Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for holding, and welcome to ENGIE's Full-Year Results Presentation. For your information, this call is being recorded. It will take place in listen-only mode, and you'll have the opportunity to ask questions after the presentation. If you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone. If you wish to review your question, please press the pound or the hash key. I would now like to hand over to Aarti Singhal. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to welcome you to ENGIE's 2021 Full-Year Results Presentation. There are two parts to our presentation this morning. In the first part, Catherine and Pierre-François will cover a review of 2021, and in the second part, they will cover the outlook over the medium term. Following which, we will open the lines for Q&A as usual, and with a polite request to please limit your questions to one or two only. Thank you very much, and with that, over to Catherine.
Thank you very much, Aarti, and good morning, everyone. Very pleased to be on this call today with Pierre-François, who joined us last month, hitting the ground running, I have to say, already making a great contribution. In May last year, we announced our plan, Putting Strategy into Action, which was focused on three pillars, setting the foundation for long-term success. First, we wanted to simplify the portfolio by refocusing on our strengths and improving the business mix.
Second, we wanted to significantly step up the renewables growth. Third, to increase efficiency, to improve financial performance, of course, but also to enhance competitiveness so that we can capture the many growth opportunities that we see ahead through a returns-focused and disciplined approach. I am convinced that by consistently delivering on these priorities, ENGIE will realize its purpose of accelerating carbon neutrality alongside driving sustainable returns for shareholders.
ENGIE is a responsible company. We are very mindful of our role in finding solutions with regulators and policymakers so that we address the growing need for investment for the energy transition while supporting affordability for customers. In 2021, our teams put tremendous effort to translate the plan into action, and the results, they speak for themselves. We made strong progress on the simplification program with the announced exits of non-strategic assets totaling EUR 9.2 billion of disposals, the majority of these being, of course, the sale of Equans, which will offer strong development opportunities for its employees. We signed or completed agreements to exit 18 countries, which means upon completion, we will be operating in 35 countries, well on track to be operating in under 30 countries by 2023. We also progressed on exiting coal, which now represents less than 3% of our centralized power generation capacity.
In renewables, we commissioned three gigawatts for a third year in a row, and of course, I'll give you more color on this later. We revised the investment process to really sharpen the focus to increase our selectivity, which is also, of course, helping optimize development resources. Overall, 90% of our gross capex last year was invested organically, completely in line with our strategy. We have also worked on key organizational levers. We've set up our four global business units. We have renewed the group leadership with a healthy balance between internal talent and external experience, including Pierre-François. We have updated our incentive schemes to be further aligned with the interests of our shareholders on both financial performance but also ESG.
Together with the new leadership team, we are committed to enhance our performance culture, to make us more competitive, and to drive growth, which will no doubt create exciting new opportunities for our people, further enhancing ENGIE's attractiveness to the best talent. Turning now to our financial results, we posted a strong performance with total EBIT, including aircraft, increasing 47% on an organic basis, leading to total net recurring income group share of EUR 3.2 billion. This performance was not achieved by chance. Of course, we benefited from external tailwinds, but we were only able to post such strong results because we leveraged our integrated business model. We fully benefited from the favorable price environment as our assets delivered high levels of availability, and we captured opportunities from the flexible generation, and we actively managed our contractual positions, and we ensured strong financial liquidity.
All these results were supported by our performance plan, which delivered its first impact. We invested EUR 4.3 billion in gross capex. Return on capital employed increased to 9.1%, driven, of course, by higher profitability. On shareholders' returns, the board has reaffirmed the group's dividend policy and proposes a dividend of EUR 0.85 per share, up EUR 0.32 from last year. We remain focused on delivering a progressively growing sustainable dividend for our shareholders. Tackling climate change is at the heart of our strategy. We are committed to achieving our net-zero ambition, covering all three scopes by 2045. In 2021, greenhouse gas emissions from energy production were reduced to 67 million tons, which is down 11% from 2019. Through, of course, growing investments and consistent delivery, we are increasing the share of renewables in our portfolio to 34%.
On gender diversity, ENGIE had 25% women in management at the end of 2021, and here we have to work more. We have strong plans towards our ambition of reaching gender balance by 2030. Moving to our operational achievements, starting with renewables, a key growth engine for us, we have commissioned nine gigawatts of renewable capacity to our portfolio since the end of 2018, leading to now over 34, 34.4 accurately, of total installed capacity, and of course, this was primarily driven by very consistent three gigawatts of additional capacity commissioned each year over the past three years. Commercializing the energy from renewables is a competitive advantage for ENGIE. We signed contracts for 2.1 gigawatts of capacity, which is up from 1.5 gigawatts last year, and that is confirming ENGIE's top position as a green corporate PPA supplier.
That trend continues as we see very strong demand from a range of clients across consumer goods, technology, and all industrial sectors. In November, we signed an agreement in partnership with Crédit Agricole Assurances to acquire Eolia, a leading renewable player in Spain, a very compelling acquisition with attractive returns, strategically a great fit, adding to ENGIE's existing scale in Iberia, and very importantly, industrially, where we will bring value in delivering the pipeline and provide multiple services to operating assets. Finally, Ocean Winds, our JV with EDPR, continues to progress in a very high-growth market. Turning to energy solutions, our GBU is delivering decarbonization solutions to customers through distributed energy infrastructure as well as energy efficiency services. A great example of this is ENGIE's selection alongside our partner, RATP, to manage the cooling network of the city of Paris.
In this case, ENGIE's technical expertise was absolutely key to this 20-year concession that covers the production, storage, transport, and distribution of the city's cooling energy with additional growth perspectives. In energy efficiency services, we signed a contract covering more than 100 sites worldwide with Faurecia, a global leader in automotive technology, supporting them in their ambitious commitment to reach carbon neutrality. In energy solutions, our immediate focus is on performance improvement to strengthen this platform so that we can capture fully the many long-term opportunities that we see in this business. And now I'm going to hand over to Pierre-François to review the 2021 financial performance.
Thank you very much, Catherine, and thank you also for the kind words and good morning, all of you. Of course, I'm very pleased to be here today in this role at such an exciting time for ENGIE, and as you can see, ENGIE is in strong shape financially, and for sure, it made it much easier when you join as a CFO to start with a solid set of results with good momentum, both on earnings and balance sheets. I will not elaborate on this slide on the left part because I will dig in. Just mention that we account for Equans as discontinued operations under IFRS 5. You had the 2020 numbers ahead of the release, so I think we are all set to go.
When we compare our result with the 2021 guidance, which always was including aircraft, we, of course, take the total earnings, and as you can see, our 2021 results are at the top end of the guidance for all KPIs. Let's now move to the numbers. And starting, of course, with EBIT growth, which is quite significant, + EUR 1,652 million. It does include a negative FX and scope for minus 163. FX is related to Brazilian reals and, to a lesser extent, US dollars. And the scope negative is due to the sale of the 10% of GTT shares, which is partly offset by the sale of the 29.9% of Suez, which, you remember, contributed negatively in 2020. The organic growth is plus 42%. That is plus EUR 1.8 billion. I will, of course, give some details on renewables, network, and energy solution. Just a few words on the other components.
