Good morning! This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Voltalia Half Year 2023 Results Presentation. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions by pressing star and one on your telephone. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Sébastien Clerc, CEO of Voltalia. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, and good morning to all of you. Thanks to all of you to be here early this morning. I am Sébastien Clerc, CEO of Voltalia, and together with me... And just after, I'll make an introduction, you will hear from Loan, who's Head of Communication. Then, Loan will be followed by Sylvine, who's CFO at Voltalia. And finally, Yoni will give us some extra information. Yoni, you're Head of Investment and Funding. And finally, I'll conclude, and we will answer your questions. I will go page six, and to first look at the history of our EBITDA. We are here to talk about the half years.
You see here a series of half year EBITDA which have been growing every year, and this is the case again during the H1 of 2023. This you will see in the presentation, that is, this growth is coming from our power generation activity. This is quite normal when you see the growth of our capacity in operation +39% during the first half. When you have capacity in operation, then of course, the number of GWh that you can produce is also growing. It has been growing even a bit faster at +41% during the first half.
If we go to page seven, then we go from the first half to the full year. We have for 2023 two objectives. The first one is a capacity in operation and the construction of 2.6 GWs. As you probably all know, we have already reached that objective. Then our second objective is our normalized EBITDA, which is now at approximately EUR 275 million. This updated target integrates the impact of a blackout that has happened in Brazil. That was on August fifteenth, where essentially all the grid of Brazil was disconnected. This is a very rare event. It's happening more or less once in a lifetime.
And this stayed for just a few hours, so nothing too important when you are the owner of a portfolio of plants. What is even more unusual than a blackout is when you have a blackout where the cause of the blackout is difficult to understand, and this is what has happened in Brazil. Therefore, some studies are underway by the grid authority. And until they've been knowing what is happening, they have used temporary measures, including slowing down the process of connecting power plants, and this has affected the two plants that we have there ready for connection, namely Canudos and SSM 3-6.
This two hundred and seventy-five million target is a growth of 100% compared to last year. It is twice as big as last year's EBITDA. Going now, page 8, we have some data, which is useful to understand what will happen after 2023. And you see here, we unveil here some figures that are quite amazing. The capacity we have in operation has been growing by 39%. This, but this, I already said it a few minutes ago. The capacity, which is currently under construction, is at 1 GW +5%, and this is also a quite amazing figure, and Loan will tell us why.
If you add to that, the capacity where we've been awarded the projects and the PPAs, which have been more than doubled, it means that our secured portfolio has grown by 45% to 4 GW. To end this little introduction, I will now go to page 9, looking further ahead. Looking further ahead for us, what is most important is to look at our pipeline of future projects under development. You see here the five-year history of this pipeline in GWs. So, last semester, it has grown again to 16 GWs, 16.1, to be precise. And another growth of this time, 18%.
And of course, our growth, this portfolio of projects is the foundation of our growth, both for building projects that we will own and also selling services, the project itself, the construction services and the long-term maintenance contract. Long-term future is also depending on new long-term power sales contracts, the PPAs. And you see here a selection of PPAs that we have signed in the first half, which again is helping us to look forward with a lot of pleasure. With that in mind, Loan, would you like to continue?
Thank you, Sébastien. Hello, everybody. So moving to page 11, and speaking about the capacity in operation and the construction, we moved by 24%. + 24% between last June and this June 2023, moving at 2.7 GWs. If now, page 12, I focus on the capacity in operation, we have been growing by 39%, reaching 1,699 MWs in operation, in June, and mainly coming from new capacities in solar, with more than 440 MWs in our different geographies. If now I give a snapshot of the capacity today, page 13, we have been growing very fast because we commissioned more than 189 new megawatts, so reaching 1.9 GWs in operation.
