will keep evolving slightly on the overall consumption within the country.
Renewable share, 60.6%, as I mentioned, as a result of a significant increase on the hydro generation share, which has reached in 2023, 23% of the total energy, the total electricity generated in Portugal. As a consequence of this highest share of renewables, and this is perfectly normal, there is a slight increase in terms of losses. This is because of the fact that more renewables means more dispersed generation within the grid, and as a consequence, a slight increase in losses. In terms of the quality of service, we increase a little bit the average interruption time within the electricity transmission assets. But even so, this is clearly below the targets set by the regulator, namely within the IMDT incentive for quality of service.
Gas, this is the flip coin. A higher penetration of renewables, namely hydro, implies that the electricity generated from the combined cycle plants reduces, and that's why you see this important drop in gas consumption, this about 7% versus 2022. Mainly explained by an important drop in electricity generated from these combined cycle plants. In terms of availability rate of our infrastructure, both transmission and distribution, quite high levels of quality of service both in the gas transportation and distribution assets. With this, also, get back to you.
Thank you, João. So looking at slide eight, just the main numbers that, financial-wise, so EBITDA going up 5.5%. CapEx going up quite a bit, to over EUR 300 million. Despite that fact, you can see, still see that average rate is still declining a little bit, namely, given some lag on transfers to RAB that is normal. Looking at slide number nine and looking at the consolidated view. So what you can see is that the increase comes mainly from the, in the domestic part, from the assets and remuneration part. Okay? There is also some impact from costs, but then it's also the impact from the international segment, which is now this year, reaching around 5% of EBITDA from 3.9 last year.
So moving to slide 10, you can see that this impact of the rate of return came on the back of the yield on the Portuguese bonds, increasing materially, last year versus 2022, where there was already an increase. And that has made the various rates of return increase across the segments from, in the case of electricity, from 4.8%-5.3%, and in gas transportation, 5.3%-5.7%, and distribution, 5.5%-5.9%. That is the main driver in terms of the impact that you'll see in the remuneration. In terms of investment in slide number 11.
So good news, I think that it's a little bit in line with what we've been saying, but it's good to be able to see the numbers reflecting this. So we are recuperating a lot of investments that we had delayed from the past year. So we are close to EUR 300 million. That gives us an average in the last three years of around EUR 250 million per year, which is clearly above what we have in the business plan. So we are clearly on trend. This is mostly electricity, as we would expect, a lines and substations. So that what we were expecting, and this is what is translating.
Transfers throughout are also increasing quite well, but they still lag a lot because a lot of the investment was done in the second half of 2023, and so they will show up during this year. So we not anticipating any values, because, as you know, we'll be having a capital markets day in a few months. We believe that CapEx is going to continue strong in the coming years. In terms of returns in slide number 12. So, a little bit difference between the segments. So in electricity, most of the impact comes from an evolution of the asset base, although it's also positive on RoR. In gas transportation, it's basically the evolution of the rate of return, as it is compensated by a negative evolution of the asset base.
In gas distribution, it's also positive in both, as both the rate of return and the asset base contributes to increase the remuneration from this asset. In terms of OpEx, so this is in trend with what we've had in previous quarters. What you can see is that there is an increase in personal costs. This is coming from two sources, both inflation-wise, because you have to correct, and this is already you have already seen it in other quarters, and also in increasing people. Overall people in REN went up from 719 to 748. Only in Portugal, if you only look in Portugal, it went from 710 to 736.
So as we have this acceleration in terms of investment and operations, it's normal that we are increasing the people. We are continuing to do so in 2024. In terms of external costs, this is mainly driven by a decrease in electricity costs. That decrease, which is around EUR 10 million, then is compensated by other some other increases. The overall number is still positive, it's still a decrease, but we did have an increase in O&M. We incorporated some maintenance from also past quarters, and so that also increased. The IT costs also increased a little bit, legal costs also increased. So there were some costs that increased and compensated, but overall there was a strong performance.
Of course, this is not to be replicated in 2024, as this decrease in electricity will not exist. We will have almost certainly an increase in OpEx in 2024. Moving to the international part in Chile, what you can see is a continuous positive evolution of both companies. So Chile is already contributing almost EUR 28 million in terms of EBITDA to the group. Electrogás still performing quite well, not increasing as much as in previous years, but still performing quite well in terms of both revenues and EBITDA, as the gas usage in Chile is still strong. Transemel also contributing quite well, increased a lot.