Thermal is slightly down, EUR 47 million, and this is on the back, of course, of a strong comparison base. 2020 was actually very good. The merchant activities were also very strong this year with high spreads and also ancillaries, which were captured by our European flexible generation fleet, both gas plants and the pumped storage units. But we were hit on the contracted activities mainly by higher sourcing spot prices in Chile, and this is due to poor hydrology in particular, but also overall low production in the country. Supply was down by EUR 12 million. This is the effect of lower margins in Europe, especially in Belgium, as well as Romania, and also some reversal of 2020 positive one-offs. And this was offset partly by higher volumes, especially related to COVID recovery on one hand and colder temperature on the other hand.
Nuclear, after three years of negative EBIT, has been posting an outstanding operational performance with availability up from 63% to 92%, and this is a tailwind for us of EUR 500 million in results coming both from units in Belgium and the drawing rights in France. We were also able to achieve higher prices, which is a plus EUR 700 million impact, partly offset by profit-sharing taxes in Belgium, which have been increasing and reaching a total of close to EUR 150 million in 2021. On the others, the main driver of the increase is the strong commercial and trading performance of GEMS due to COVID recovery and also the exceptional market conditions. It's good to mention that the corporate costs were actually also lower than last year. Moving to renewables, it's great to see that we are up EUR 92 million to EUR 1,185 million.
There is a non-organic negative of minus EUR 116 million, roughly half of it due to scope, and this is a result of partial sell-downs that were completed last year, and another half due to FX, mainly Brazil. Without that, renewables have posted an impressive 22% organic growth, leveraging the price tailwind and also the contribution of the newly commissioned assets. The price impact is + EUR 335 million. It's coming mainly from hydro in France and in Brazil.
And there was a -ve volume effect that is reflecting the impact of the Texas extreme weather that we had early in 2021. That's about - EUR 90 million, but also lower volumes in hydro, both in Brazil on the back of the drought and in France. It's good to mention that there is some link between the volumes and the price, especially in Brazil, where we find some natural matching between the two effects.
Last but not least, we had the benefit of the capacities that were commissioned over the last years. That was in 2021, mainly in the U.S. and Brazil, and this new capacity contributed to an EBIT increase of EUR 102 million, while some assets are still in a ramp-up phase. Moving to networks, here we have a very limited impact from FX and scope, minus EUR 13 million, and then an organic EBIT increase of plus 13%. That is plus EUR 267 million year-on-year to a total of EUR 2,314. The French operations are actually up by EUR 216 million, and this is on the back of colder temperature as well as recovery of COVID impact in 2020, and this was achieved despite lower transmission volume subscribed and also lower tariff revenues reflecting regulatory reviews that, as you know, were expected.
Temperature had a timing impact on P&L, and I think it's important that you remember that it will be recouped through the clawback mechanism. It is value neutral for ENGIE. On international, we are up by EUR 51 million with a good contribution of organic growth in Brazil with a strong performance of TAG, but also the progress in construction of power transmission lines. That came on top of colder temperatures that we had in Europe, so a good year on the international part as well. We move to energy solution now. Energy solution that benefited from a positive scope, and this is due to the disposal of the stake in Suez, which was loss-making last year. The FX impact is broadly neutral. With that, we are reporting on energy solution, a broadly flat organic EBIT variation. This is reflected in two positives and one negative.
The positive, the one first positive is the distributed energy infrastructure activities, which are increasing the EBIT by EUR 14 million to reach EUR 385. And this is on the back of strong operating performance as well as colder temperature for district heating in France. Good progress of energy efficiency services. EBIT is up by EUR 74 million to EUR 126, much better, and of course, benefiting from the COVID recovery, which was leveraged because we had also a strong operating performance. Good to see we are back in a decent profitability. But these two improvements were actually offset by the higher cost that we had with the development of EVBox. Contribution of EVBox is down EUR 90 million, year-on-year. And it's fair to say that the operation in 2021 were disrupted mainly due to the supply chain squeeze that happened in this market.
The plan is to turn around the operations gradually in 2022 and in 2023, driving a significant EBIT improvement. We will, at some point, resume the process to monetize this asset, which is a good asset in a fast-growing market when we are comfortable with capacity to achieve the full valuation now that we have terminated the agreement with TPG in December 2021. More broadly, I would like to highlight that the turnaround of energy solution is on its way, as evidenced further by the strong backlog increase and also the significant margin increase on EBIT, excluding EVBox. Clearly, energy solution is lining up for growth. How do we convert this improvement in operations into net income? You can see that depreciation and amortization is stable, and we have a mature asset base, which is offsetting the increase of depreciation in the growth drivers. The net interest expense was up.
It was mainly driven by a higher cost of debt and driven itself by the higher Brazilian rates. So the average cost of gross debt was actually EUR 263. It was up 25 basis points compared to last year. The tax charges were EUR 400 million higher, and this is, of course, on the back of higher profit, partly offset by a lower effective tax rate at 29.3% in 2021 versus 30.5% in 2020. And this lower tax rate is mainly due to the use of unrecognized taxes, notably in Belgium, as well as the decreasing standard tax rate in France. And this is achieved despite significant negative one-offs in 2021. Just to mention that minority interest were also slightly lower. All in all, we achieved a good conversion of EBITDA improvement into net recurring income. The reported net income, Group share, is also positive, EUR 3.7 billion in 2021.
That is EUR 800 million more than the recurring net income. It does include a billion of impairment, which are mainly related to our operations in Latin America, but it does include as well EUR 1.1 billion of capital gains coming from the sale of the 10% shareholding in GTT, including the revaluation of the 30% stake that we still retain, but also the earn-out on the 29.9% shareholding in Suez. We had, on top of these two items, a commodity mark-to-market, which is positive for EUR 700 million, which gives this EUR 3.7 billion reported net income. How do we convert these earnings into cash flows? I think that CFFO being down at EUR 0.3 billion, it could look a bit disappointing, but you really need to double-click.
The operating cash flow is actually up EUR 1.3 billion, slightly short of EBITDA improvement, and this is due to the contribution of GEMS, which is actually so-called pay to us for an extension of the concession, and also the contribution of U.S. tax equity, which are reducing investments. The real point that we had in 2021 was the working cap variation, which is negative by EUR 1.4 billion. This is due to margin calls, which was a cash outflow of EUR 2.2 billion in 2021 due to the higher prices, but also to more stringent cash collateralization rules, which are imposed by the clearing houses. I would like to highlight that excluding margin calls, working cap variation is actually positive, plus EUR 0.8 billion, and the CFFO would have been improving by nearly EUR 2 billion year-on-year.