So moving from 1.7 - 1.9, and you can see here examples of new plants commissioned. This arises from new construction. If you see page 14, we have a capacity today in June of 961 MW under construction, +5%, the biggest level. Why I'm saying that? Because we have been able to move by plus new capacity, plus 473 MW of new capacity and that we commissioned, and we were able to put under construction 514 new MW. So in fact, moving from 917 - 961 implies around 500 MW commissioned, 500 MW under construction in addition.
You can see page 15, some illustrations of ongoing construction, and still in Europe, for instance, in Romania or in Africa, with South Africa, or again in Europe, in France. Page 16, we underline that we sign new PPAs. Sébastien underlined that we are keeping growing the portfolio of new PPAs. Here, you can see examples. Here you can see our first corporate PPAs in wind in France, so our first wind corporate PPA in France. 23.6 MWs for Leroy Merlin, and today we already are producing for our client, Leroy Merlin. Second PPA example, we signed the third corporate PPA with SNCF for 37.4 MWs, and we now producing for our clients. And finally, an example in Portugal.
This is the first multi-client project in Portugal, and all the capacity of 50.6 MWs is backed by PPAs with corporate. And this cluster called Garrido is now producing for the different clients, including an industry client called BA Glass. After speaking about power producer activity, I move to page 17, to the services that we are doing for us and for third party clients. Page 17, you can see that we underline the two segments of activity, development, construction, and equipment procurement. Showing that for ourselves or for third parties, we have been sharply growing. Here, you can see example, but for instance, maintenance, we have been growing our capacity that we own and that we are doing the maintenance.
Of course, we are winning every day new contracts, growing our capacity operated for third parties by 30%. If I move to some illustrations of the semester related to services contracts, we are not communicating every day on our services contract, but here, good example, in construction, page 18, we sign more than 500 MW new construction contracts with a leading energy producer. Here you can see 108 MW. And another example of 230 MW that we signed. Both of them are with construction that is very active. Page 19, maintenance contracts growing very fast here. I was telling you about more than 30% of growth of our capacity operated for third party.
Here, one example with one global oil major, here, on the left part of the page, and another example with a leading Spanish construction company, OHLA. Page 20. We provided you an example that is a business highlight that is quite highlighting here, is the acceleration of Helexia in Brazil. 3 ideas. First production in Brazil for Helexia, with the contract with Telefónica. We signed the biggest partnership today for Helexia in Brazil, with 90 megawatts with Comerc Energia. And finally, our more recent partnership is an additional contract with Prime Energy, 46 additional megawatts. So you can see the growth of Helexia in Brazil here, that we launched only a few years after a few weeks and a few months after the acquisition.
Page 21, now the announcement of today, we underlined here that our two plants, Canudos and SSM 3-6, in Brazil, are fully achieved, completed, and built and ready to operate. So Canudos wind plant, 99 MWs and SSM 3-6, that have already 128 MWs in operation, that is fully ready and to operate. As underlined by Sébastien at the beginning, those two plants are affected by the Brazil blackout and are ready to be connected, but are waiting for the possibility to connect on the grid. And finally, last announcement of the day, that we underline, the growth of the pipeline.
Sébastien underlined the 16.6 GW of development pipeline, growing by 18%, and you can see the geographic diversification, 39% in Europe, 40% in Brazil, and 22% in Africa. Now, speaking about the financial results, Sylvine.
Yeah. Thank you, Loan. Good morning, everyone. So let's move to page 23, about the financial results. At first, four key indicators which drives our overall financial results. The growing activity is reflected on one hand by the capacity in operation and the construction, which increased by 24% in MW, from H1 2022 to H1 2023. Looking at the power production, it increased by +41%, reaching 1,842 GWh. This illustrates that though we do have a stable turnover, we'll come back to that, we have an increase in our EBITDA overall of 18%, reaching EUR 56 million. Having a look how we go from last year to this year on the next page 25.