Part of this, as you know, is non-recurrent because there was some recognition of revenue that exists, but that are from several years and not only this year. So part of it is not from 2023, but it also reflects the growth in the assets. Although, part of the CapEx in Chile was a little bit delayed during the year of 2023. Looking at below EBITDA and starting to talk a little bit about the funding part. So you can see that there is a strong performance on the financial results. There, there's, I'd say, two impacts here. On one side, there is an increase in the average cost of debt that we already know, and you, so from 1.8%-2.5%.
Bear in mind that the base rates and the arrivals grew 3%, so this is actually an excellent performance in terms of the evolution of the average cost of debt, and that pushes up the interest costs. On the other side, and as I'll go, and I'll explain a little bit more, the tariff deviation went from being very positive in our favor, so a large amount that we owe to the system that was paid during the year to becoming positive, and so an amount of money that the system owes us. That balance generates interest, which we're recognizing the last quarter. I have to tell you that normally we only recognize this in the last quarter, and perhaps that's mainly for analysts, it's not the easiest.
Because, up until now, not only with electricity and gas, we also have REN Trading, those PPA, that last PPA. That gain is a little bit more uncertain, in terms of how much the balance is going to be at the end of the year, and so sometimes it's hard to estimate exactly the amounts, and we only made it at the end of the year. As this issue, as this PPA is coming to an end at the end of this month, in March, we should have less fluctuation in terms of, of these, of these balances. And so in 2024, we will, change this a little bit so that we can give you a little bit more predictability in terms of these interests.
So at least at the middle of the year, we'll make a first estimate, and then we will make the final one at the end of the year. So the good news is that as this kind of dies away, this large part of tariff deviations, I think these fluctuations will be easier to accompany. In terms of taxes, the normal effective tax rate, I'd say nothing changes. The layer is still there, and to anticipate questions, there's no, I'd say, material and news that we can share with you. We'll see if the elections bring any difference in the—but we don't know. So as far as we know, everything stays the same. It's still in the budget that is now being executed by the government. We did benefit from some-...
larger than usual non-recurrent fiscal impact, mainly in the last quarter. So that has a material impact. So we are talking about almost EUR 90 million of impact in that last quarter. So that was a little bit what pushed, I think, a little bit above expectation. So on slide 16, looking at net profit, basically is the story that I told you. So positive impact, both in EBITDA and financial results, and income tax also being impacted by those non-recurrent impact that I explained. Looking at that and looking at slide number 17, so what you can see is this improvement in terms of net debt without the tariff deviation. So it's a good cash flow generation from the asset.
If you take into account the tariff deviations, you see that actually net debt goes up by EUR 700 million, because, as I said, we were paying those EUR 500 million that was in our favor, and it generated, and it's mostly in those in that transmission tariff deviation that was generated. And as I said, not only does this contribute with interest, but this is stopping, and so you should not, we should not expect this to continue creating large deficits in the future. Okay? Maturity as well, in terms of average maturity, around 4.1 years. And this is going also to improve with the recent issuance that we made in the market this year.
That was a big success in terms of demand, and this is going to push maturity a little bit more up and consolidate the liquidity policy that we have. As you see, all of the ratings are being maintained, and we continue to have a strong focus on credit risk, and this should be a constant in the coming years. Just to comment a little bit on the execution of the strategic plan, and looking at slide 19, as you remember, we have these three pillars of growth story with some service quality, ESG, and some solid financial. And as we just wanted to let you know, and you can see that on slide 20, that we've been delivering on all of this. So EBITDA this year and on average, we were clearly within the targets of the three years.
Net profit, the same, we clearly surpassed the target that we had proposed ourselves in the business plan. Net debt, if you take out these issues of the tariff deviation, not only are we okay, but we also surpassed and CapEx, we clearly surpassed in every single year on an average. What we have said, that would be on the business plan. So it's a good sign that we are delivering on what we are telling you. Not only did we deliver in terms of financial, but also in terms of sustainability. Moving to slide number 22, and remember, we had made several commitments. One of them actually was already revised because we adhered to the Science-Based Targets. So we have an objective to decrease emissions by 50% in the business plan.
That was revised already up to 55% by 2013, SBTi. But as you can see, we are already at 45% in 2023. So this is strongly impacted also by the decarbonization of the country. So, do not be surprised if in the next business plan, in a couple of months, we will be revising these targets and be a little bit more ambitious. Again, social and in terms, in this case, of the target of women in first line, we are also already at the target that we had proposed in the business plan, and in governance, the same. So we are fulfilling what we said before. In slide 23, you have a little bit more detail on ESG. You can see these decreases in greenhouse gas emissions, both in Scope 1 and 2 and Scope 3.