This is an outstanding performance that shows the operational leverage of ENGIE when it comes to cash generation. Now, let me spend one minute on the margin calls. You know what it is. It's a way to mitigate the counterparty risk on the hedging instruments through the cash collaterals. It's clear that there is no material economic or financial effect overall, as the margin calls, by design, they equalize over the life of the financial instrument. But there are timing effects on the CFFO, as you could see. And that's why good margin calls management is absolutely critical in the kind of market we have today. You need strong balance sheets so that, for example, you can use LCs or letter of credit instead of cash. You need a very strong risk control and liquidity framework because you need to stay in control in these very high volatile markets.
And then you need excellent trading capabilities because you need to be able to structure transactions in such a way that you minimize the cash requirements, for example, through liquidity swaps. All of that was actually excellent with ENGIE in 2021 and clearly is a serious competitive advantage going forward. Cash generation, how do we use that cash? Of course, through our capital expenditures, which I think in 2021 is also a good illustration of our capital discipline. The gross capex are running high at EUR 4.3 billion, albeit lower than indicated, but it shows that there is no complacency when it comes to expected returns. Very focused on the core energy transition activities and net zero, fully in line with our indication, also with a significant share, more than 90%, coming from organic projects, and it does pay tribute to the strong pipeline and its quality.
The maintenance CapEx reached EUR 2.4 billion. You know it's a key component of our performance optimization. Pleased to see that. And last but not least, we funded our nuclear provision for EUR 1.3 billion, as expected. How is this cash generation leaving our balance sheet and credit metrics? You can see that the net financial debt is increasing by EUR 2.8 billion to EUR 25.3 billion from December last year. It does include the EUR 2.2 billion margin call impact that I just mentioned. And of course, the proceeds of Equans are not yet part of this bridge. They will be recognized at the closing of the transaction, which is expected in the second half of 2022.
The economic net debt is increasing by EUR 0.9 billion, as the increase of the net financial debt is partly offset by the decrease in post-employment provision, and also, of course, because the nuclear provision funding is already accounted for the economic net debt. Therefore, we benefit of a slight improvement of our net financial debt to EBITDA on the back of the strong growth of EBITDA, but we have a significant improvement of our economic net debt to EBITDA ratio, which is set at 3.6, a significant decrease compared to 20, and comfortably within the guidance, which is below or equal to four. Lastly, there is no recent change on the rating, which is in line with the strong investment grade we want to stick to. And with that, I will hand over back to Catherine.
Thank you, Pierre-François. Turning now to the medium-term outlook, we are indeed strongly positioned to capture the opportunities that are presented by the energy transition. There is the need for massive investments driven by countries, cities, corporates that are looking to decarbonize energy and address demand growth. We have a strong conviction that no single technology can be the solution to delivering a smooth and affordable energy transition. And this is where our integrated business model positions us strongly. Starting on the left of this slide, ENGIE is among the world leaders in renewables. We own and operate all major technologies. We are active in key growth markets, and we are continuously strengthening our renewables platform.
Moving across to the box number two, ENG'IEs strength in renewables is complemented by a large portfolio of flexible generation assets that includes our CCGTs as well as pumped storage plants, which are absolutely key to addressing intermittency. We also have deep experience in gas activities and energy storage, which are critical to ensuring a balanced energy mix that supports this security of supply, this affordability, this overall system resiliency, which is going to be so important. All of these power and gas activities are increasingly needed together to deliver integrated solutions. This is why we have put ENGIE's energy management expertise in the middle of this picture. We have built this expertise over two decades, and we are very proud we have among the best professionals in the market.
It is a clear competitive advantage, particularly when you consider that the energy market will become subsidy-free over time with potentially shorter PPAs, more merchant exposure. We have strong expertise in commercializing renewables, in monetizing flexibility, in managing risk, in enabling the future of renewable gases. This unique energy management expertise helps us make the link between our flexible asset portfolio and our large customer franchise and energy markets. This access to customers, these strong relationships really give us an edge in capturing opportunities to decarbonize their activities, to reduce energy consumption, and to green the energy mix. This integrated model is built upon the strength of world-class industrial GBUs and, crucially, upon our strong local anchorage. We have a deep understanding of our local markets and stakeholders, from starting a project to commercializing it.
This is the result of years of constructive engagement with local suppliers, customers, regulators, policymakers, helping them find solutions that enable the delivery of their energy transition commitments. I'm going to give you a few examples. In the context of growing intermittency, transmission operators across Europe are looking for flexibility products. In the Netherlands, we monetize flexibility through a tailor-made solution. We sold ancillary services to tenants by combining the flexibility of our thermal assets with demand response from our customers. Another example is how we have combined B2B supply and renewables. We signed a 25-year contract with BASF to offer 20 terawatt-hours of green power through a unique multi-country, multi-technology approach that gives us the choice to deploy the most value-accretive renewable asset, and through a partnership with Equinor, involving both GEMS and the thermal GBU, we will be producing low-carbon hydrogen from natural gas in Belgium.
The target is to install up to one gigawatt by 2028. The low-carbon H2 will be used as feedstock to decarbonize heavy industrial processes as well as CCGTs. There are so many other examples from across the group, such as the partnership with CMA CGM to produce synthetic LNG to decarbonize shipping and a 150-megawatt battery storage project in Australia to capture excess renewable energy. Let me now update you briefly on some of our key priorities over the medium term. In renewables, we are on a path to accelerate growth. As you may recall, we're targeting 50 gigawatts of total installed renewables by 2025. We will be stepping up to an average of four gigawatt capacity addition per year from this year to 2025. This ambition is supported by a robust pipeline of around 66 gigawatts of identified projects.
You can see on this slide an updated view of this pipeline, which shows you the mix of technology and the spread across different geographies. You will see that we have 7 GW of secured or under construction capacity, 31 GW in advanced development, a further 28 GW under development. The 2022 capacity, therefore, is already secured or under construction. For the period 2023 and 2025, the total 12 gigawatt expected capacity addition is very well supported with a strong cover ratio of 2.8x . In energy solution, we are focused on capturing several mega trends. $4 trillion of annual global investment is required, which is about three times the current level, to reach the sustainability pledges that policymakers, countries, and companies have made.
District heating and cooling networks are experiencing, as a result, around 5% growth globally, and distributed solar is forecasted to grow double digits until 2025. We have international leadership in this domain with very strong client relationships. So we aim to add eight gigawatts of low-carbon distributed energy infrastructure by 2025, which is well supported by a EUR 14 billion pipeline of opportunities. And as we look to 2024, top-line growth alongside higher cost discipline and better efficiency focus is expected to drive a strong improvement in margin with significant EBIT growth. So these two growth engines are complemented by the stability, cash generation, predictability of our networks activities. We are obviously a leading player in gas networks in France. We have around EUR 29 billion in RAB, regulated asset base. And this is expected to increase by around 1.5% per year over the period 2021 to 2024.