So the evolution is mainly explain, explained, sorry, on one hand by the power production activity, so which increased by 22, out of which the overall increase, thanks to new capacity, amount to EUR 19 million and the performance year-on-year by EUR 3 million. Then you have the contribution, external contribution of services, plus EUR 10 million.... adjusted by corporate and elimination, we then reach the EUR 56 million of EBITDA for the half-year 2023. But let's have a look to the overall activity, internal and external. So first, on page 26, Energy Sales. Energy Sales grow EBITDA by 41%. How do we arrive to this dynamic?
The turnover from energy sales reached EUR 138.3 million, thanks to commissioning of more than 470 megawatts in the 12 months, and on the second hand, thanks to improvement of wind resources, for instance, in Brazil and in France. We'll have a look on that right after. The overall production, therefore, increased by 41%, and this increase in turnover is reflected as well in our EBITDA, which is reaching 75.6 million euro. 75.6 million euro linked to, first, in Brazil, EBITDA is growing very strongly due to better wind conditions and full production, at least SSM 1 and 2 is one of them, equal to 320 MWs, and Helexia's first sales in the country.
Looking at France, EBITDA as well benefits from improved wind conditions, and also commissioning of new plants in 2022 and 2023. We have here several illustrations we mentioned before in the Sud Vannier wind farm or Sable Blanc, which is a combined solar and battery. And finally, in other countries, we also had commissioning in U.K., Portugal, Spain, thanks to Helexia business dynamic activity. And as well in Belgium, Greece, Egypt, and Jordan, we'd like to point out that even though there is a low production, on the other hand, we had an improvement on EBITDA margin. So overall, Energy Sales EBITDA increased by 41%, amounting to EUR 75.6 million. Having a look on page 27 to the resources. Indeed, we do have improvements of our resources compared to H1 2022.
For instance, in wind, you can see in France, that it grew from 22%-26%, as well as in Brazil, 30%-35%. This is the first key important message. The second one is that overall, on an annual long-term average, we have a strong resilience in resources. For instance, wind in Brazil is 42% compared to a country annual of 34%. As well as solar in France, though it decreased a bit between 2022 and 2023, remains on a long-term perspective, + 18% compared with 14% in the country. Moving forward on the next page, 28, about service activity. The dynamic of the service activity is tremendous. Overall, EBITDA is multiplied by 2.4. Turnover from services to overall internal and external increased by 81% at EUR 271.2 million.
This arrives from, first of all, development, construction, and equipment procurement, where the overall turnover increased by 88%, reaching EUR 15.2 million compared to EUR 6.1 million, which is also an increase in EBITDA margin by 1 point. We definitely focused on the first part of the year on internal activity, which has been multiplied by 4.4, with 961 MWs under construction. This focus on first half of the year explains as well the external turnover, which temporarily slowed down by 41%, but still represents 550 megawatts of construction, which are at earlier stage with very few billable milestone that will then move forward in the second half of the year. Finally, we do also have, in that part, development benefit from sales of project to third parties in Brazil.
Second part of services refers to operation and maintenance, which as well is a dynamic growth benefiting from the activity to third-party customers, up 24% and reaching EUR 18.6 million. The total capacity under management, internal and external, reaching 5.6 GW, meaning +27%, including 3.9 GW on behalf of third-party customers. For instance, new contracts in Spain and Brazil, totaling for more than 550 MW. Therefore, operation and maintenance contribute to EUR 1.3 million EBITDA, multiplied by 3.5x, benefiting from the growth. So services activity is having a strong dynamic with EBITDA multiplied by 2.4x. Let's have a look now to the lines below EBITDA, up to the net results on the page 19.
So to sum up, both EBITDA before an elimination, we end up with EUR 92.2 million, which is 52% increase compared to prior periods. After elimination in corporate, we reach an EBITDA of EUR 66 million, the one we've seen before, increased by 18%. Then we do have depreciation and amortization amounting to EUR 47.8 million as an expense, increased compared to prior periods, mainly linked to, on one hand, amortization of our power assets put into operations amounting approximately to EUR 8 million. And on the other hand, several non-recurring items amounting as well for an overall EUR 8 million, which are, to give you more details, some depreciation on stock of solar panels linked to the drop of the price, market prices. Then French regulatory exceptional depreciation, which is cap of prices.