And along CapEx, clearly the weight that is aligned with EU Tax onomy also increasing. And as electricity continues to deploy more and more CapEx, you should expect this to continue or at least to stabilize at very high levels, the number of alignment. So I think that we are clearly delivering in ESG. There's a lot of initiatives that we are doing in environment with self-consumption systems, with electrification of the fleet, on governance, with measures in terms of anti-corruption. So there's a lot of measures that are being put in place to improve our standing in ESG, which is a strong commitment, and that is translating, although this is not our aim, that is translating into the ratings. You can see that in slide 25.
We have been improving, clearly. The last one that we have improved, and this is very recent, as João was mentioning also, is the CDP rating. We are now at A minus. We came from around C some years ago. So I think, it's a good sign, and we are very happy that ratings are translating the strong effort and commitment that we have in this area. So just some closing remarks in slide 27. So strong results with growth, delivering on CapEx. At the same time, solid financials, you can see that we are maintaining financials very strong and increasing maturity.
... As you can see, although this is going to the AGM, the policy in terms of dividend is what we have published before. We are going to be paying EUR 0.09 additional in the next time, which is going to fulfill the EUR 0.154 per share that we had in the plan. And the last remark, as you know, we have a capital markets day on the thirteenth of May. We expect there to give you a new version of our business plan and of our strategy for the coming years. Okay? Please put that on your calendar. With that, we conclude the presentation, and we're open to any questions that you have. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will now take the first question. One moment, please. First question is from the line of Enrico Bartoli from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I have three of them. First of all, actually, at the beginning of the presentation, you mentioned the election in Portugal over the next few days. I was wondering if you can give some flavor of what can change if you expect that considering the programs of the parties, there could be some change in outlook for REN, or if you expect some stability whatever is the outcome of the election. Second question regarding the CapEx, the EUR 300 million that you achieve full year is above the EUR 250 million that you indicated before.
I was wondering if you can give some color on what, what happened, in the last quarter that allowed this kind of acceleration. I'm aware that you're presenting soon, a new business plan, but, if you can also give some comments on, let's say, the, the, the sustainability of, of this kind of level. On results, I realized that there was a very significant increase in the OpEx revenues, both in, electricity transmission and, in gas transport. If you can, give some, some details on, this evolution and the impact on the- on EBITDA, and what can be, a possible evolution of this kind of revenues during 2024? Thank you.
Great. On Enrico, on your first question, elections. Well, we were asked before more or less the same question, and our position is always the same. You know, we are here. We have a mission that will not change whoever is the government. And then, and also, we believe that the energy transition is something that all the parties understand that first. You know, Portugal is not a standalone geography. We are part of the world, we are part of Europe.
We follow the strategy that has been designed by or for the European Union, and with that, we do not expect any, you know, major change in, let's say, in the regulatory environment, in the philosophy of work, because one way or the other, this is something that we need to keep to move on. And to be honest, as a philosophy of the company, we try to stay away from, let's say, from politics. You know, we are here to work and to deliver on our operational targets that are super important, also on our financial commitments.
You know, we will design the business plan for the next few years the same way we did it in the past years, you know, independent from really the people who are governing the countries. If you ask us if we have an opinion, I'm sure all of us, we have our own opinion, we all have our own expectations, but, you know, we keep them private because the company has to just to fulfill their mission. That's how we, you know, look to the Sunday results. We will be here on Monday doing the same work we will be doing, you know, today.
So just commenting on the CapEx. So it was a little bit, I'd say, stronger than we had expected. We were a little bit cautious because last year we were also expecting a little bit, and then there were some delays at the end of the year in terms of permitting that delayed João teams on the ground this year. Things went well, but we were being very cautious because it was more concentrated in the last quarter. And so, it came out a little bit ahead of our expectations, I'd say, but in line with just the general trend. So, again, as I've already said, we are expecting CapEx, namely in electricity, to stay pretty strong. You'll have to wait for May to have an exact number commitment, but this, this we can tell.