Then we have our international assets, which represent capital employed of EUR 3.8 billion. We call it quasi-RAB. It has grown around 12% since 2019, and this growth is coming from the commissioning of power lines, but also the expansion of our TAG assets. Important to the outlook for networks, but also for the rest of ENGIE, is the absolute crucial role of gas. In the next decade, we will see new CCGTs being built that will use, of course, more efficient technology to meet the power demand and ensure the system resilience. In Germany alone, we expect more than 20 GW of additional capacity to be built. Gas will support the hard-to-abate sectors. And by 2050, as you can see on this slide, gas consumption will be predominantly low carbon. Of course, ENGIE is super well positioned across this entire renewable gas value chain.
We have ambitious 2030 targets, all underpinned by a variety of projects with increased investment on biomethane and hydrogen. For example, with our subsidiary Storengy in France, we launched the first underground green hydrogen storage project in a salt cavern. In another project led by GRTgaz and a German gas network operator, we are aiming to convert 70 km of existing gas pipelines for 100% hydrogen transport. And we have many, many more. Before I comment on the financial outlook, a quick update on Belgium. As you know, nuclear activities there are planned to stop by the end of 2025, so we are preparing for an orderly phase-out. The Belgian government has proposed a new draft law, which is expected to be voted in spring 2022. This draft law focuses on the availability of funds against nuclear provisions.
It proposes a timetable for the funding of dismantling and waste management costs by 2030, so if voted through, this would lead to an additional funding for dismantling costs to 2030, representing up to around EUR 700 million per annum in 2022 to 2024. We don't expect any change to economic net debt from this draft law under discussion. The next triennial review of the nuclear provisions toward dismantling costs and waste management will take place later this year. Similar to the 2019 process, the review will consider any updates that would be required to the nuclear provisions based on discount rates and a review of baseline scenarios for cost estimates. Let me now turn to the medium term to 2024. We are really maintaining a very consistent approach to our strategic plan.
Most of the simplification and disposals are now behind us, so we are going to focus on disciplined long-term earnings growth, driven mainly by investment in renewables, higher results from energy solutions, and a resilient contribution from networks. We will continue to drive significant improvement from the performance plan, and overall, we expect to more than offset the reduction from Belgian nuclear, leading to progressive growth in earnings and dividends. Over to Pierre-François for the key financials for the outlook of 2024.
Thank you, Catherine. We tried to give you some colors about how we are going actually to drive this steady growth of earnings, and you know this value creation framework, and you are familiar with it. I'm not going to elaborate. The key message here is really about consistency. We want to use the same KPIs that will be refreshed, of course, to be continued or updated when needed. We want to stick to execution with 2023 commitments that we want, of course, to follow up. And with that, we believe that we have a strong value creation proposition.
Let's start with the first earnings driver engine, the growth, and therefore with capital expenditures. On the back of a strong pipe, I think that Catherine was pretty adamant to praise it, we are able to confirm our EUR 15billion-EUR 16 billion gross CapEx target for 2021-2023. We are actually well on track with 60% of this CapEx already invested or committed, fully in line with the announced split, i.e., with a specific focus on renewables, networks, and energy solutions. For 2024, we expect consistently about EUR 5 billion of gross CapEx to be invested mainly in the same key activities.
With regard to the maintenance CapEx, we also maintain an indicative expectation of about EUR 2.5 billion a year on average, progressively decreasing over time as part of our performance effort. Capital discipline is also for maintenance CapEx, of course. We like capital expenditures, but of course, we want to deliver value out of it. And that's, of course, at the center of our attention. In line with what we communicated last May, we maintain a strict discipline for investment decisions. This is about strategy, making sure that the investments are aligned with our priorities: geography, energy transition, focus on where we have a competitive advantage so that we can leverage our industrial or operational expertise. That's one criteria. The second criteria is, of course, financial. It's about value creation. It's also about P&L contribution. And last but not least, cash generation. And the first criteria is about ESG.
You know that we have a demanding journey on the CO2 emission, but also on some other very important criteria like biodiversity or resilience to climate change and a few others. This financial discipline, at least, is reflected by our project IRR, internal rate of returns, at the final investment decision date, and you have a graph on the left, which is showing some recent projects and gives you an idea where we are. Clearly, they are all considerably higher than the weighted average cost of capital. This value creation is expected, of course, to contribute positively as well to our return on capital employed, which we expect to maintain at the high level achieved in 2021, proving that our gross capex are actually not dilutive against our 21 reference. Albeit, of course, there may be some yearly variation based on the pace of growth.
There is a second engine to the growth of our earnings, which is the performance plan. 2021 was in line with our expectation, albeit at the low end, and this is due to the loss of EVBox that we had not expected to have to this extent in 2021 based on the disposal process. We are, however, confirming our ambition of EUR 600 million net EBIT contribution from 2020 to 2023, and beyond that period, we target a continued improvement effort with the same kind of magnitude of a yearly contribution to our earnings. There are, as you know, always new tools, new processes, ideas to improve performance, and the operational culture of ENGIE, with the right push, is the perfect ground to leverage these opportunities.
The three main levers will be there: operational excellence, we can leverage our new GBU organization big time, the improvement of support functions that is targeting G&A, and, of course, fixing our loss-making entities. The tools, the teams, the plans, they are there, they are in place, and 2022 will be about execution and follow-up with each business and also corporate that will contribute. So two key drivers of our earnings on growth and performance, but also simplification is progressing, and I think that we are already well underway. The closed or signed transaction will reduce our net financial debt by more than EUR 9 billion. They are fully consistent with the main objectives that were presented in May, as it was explained by Catherine.
To date, these disposals include Equans, 11.5% of GRTgaz, Suez, the EUR 0.6 billion additional from the top-up on the 29.9%, plus about 2% remaining stake that was completed this year. Engie EPS, 10% of GTT, and also some countries and core business exit. We are not going to comment on the other ongoing disposals, but the list is materially unchanged, so you should expect the same dilution, about EUR 0.6 billion between 2020 and 2023, including Equans. It is only due to the high valuation achieved so far that we are able to actually upgrade our initial indication to at least EUR 11 billion over the period 2021-2023 for a globally unchanged perimeter and the same P&L dilution. Beyond 2023, for 2024, we expect to reduce this disposal level, but we will keep on performing a sound portfolio management like in a housekeeping mode.
Now I move to the expectation on earnings, but before, I need to stop on the context of the commodity market. And you know that since last summer, commodity prices experience a very high volatility and reach unprecedented levels. Of course, a large part of our revenues are immune to market prices, but we still have some substantial merchant exposure, mainly for outright power production with nuclear and hydro in Belgium and France, and for CCGTs, as well as pumped storage in Europe. Again, a large part of this risk and opportunities is progressively hedged over three years, but we are never fully hedged for the future because we need to keep some flexibility for the short term. As an example, we start 2022 with 20% open position for nuclear and hydro in Belgium and France.