And then finally, a provision which would reverse in 2022, decreasing the overall expense compared to 2023. And this is for an overall amount, non-recurring item of EUR 8 million on top of the 8 of amortization. Financial costs as well increased, reaching 24.8 million EUR, mainly linked to the commissioning of new plants and as well, linked to the decrease of interest income earned on deposits in Brazil, which were bigger in 2022 than in 2023. Last point is linked to exchange rate effects. Taxes, here it's mainly related to the tax scheme and taxes in Brazil. So we end up after minority interest, to a net result group share of -19.4 million EUR, which also reflects the seasonality of our business and therefore, EBITDA and net result construction.
Moving to the balance sheet overview on page 13. First, total assets are now reaching almost EUR 3.5 billion. Out of which, we do have EUR 249.7 million of fixed assets, which increased by 20%, thanks to project developments, but also constructions in progress, decreased by put in generation, and then amortization, which logically increased that way. Our cash position remains strong at EUR 278 million, and is definitely dedicated to speed up the power plant contract construction ahead of project financing. Other non-current assets and current assets are in line with the business growth, mainly business growth, mainly refers to stock trade receivables. On the liability side, the financial debt increase reflects the plant portfolio growth. Focusing on the financial debt on page 31, so it reached EUR 1.6 billion.
Three KPI we keep track on, so indeed, the increase is EUR 297 million. How is it structured? We do have contribution between project finance, corporate loans, and green bonds. I'd like just to remind that all our development projects are financed through project finance. However, we do use temporarily corporate loans to project finance, enabling us to benefit lower interest, and are currently, of course, being refinanced through project finance. The second point is the debt is always denominated in the same currency as the one we collect revenues. That's on the right, the second chart about the currency. And finally, overall, we do follow a dynamic policy of hedging. Hence, we had only 15% of variable rates. Last page is about cash levels.
So we do have a strong level of cash, mainly, as we've just seen, dedicated to financing our CapEx activity to develop and support the overall growth of activity. So let's have a look now further on to 2022 guidance with Yoni.
Thank you very much, Sylvie. Hello, everybody. Happy to be here with you today. So if we remind that on the guidance, we have fixed that guidance in 2019, so four years ago. And it was composed of two targets. The first one, the capacity target, 2.6 GW, which is reached since last year. And a EBITDA target, which is from now on, approximately EUR 275 million of normalized EBITDA. So this is disclosed on the slide 34. If we go to slide 35, how to deliver this guidance? So here I will take you through the key steps needed to go from our H1 EBITDA to the normalized EBITDA full year of approximately EUR 275 million.
So first, of course, there's some well-known effects, power production seasonality, and full semester effect and new commissioning, but also, less known effects, which are, for instance, the, high power prices we managed to get, pre and post PPA, long-term PPA. We will do a focus on the sales of project development, and then we will see how, the, construction contracts and successes in the construction, segment will be billable on the H2, which were, slightly, billable on H1, but more will contribute more to H2. And then finally, focus on the, on the growth of the maintenance business.
So now going to, if we go step by step, the first one is the seasonality of the power production, mainly in Brazil, with the wind, which is an important which weighed a lot in our EBITDA, of course, as every year. We present you here the historical data on this page 36. We know that the difference between the first semester and second semester is roughly 70%, meaning when we produce 100 on the first semester, we will produce roughly, historically speaking, and with the studies, 170 on the second semester. So this has an important impact on EBITDA. Going to the next slide, 37. We have here this is the full semester effect.