So these are not levels that are completely out of sync with what we expect in the coming years. Okay? In terms of the results and revenues, I think what you are referring to are the pass-through costs and revenues that appear in the last quarter, namely the cost and revenues of balancing between borders and things like that. I think that's it, but if there's something else, Enrico, let me know, and I'll clarify it then with Madalena and with you. Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. One moment, please. We will now take the next question from the line of Tomas Reyes Vaz from Caixa Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I have two. The first one is related to Transemel. I would like to ask you, just to give us data again, what is the main driver of the higher revenues of quarterly this year compared to last year? Is it mainly increasing asset base, is it remuneration, is it both? Just to have some info on that. And then maybe a second question about net debt. Could you give us...
I know, I know you're working on the business plan, so maybe you won't give us many details, but could you give us your expectations for net debt at the end of this year, 2024, and maybe how you see the cost of debt evolving too, for so during the... Thank you.
Okay, thank you, Tomas. So in terms of Transemel, the normal main driver is the asset-based evolution. So it's mainly by putting more assets and CapEx that is pushing the growth. In 2023, in particular, as I said, there was the recognition, and this may happen several years because this is something that we are doing on a continuous basis, recognition of past revenues. So these were revenues for several years. In this case, I think it was 2021, 2022, 2023 that were recognized in 2023 because there is a discussion with the regulator, and at the end of a certain time, they recognize these revenues, and we recognize them. It may happen that in 2026 recognize more, but so it's a process that is done on a continuous basis.
But what is the, I'd say, the recurrent push is that, that push from the asset base as you put more, as you execute the CapEx, and you put more online. In terms of net debt, I think that what you should expect is some decrease over the year, as we are going to receive some of the tariff deviations that were created, okay? So without tariff deviations, there is more stability, and there's a decrease, because we will receive not all, but at least, a good part of the tariff deviations that were created. In terms of cost of debt, there should still be an increase in cost of debt in line with the increases that you've been seeing in the market.
As we stabilize you, and as we continue to refinance the debt normally, we will, as most of the companies, continue to see an increase in the cost of debt, which is, I'd say, which is normal. I don't know if it's going to increase 30 or 40 basis points. We are now in the process of that, but it's again, going to increase a little bit over the years.
Okay? Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. We will now take the next question from the line of Ignacio Domenech from JB Capital. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one is related with the core OpEx on the electricity costs. I was wondering, though, if this year we could see a similar movement, no? In the case that electricity prices continue to come down, no, you, I think, Gonçalo, you were mentioning that you don't expect a lower OpEx in 2024, but I don't really understand if this was the case, no? If we have lower electricity prices. The second question is related with financial costs. If you could give us some proxy, you know, of what would be the impact from tariff deviation in 2024, just a reference, no, with the information you have today.
The third question is related with the non-recurring effects. If you could elaborate more on the effect related to the capitalization of operational companies, okay? Just to explain a bit better, what was this effect and why shouldn't we expect this taking place in the next few years? Thank you.
Thank you, Ignacio. So on the core OpEx, you may be right, so I was being a little bit cautious. So it's true that as prices in electricity have continued to come down, we might still see some impact. You will not see as large an impact because they came from a very high level to another. But it's true, there may be still some positive impact that you'll be able to see on the, on the cost this year. You are right. On the financial cost, and so it's a little bit hard to tell you, but we finished the year with a EUR 300 million balance in our favor. And that you generated around EUR 14 million-EUR 15 million of interest costs in the year.
So as this moves to, I don't know, half, two-thirds, you may see as this will decrease. I'm not certain if this will generate 5, 7, so it will still generate positive interest. As I said in the call, we will try and give you precise numbers or more precise numbers in the middle of the year. In the first quarter is a little bit difficult, but it, at least in the second quarter, we will give you a more precise number. But, I mean, you can assume that there will be some, but it will clearly not be this. Is it half? A little bit less than half, something like that, okay? In terms of the impact of the financial cost.
So in terms of the tax, so as I said, it was something that we did in the year, some accounting measures that we took, and we capitalized more certain companies. This is also important to us. It was basically accounting movements, but it's important because as we are investing more and as a concession, we also have to some metrics that we have to abide by. We also need some capitalization of the subsidiaries, and given the budget law that you have for 2023, that has a positive impact relating to this year. So, we cannot know if that has any impact this year, but it's best to be on the safe side, and so we are not expecting, and you should not put that in your estimates for next year, okay? That's what we would tell you.
Thank you.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand back over to Madalena Garrido for closing remarks.
Thank you very much to everyone on the line. Of course, we remain available on the side to answer any additional questions, and thank you for your time today.
Thank you.
Thank you.