This residual risk and opportunities in normal circumstances can be managed within the boundaries of the guidance, and that's why it is usually based on the reference of the December 31st forward curves. This volatility today is just too high to use one single day reference, and we decided to base our 2022-24 expectations on the average of the H2-2021 commodity forwards to give a more balanced and stable view. We don't want to end up with a mark-to-market of the guidance given the volatility that we have today in the market. On that basis, if we turn to 22, you can see that despite a very good performance in 21, we still expect to increase further earnings in 22. The main drivers are some significant tailwinds, the gross investment, of course, because there would be newly commissioned capacities in renewables, there would be growth in networks in Latin America.
There would be the contribution of the improved performance plan and also the continued turnaround of energy solution. There would be higher prices for nuclear and hydro in France. There would be also some reversal of the 2021 headwinds that we had, like the Texas extreme weather condition we had in renewables, but also the thermal in Chile. There would be also some headwinds. We'd get the reversal of the 2021 good points, like the cold temperature for networks and supply in particular. We'll get also lower nuclear volumes because the first reactor will be stopped in Belgium next October. We will have also the impact of the lower, albeit smooth, regulated asset-based remuneration for French networks, and also the impact of some further coal exit that will affect thermal.
Note, please, that the net recurring income is expected to increase at a higher rate than EBIT, and this is due to an expected decrease in the tax rate. I mentioned that in 2021, we had some significant one-off. That will go away, and the tax rate is expected to come down from 29% in 2021 to a range of 21%-23% in 2022. On the midterm, up to 2024, we do expect earnings growth throughout the period. This will be achieved despite negative price effect. This price effect, as you know, they are coming from the forward curve due to the backwardation. There will come also, despite the declining remuneration of some of the regulated assets, and also some reduction of volumes from the expected phase-out of nuclear.
But despite that, ENGIE's EBIT is actually expected to grow at a low single-digit CAGR from 2021 to 2024, and I would even say a mid-single-digit CAGR when you exclude Nuc. Compared to our 2023 expectations that were shared last May, we now expect higher earnings in 2023, mainly due to commodity price assumption update. The key drivers of this growth are gross investments and performance improvement despite the headwinds that I just referred to, so last night, to summarize this financial outlook, which is again based on average prices scenario, I will not go through the details again, but the key messages are clear. We are ambitious but realistic in our earnings indication and guidance, with healthy growth of earnings throughout the period, with reasonable, albeit supportive price assumptions. We'll stick to our discipline and execution on gross CapEx and disposals.
We'll keep a relentless focus on performance, and we will stick to stability and consistency when it comes to dividend policy and rating commitment. Just for reference, if we were applying the usual approach of assuming prices as at the 31st of December 2021, it would arithmetically translate to significantly higher net recurring income for the 22 to 24 period. It would be a plus 600 in 22, a plus 400 in 23, and a plus 200 in 24. And you could play with new or more recent curves that would just induce more volatility in 22 and probably add a further upside in 23-24. Again, we don't want to play that game. With that, I'm back to Catherine for the wrap-up.
Thank you very much, Pierre-François. So just a few key messages for today. Indeed, we posted strong results delivered at the top end of the guidance range. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all ENGIE teams again for their commitment, for their hard work. We have made significant progress at pace towards the execution of our strategic plan, and we are accelerating investment in line with our climate ambition, notably in renewables, with a very clear focus on returns, and I firmly believe that ENGIE's core capabilities, our assets, our integrated business model, and of course, our highly engaged, professional, committed teams all position the group very strongly to execute and also to create value. Thank you very much for your attention, and we can now open the lines for questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel the request, please press the pound or the hash key. Once again, it's star one. If you have any questions or comments at this time, you have a first question coming from the line of Vincent Ayral from JP Morgan. Please ask your question.
Yes. Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. Congratulations for these very strong results. That's pulling out two guidance upgrades, and it seems ready to repeat feat. And congratulations as well for the very good presentation, good charts, and information on the guidance and power prices. It's really appreciated in this context.
So plenty of questions here, commodity, working capital, requirements, derivatives, renewable supply chain issues, taxonomy. We have plenty to be asked, but as we need to stick to two, I will focus on the core, if I may say so. And let's talk power price. You've provided your assumptions here. Indeed, they are quite conservative when we look at where H1 this year is trading on the forward curve.
And basically, we'd like to know if you could provide us with some level of net recurring income sensitivity to move, I don't know, EUR 10 per megawatt hour. You could even do EUR 50 if the power prices are. That would be very interesting. The second question is here straight on nuclear. You're talking about your nuclear exit by 2025, which you made clear a year ago. Yes, Belgium is facing a real security of supply issue in a few years' time. And the Elia report is expected mid-March to talk about these topics. The FANC, so the nuclear safety operator, publicly said he could reorganize the regulatory process so life extensions of the Doel 4 and Tihange 3 could be done.
So would you be considering extension of these two reactors and help, basically, if this is where the government finally decides? It's been postponing the decision forever, but now it's just three months to do so. How do you see yourself protected in this case if the nuclear liabilities are not capped? So would you be considering here potentially a regulated life extension and the cap of the liabilities? Is this the type of thing you would be open to discussing with the Belgian government? So two questions: sensitivity to power price and nuclear life extension cap of liabilities.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Vincent, and thank you for the nice comments. So I'll start with the question on nuclear, and then I'll pass it on to Pierre-François for the second question of the first question, rather. So on nuclear, you've got it right. We are expecting yet another report around mid-March, which is going to look at the whole security of supply of Belgium.
Our understanding is that the situation in Belgium, albeit quite politically sometimes, let's say, agitated, the reality has not changed much, and therefore, the security of supply report, including the number of CRM capacity that has been secured through last year's exercise, is going to convince the government to stay the course and indeed confirm the exit of nuclear by 2025, as it was reaffirmed again last year. But you're right to say that that decision, black and white, is not completely taken yet. From the ENGIE standpoint, though, very consistent to what we've said all along, which is we do not see any scenarios where we will have time to extend two reactors beyond 2025 should we be asked.
So I understand your point on FANC, but you have to realize that there is a lot of other factors to be considered. You have, of course, the security and the safety of operations, which the authority that you are mentioning is important, but there are a lot of other aspects, including the fuel, including other countries permitting, including potentially a new CRM. There is a number of things, not to mention, of course, a major investment in the assets that we continue to believe that we do not have time to do that before 2025.
So I understand your point, but really, from our point of view, absolutely no change. And we are planning, as I've mentioned in my slides, for an orderly phase-out of nuclear by 2025. I think you've pointed out the good news that we are able to make up for the loss of contribution from these nuclear plants despite the good result that we saw from nuclear in 2021. Pierre-François, you want to comment a bit on the power price sensitivity?
Yes, thank you. You're testing my new skills, but I will do my best. Of course, it's a very good question. To be very candid, I ask the same. Is there a way that we could easily model our exposure to price? Of course, it is much more complicated than that because you have, of course, different power prices depending on the day and the load and the peak. Then you have also an exposure to gas. You have the exposure to the clean spark spread.