So here we have the different plants which have been commissioned in H1, from France, Sud Vannier, Sable Blanc, until Helexia, and all SSM 3-6 and Garrido, as Loan already described. Here, you can see also that the SSM 3-6 and Garrido are not fully operational in H1, and will continue to ramp up in H2. Nevertheless, we can note that the effect of this full semester effect is all the more powerful as the commissioning of most of these plants have been done at the end of the semester. Going now to slide 38, looking to the further commissioning in H2. We have here some plants which will be commissioned in H2. As we already discussed, SSM 3-6 and Canudos are ready to connect.
Karavasta in Albania, 140 MWs is should inject in few weeks. And here we have also Helexia, around 100 MWs in diverse countries, from Europe to Brazil. At this, we can add, of course, the second part of Garrido, which is now on full commission, and also Rives Charentaises, which is the PPA with SNCF, Loan already disclosed. So we will have in H2 the impact of the commissioning of more than 500 MWs of new plants. So on the slide 39, this is the focus on the power prices. Because, of course, before we saw that we will have new production, new production, new MWh to sell.
So this is very nice and very important, but it's even nicer when you can sell this energy with a high price. So here you can see that most of the plants we just saw, Garrido, Karavasta, and various plants of Helexia, will benefit from a power price which is more than two times the long-term PPA price. So then, on Sud Vannier and a bunch of projects in the portfolio, the French portfolio, we will also benefit from a significant upside with PPA price per MW, which is higher than the long-term PPA price or the former PPA we had on the French portfolio. So this will have a significant impact on the H2 EBITDA.
If we now focus on the development segment on page 40, this segment will be fueled by over 500 MWs of ongoing project sales. Let's have a small deep dive in those transactions. The first one, we have signed a share purchase agreement for the sale of 420 MWs in Brazil. So this transaction is very advanced. All contracts are signed. There's only one condition precedent left to proceed with the closing, which should appear by the end of October. What we can say about this sale? This is, let's say, this is definitely our strategy. These sites have no long-term PPAs, and they are in Brazil.
So in our strategy of rebalancing the portfolio and keeping to continuing to invest on long-term PPAs, that site was not in our strategy, and we sold it. Still in the strategy, we have stapled to that to that sale, services. So Voltalia will build and maintain for three years the site electrical infrastructures of the site. On other geographies, but also in Brazil, we have also ongoing negotiation for the sale of more than 100 MWs, which is 70 investors and received 24 offers. We are now in negotiation with the pre-selected buyers, and we expect a financial close by mid-December. One more time, in that sale, Voltalia will provide various construction and maintenance services to the buyers. Here, you can see, of course, that we are rebalancing the portfolio.
This is also because, as you know perfectly, our development team in Brazil continue to deliver a lot of projects, GWs of portfolio that we have to sell in the development segment, in order to maintain our Brazilian portfolio as a power producer. Finally, if we go to the construction, contract and maintenance, we have signed, and we discussed that in the highlights. We have signed some significant contracts in Ireland, for instance, but also in other geographies. Those contracts are now billable, and we will have a few significant milestone on H2. For maintenance, it's quite impressive to see that the growth over H1 is around 40%.
So the portfolio of contracts under maintenance have grown 40% between the end of 2022 and the end of the first semester, and will now deliver on H2 fully. I'll let now Sébastien on the ambitions. Sébastien?
Thank you, Yoni. And, if we can look now... We can now look at 2027, if we go page 43. With everything we've been telling you this morning, you can tell that we've been building a lot, which will be useful for this 2023-2027 target. You see here our four objectives, which was set and announced during our last capital markets day. 5 GW for the plants we own, 8 GW for our third-party clients, together producing an EBITDA of EUR 475 million. And we've set for the first time an ESG target, which happens to be that our clients will avoid emissions of 4 million tons of CO2, thanks to Voltalia.
These 2027 objectives are fully funded by our last capital increase. We were happy to see that our secured portfolio, that I mentioned at the beginning of this presentation, is already at 4 GW. We are just some month later than our Capital Markets Day, and we are already at the 4 GW secured. When you compare this to the 5 GW targets, you can tell that the teams have been doing a lot of work, and we are progressing rapidly toward our objectives. This concludes our presentation, and we are now happy to answer your questions.