So it is actually a whole set of assumptions that need to be factored in, and that doesn't make the modeling that simple. That's the reason why we have indeed chosen a scenario and given a sensitivity to that scenario. And that's really to frame the discussion. And I don't think that we are prepared to go much further than that. And you should be careful, indeed, to just use a rough calculation because there are, again, many things that can play, including the nuclear tax in Belgium that will offset part of the earnings. So there are a lot of parameters. And to be very candid, this is not what we are after for ENGIE. I mean, the way we want to drive the dialogue with you guys is much more about the value creation in the long run.
Of course, we have this sensitivity to prices, but this is kind of a short-term thing. I think it's more important that we keep the dialogue on where we can actually make the difference in the long run and drive this value creation. That's why we don't want to create a confusion with too many mark-to-market of our results each quarter.
The next question has come from fellow James Brand from Deutsche Bank. Please ask your question.
Hi, good morning, and also well done for me on the good results and the good presentation. I have two questions, or at least I'll keep it to two questions. Firstly, on thermal, I'm interested in how your contracting looks on your European gas plants for the next couple of years. You did provide a bit of detail in the thermal slide on kind of split between merchant and contracting.
I wasn't quite sure whether to interpret that as literally as your contracting position for next year or whether you were just making a high-level distinction between plants that have long-term contracts and operate merchant. But obviously, spark spreads in the near term are generally very high. It depends a bit on the market. So I'd be interested in how much exposure you have to that over the next year or two. And then secondly, on the French gas networks, you kind of highlighted the RAB growth over the next few years being kind of around 1% or so.
A lot of utilities that have gas networks are starting to talk a lot about hydrogen. In some cases, that's not really affecting the investment over the next few years, but maybe from the mid-2020s. Do you see scope for significant investments related to hydrogen to be kicking in at some point for your gas networks in France and for your RAB growth rates to pick up at some point? Thank you very much.
Yes. Okay. Thank you for the question. So let me start maybe with hydrogen because I think it's obviously a really good question. You pointed out that our RAB is going to be increasing over the next 2021-2024 period. That RAB increase, indeed, is not going to come much from hydrogen, but rather some normal investment as well, obviously, as biomethane. So in France, we are seeing real traction on biomethane. Biomethane, as you know, has the benefit of being produced locally, and it's exactly the same molecule as the natural gas, the fossil natural gas. So it's a direct one-to-one drop-in replacement.
However, it does need some investment in networks because you need to be able to inject biomethane into the network. So in the period 2021-2024, when you think about renewable gas, it's more going to be around biomethane. In the longer run, though, you're very right to say, and the example I gave on GRTgaz is a good example of that, where we are looking to potentially being able to transport hydrogen or a blend of hydrogen, and that will require investment. So the example that we gave was about a 70 km pipe that we will try to use to transport 100% hydrogen. And for that, you will need some investment to be able to be hydrogen-proof. And of course, in that case, that would provide rapid growth opportunities in the future, but again, not necessarily super visible on the period 2021-2024.
So then there is a question around our thermal fleet. So maybe just a few comments, and I'll say that we are obviously extremely pleased with our thermal fleet in Europe and kudos to the team that are making sure that it's available, flexible, and that it fully plays its role of stabilizing the network because it does that as well as obviously producing electricity in peak demand. So we still have a few open volumes in those assets. So we had some. We have some open volume, but a good balance that we're pleased with. And obviously, we are really using this fleet to be playing its absolute required role of stabilizing the energy system as we need to in Europe in these very volatile times. But we're not providing necessarily the percentage between hedge and open. We have some hedge, and we continue to have some open volumes.
May I just ask a follow-up on that? I thought it was quite interesting to see you disclosed your captured spark spreads in Europe, which I'm not sure that's been disclosed in the past. You might not want to comment explicitly on this, but I'll just try. But do you see those directionally? Do you think you can capture higher spreads over the next few years, or they're already quite good, the spreads you captured in 2021, or would you see spreads being more stable?
I mean, I have very fresh insights, so I need to be very careful. But bear in mind that the situation is very different also depending on the season. So you know that in the winter, we know that we are going to use our gas plants. So that's where we, of course, target max availability. And this is already in the market that it will come. When it comes to the summer, that's where indeed some tension on the power market can create some further opportunities because then we don't know if we are going to be used.
So it does, of course, open a bit of a different hedging position because there is an uncertainty, and there is here a potential to capture a higher spread depending, of course, on the balance of the market. So be careful with the data, and probably we need to go for a longer history of data as we want to draw conclusions.
Great. Thank you very much, and well done again.
The next question has come from the line of Peter Bisztyga from Bank of America. Please ask your question.
Yeah. Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. So two from me, please. Firstly, could you walk us through what the implications for ENGIE would be in the, let's call it, hypothetical event that Gazprom doesn't fulfill its supply obligations to you under your long-term contracts? And also, if Nord Stream 2 never goes ahead due to sanctions. And then my second question is on your dividends.
So you've clearly flagged that there's potentially quite a lot of upside to your earnings this year if you're to mark to market. And I'm just wondering how you deal with that with respect to your dividend policy because you've reiterated your sort of payout ratio range, but you've also said that you want to progressively grow a sustainable dividend. So I'm just wondering whether you'd sort of consider dropping below the bottom end of your payout ratio range this year just to make sure that you can deliver that nice, stable, sustainable growth going forward.
Thank you. Okay. So very, very topical questions indeed on Gazprom. Really, what I can share with you is the fact that Gazprom historically has been a very reliable partner to ENGIE, fulfilling its long-term commitment, long-term contracts. And we have seen that for years and years and decades of operation with Gazprom. So from that standpoint, we are somehow reassured. In terms of Nord Stream 2, as you know, we are financing partners, and we will be looking, obviously, at Nord Stream 2 and its future with great attention, not just because we are financing partners, but also because we believe it is important to the security of supply of gas in Europe.
This is maybe how I would also answer your question, which is not just around ENGIE and Gazprom, but rather in terms of security of supply for Europe, for the gas, but also for power, that it is indeed very, very important that we are able to get the import from Russia because such an important contribution of our power supply comes from this Russian gas. It is indeed a very, let's say, potentially tense situation should we envisage not to have, obviously, Russia delivering gas, and that the consequences would be well, well beyond NG's only.
I think you asked questions around dividend, progressive growth. I think this is obviously a very, very good point that we will be looking at sustainable earnings growth turning into sustainable dividend growth. We're really looking at long-term stability. We're looking for consistency. Long-term sustainable growth is what we have been looking at, and this is indeed some of the reasoning behind how we've decided and recommended to the board of directors and to the AGM, rather, the payout of dividend that we're proposing.
Okay. Thanks very much.
The next question has come from the line of Rob Poulton from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.
Hey. Thank you very much. Two questions, please. The first one, if I may, regarding growth. Last year's CMD guidance was for high single-digit EPS over the medium to long term following the disposal of Bright or Equans. Just looking at the guidance for 2024 and taking into account what seems like pretty conservative assumptions on power generation and also on FX, the CAGR is sort of 4.5%-6.5%
So I'm just trying to see sort of post-2024, A, should we assume growth accelerates, and B, through which drivers? The second one is a much simpler question, and that is on Slide 42, you talk about the weakness in supply, which seemed to be below everyone's expectations. Could you just add a little bit more color as to why Belgian margins were under pressure? What's happening in Romania, and given the guidance for improving supply, what gives you confidence these issues will pass? Thank you so much.
Okay. So let me start with the first question. When you look at beyond 2024, of course, the tailwind, or rather the headwind from the nuclear stoppage, will be behind us. So the underlying business growth will be fully felt across ENGIE without having such a strong headwind. And so it gives you a little bit of a view of how we see growth beyond 2024 and 2025. Maybe on supply, Belgium margins, you want to comment here for us?
Thank you. Yeah. I mean, thank you for the question on Belgium. Indeed, pressure on margins. This comes from different points, but of course, it is driven first and most by the price variation. So you know that we have campaigns where we actually sell based on the current price. There are monthly campaigns. So the more volatility you have, the more it is difficult to make sure that you perfectly hedge your position when we're sourcing and, of course, supplying to customers. And to be very candid, we had some hiccups in the hedging in Belgium, which are fixed, but that's given the sharp increase of volatility. That was one thing.
The other thing is that we have more of a social tariff, which is a kind of a tariff shield, which is provided in Belgium. That's also another impact that hit us. Last but not least, we are also the last resort provider in Belgium, like in other countries. It means that when small players are actually leaving the market, we have to take actually these new customers on board, and they are coming with quantities which are not always hedged.
So you can see that it is, of course, putting some pressure on our margins. They are not a significant amount, but they do, at the end of the day, add up, and then we have this pressure. We have also in Romania, I would say, intense dialogue with authorities because there is a clear pushback from the authorities to the price increase. It is something that we are discussing with different mechanisms. It's not, again, a massive effect in 2021, but it gives a good idea of the level of pressure that you have today and with this question of the affordability for the regulators.
Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll turn it over because there's lots and lots of questions.
We have the next question coming from the line of Emmanuel Turpin from Société Générale. Please ask your question.
Good morning, everybody. First of all, a very warm personal welcome to Pierre-François. It's very good to have you back in the scope of listed French utilities. I would like to focus my questions on slide 32, which in my eyes summarizes very well the investment case in ENGIE right now, which is maintaining reasonably high returns achieved in 2021 over the coming years with a lower risk within the portfolio, essentially declining merchant, while maintaining a nicely rising amount of capital deployed. My first question is to check on that last point.
Based on my calc, taking into account total CapEx minus depreciation, taking into account also the remaining scope effects, we should have capital invested in the business rising by maybe EUR 5billion-6 billion between 2021 and 2024. Do you kind of recognize that order of magnitude? Number two, focusing on the chart on the left-hand side, very interesting set of examples about current projects, I understand. First of all, for renewables, these are expected IRRs, asset IRRs, including DBSOs on tax equity.
On average, for those IRRs, how many points of IRR do you see in the actual DBSO assumptions that you assume? And another way to look at these green points, between the low and the high points, you've got a very big difference. I would expect the lower IRRs to be mainly vanilla projects in France. Can you confirm? And could you give us a couple of examples for how you can achieve those higher kind of mid-teens IRRs? What sort of geographies, what sort of technologies, what's the magic sauce that ENGIE is using? And finally, for the thermal projects, are they contracted or are they merchant projects? Of course, the risk level is very different between those two asset classes, which should shed some light on the attractiveness of the returns you are looking at. Thank you very much.
Yes. Thank you, Emmanuel. I think it's a very good and important question that you're asking. Obviously, when we look at our investment policy, as you know, we have the WACC plus 200 basis points policy, which translates into the graph that you say. With renewables, we have a bit of wiggle room that we give ourselves. We go between 150 and 250 basis points around that figure, and we try to remain centered at the 200. Of course, the WACC varies. It varies depending on the country risk profile.
The risk of the project, of course, contributes to the variation of the WACC. And so in certain places where indeed very low-risk country risk profile, which is low, technology that is fairly low risk as well, obviously, you will see a bit of a lower IRR, and examples of that could be indeed solar plant in OECD type of countries.
Now, higher IRR are not, by the way, necessarily countries where super high risk, super high technology. It can be, but sometimes it is also an ability to draw more value from certain projects. And here, I would highlight the fact that in countries where we have already projects in construction, we are able to win very competitively additional projects because we have fairly de-risked the execution and therefore able to drive better returns from this project.
And it is really this idea of doing as much as possible in places where we have a platform, where we have already the construction companies, the EPCs, the people, the talent, and often even the connection infrastructure ready that we can run and deliver some higher IRR. Examples of that, by the way, can be in the U.S., but also in Brazil, where we are able to draw higher IRR from some of our projects because of that. So it's really a combination of factors. You want to comment on the DBSO impact on this IRR, Pierre-François?
Yeah, but this is a project IRR, so it is excluding DBSO. So it's not actually impacting the numbers that you have here. It would come on top of it and would indeed boost the IRR if it was to be taken into account. But again, this is not necessarily always our model, and we want to focus on the project value creation first, and then we have some financial optimization that can come on top of it.
On the capital employed point, I think that, again, Emmanuel, I'm very pleased to see you again, and you have been not only very smart to sneak a lot of questions into, but also very good questions. So yes, and I think that let's say that the level of magnitude of capital employed increase is consistent with what you would expect. The reasoning is not wrong. And of course, with a significant increase in the renewables, as you would expect, which is driving this capital employed growth.
And maybe just, Emmanuel, as a reminder, we have said that we would be looking to keep more of our renewable assets on our balance sheet. So directionally, excluding obviously Ocean Winds, you should see DBSO margins reducing over time.
Thank you very much.
The next questions come from the line of Sam Arie from UBS. Please ask a question. Hi.
Good morning, everybody. Thank you, and congratulations to everyone today. Welcome, Pierre-François. I would like to just ask a follow-up, if I can, on I think it was Peter's question on the global gas markets. And in particular, there seems to have been some possible positive news this morning on the Russia-Ukraine situation. So I guess what I wanted to ask is, in the scenario where Russian gas flows to Western Europe were to bounce back quickly to normal levels, how quickly would you expect gas and power prices to do the same, to normalize in Europe? And what do you think that normal level would then be?
If I can squeeze in a sort of part B, I suppose, related to that, I'm really interested to know, do you have any sense of where discussions are going in Europe on the carbon price and if the recent energy crunch and high price levels are creating any pressure on legislators to?
We didn't hear the end of the question. Did Sam get disconnected? Yeah?
Yes, the participants got disconnected. If we go for the next one, meanwhile, go for the line of Ajay Patel from Goldman Sachs. Please ask a question.
Good morning, and thank you very much for the presentation. And so my question is just the one. I'm just thinking that if we look at all the targets relative to last year, you've set guidance which indicates that your cash flows are improving. Also, potentially, if you take the current forward curve even more so, if you look at the disposals, you've upgraded that to be at least EUR 11 billion, which is clearly larger than the EUR 9billion-EUR 10 billion before. But growth capex doesn't change.
And so my question is, is that what are you intending to spend the additional cash flows on? Is it to redeploy in acquisitions, or is it held back for some other reason? Just an idea just to complete the picture would be very kind.
Okay. So yeah, thank you for the questions and also to be pointing out that indeed the sales of Equans have allowed us to, using the same principles on a disposal program, indeed to look forward to a bit more proceeds, which some of it will come a bit later this year. So that is really on the positive side.
Of course, in terms of investment principles, really, we'll be looking at 40%-45% of our CapEx going to go into renewables specifically. So yeah, so we'll be looking at continuing to invest, always balancing the three pillars, obviously the balance sheet. Pierre-François mentioned that we are indeed looking forward to a healthy credit ratio from a net debt to EBITDA point of view. Obviously, shareholder returns, our dividend policy with sustainably growing dividend that you're going to see some of that this year, of course, and then investing in the business as much as possible.
We also have, as a possibility, the ability to continue to simplify the group by sometimes looking at a few projects where we have minority interests that we would be looking at potentially buying, again, in order to remain more in control of our assets, to continue to be able to have a better share of these assets, assets that are merely de-risked that we know very well. In that case, we would be looking at doing that in some cases. The main answer is investing in our priorities, balancing growth and returns, and we feel we have a lot to do in the coming years and a lot of good, good, good opportunities.
It's just a follow-up because it cuts out a little bit during your reply. Catherine, does that mean basically as we roll forward through time and things become a little bit surer and CapEx projects become clearer, there is the potential to add to those growth CapEx numbers on the stronger cash flows and disposal proceeds that you've indicated today?
I mean, yeah, potentially, we will not be limiting our growth CapEx as long as we obviously can continue to balance these three pillars that I have mentioned. In 2021, to be fair, we have been quite selective. We only spent EUR 4.3 billion in growth CapEx. We are looking to accelerate that to be around EUR 5 billion a year to 2024. But should our equation continue to strengthen as it has and as it is today, we obviously will be looking at potentially increasing that growth CapEx. Again, in a very, very disciplined approach in line and very much in line with how we describe our capital allocation discipline that we want to apply going forward.
Fantastic. Thank you very much for the answer.
We have the next questions coming from the line of Michael Harlow from BNP Paribas Exane. Please ask your question.
Good morning. Thank you very much for taking the time to take my question, and thank you so much for your presentation. That was very insightful. So I just have one question, and a quite naive one, if I may say so. Essentially, on the guidance and power prices, what you're saying is that if we were to look at the forward curve, things would be even more enticing than they are currently, which is great, but you're not going that far.
Hence, my question is as follows: why are you not going that far? Is it simply because you want to be conservative, which is laudable, or is it because you're telling us something about commodities in general that we do not know? Essentially, this is you giving us a view on the commodity market without saying so. Thank you very much.
Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think you should not read too much, and we are not in the business of forecasting commodity prices. Frankly, it's very, very difficult. I think Ajay was trying to ask the question about how we see the commodity prices evolving. It's really, really difficult. So no, we're not taking a position. There is a bit of conservatism indeed in the assumption that we took.
However, there is a scenario if commodity prices were to normalize from H2 onwards, that we would be in the scenario that you have mentioned, so we have a realistic scenario that would allow us to deliver what we said, but obviously, there is also a lot of upside scenarios, which is what we've described, and Pierre-François very, very clearly laid out today in order to be very, very transparent in the impact of the commodity price potentially on this guidance, but really, we're not taking a position on future commodity price, and we have a 20%.
Thank you very much for your answer.
Open positions, which are exposed to this price, which is why we're taking this approach.
Thank you for your answer. That was very helpful. Thank you.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have any questions at this time, please press star followed by one on your telephone. The next questions come from Louis Boujard from Oddo. Please ask your question.
Yes. Thank you very much. Good morning to everyone, and welcome, Pierre-François. I have, in fact, two questions on my side. The first one would be regarding the slide Page 24, more specifically. You talk here with eight gigawatts of potential investment, and at the same time, we see the buoyant market, notably in terms of commodity prices and electricity prices. So I would expect that eventually, the potential IRR that you might be able to extract into this business might be, in fact, upward oriented over the past few months and eventually would enable you to lock into better returns than what could have been expected.
Could you confirm that in the current environment, in spite of the competitive environment, you are in a situation where, in fact, the potential for growth is pretty good and pretty attractive in this kind of division, which could constitute quite a large and significant part of your growth in the next few years? My second question would be dedicated to Belgium, and more specifically to the auction that you won 1.6 gigawatts. We know that we will have to refurbish a little bit the market here with the closing of the nuclear plants. Could you please give us a quick update on where you stand on this auction and if it's still okay or if there is any issue, notably on the Vilvoorde project? Thank you very much.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Louis. Yeah. Definitely, energy solution experiencing strong market growth. And what is extremely exciting about this business is that, first of all, we have a number of opportunities that come our way where there is not one day where I meet a CEO or my team meets industrial clients, cities, schools that are looking at help to decarbonize their operations.
And so we are almost overwhelmed by the number of opportunities, which we try to translate numerically with this 14 billion number, which is really mind-blowing. But what is very interesting is that, yes, there is competition, but at the same time, a lot of the value we bring to this operation is our energy expertise, our ability to decarbonize. So it's not just a price war. It's really the value that we bring through our unique expertise and the ability to do solar, to do energy efficiency, to do upgrade and big CapEx project, etc., etc.
We are very differentiating. Indeed, it does give us a strong competitive edge, and this is why I wanted to point out on the ClimeSpace renewal on the cooling system in Paris is that we were selected a lot based on our technical expertise. Of course, this is value that we are able to create. Therefore, I am very optimistic about this business. Now, it is really coming from the Equans process. It's still quite a diverse business, so we are really working very hard with the management team, obviously, to focus, focus, focus on the high-value creation, and that's really the work that we are doing right now. Really exciting. Of course, the pipeline is such that we are able to cherry-pick and to really select the right project, which is fantastic.
And then you asked me a question on CRM auctions. So we have one, two new gas projects, both under development. One is going through a re-permitting process. So this one is a bit more challenged from a permitting standpoint. The first one is really going well, Les Awirs, and it's under development.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome. Okay. I think we are now just arriving at the end of this session. So thank you very much for the questions and for bearing with us for this hour and a half. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes this conference call. ENGIE, thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.