This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. We kindly ask you to pick up the receiver when asking questions.... Anyone with a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Arthur Sitbon from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hello, thank you for taking my questions. The first one is on your new EBITDA target for 2023. If I remember well, in March, at the full year results, you had indicated that EUR 235 million of EBITDA had already been secured. I was wondering if you could provide an update on that, trying to understand how far we are from the EUR 275 million that are targeted at the moment. And also, if you could give us a bit of detail on the bridge between normalized EBITDA targeted and potential reported EBITDA, because I think your exchange rate assumption is quite different to what we've seen so far this year.
There is the volatility on resources as well, so that would be interesting to know more about that. And the second question would be on the power cut in Brazil. If it would be possible to quantify the impact it had so far on your EBITDA, and how much you assume for the second half of the year to get to your guidance? Thank you very much.
Thank you for your question. So first, about the secured EBITDA. Indeed, back in March, we've discussed this secured amount of EUR 235 million. This figure has progressed since then. If you remember well at the time, we were saying that a big portion of that were the long-term PPAs we have in our portfolio. Obviously, it takes some time to build a plant. So on the PPA side, almost all of our power generation EBITDA was secured when we talked in March. The only exceptions were some small projects for Helexia. So this has, on that part, no, of course, it has not grown since then.
So it's really on the services that the secured portfolio has increased. It's coming mostly from construction and development, and as Yoni has told us, gave us a lot further details on what's going on for the sale of development of projects where we do have signed contracts yet, we would want it to be more precise and mention things like conditions precedent to give you even more granularity. So it has increased, but I think the full story is also to talk about the details that Yoni gave us.
Both, by the way, on development and construction, with billable milestones, which have been small during the first half, because, you know, the site of our clients are not depending on us, the progress on construction depends on a lot on them, and the second half from that standpoint will be much bigger. And second, also, because we have concentrated the power force of the Voltalia teams in the first half on all the growth that we've been explaining to you this morning. Then, you are asking about the comparison between normalized and actual EBITDA.
You probably noticed it was actually page 35 that the normalized H1 EBITDA was quite close to the actual one at EUR 61 million. This is coming from the fact that the Brazilian real is stronger than for our normalized EBITDA. And on the other hand, even though we had better weather than last year, we are still a bit below the long-term average. Finally, about the power outage, the national outage in Brazil. The effect started, as I said, on August fifteenth, supposed to be just a matter of hours and days.
Still today, we have consequences, so we had to take that into account, especially because we are one of the players in Brazil, which has a lot of plants which are ready to be connected, and as a measure of safety, the grid is conducting extra studies to be sure that the grid will be stable. And that is, some people think that the grid operator is doing too much under the pressure of people at the government who don't want to be criticized and take no risk. But anyway, whether it is for good or not so good reasons, it's delaying some of the connections, so it's becoming significant, and this is why we have described that in detail.
The effect that we have seen so far is not that big. This is why we are still at the EUR 275. But given the level of uncertainty of whether it will continue to be like that for just days or weeks, and taking into account what have been the impact, we have to take into account this uncertainty, which is not enormous, given the size of Voltalia overall, but yet it is creating an uncertainty.
Thank you. Just a very quick follow-up on the first question, because so you say you've secured more EBITDA than before, but you—I don't think you gave a number. Just to understand, in terms of moving parts for the second half of the year, is it the additional billable milestone that you've met on construction contracts that is the biggest moving part? Or is it more coming from the share purchase agreements that you're negotiating or that you've signed on the, well, the 421 MW of ready-to-be project and the 100 MW of negotiation? What is the biggest moving part that you're expecting for the second half?
The two are significant, but the biggest moving part is development, sales.
Okay, thank you.
Mr. Clerc, there are no more questions from the conference call at this time.
Yes. Let's move to the question from the webcast. Oscar from Santander, I can see your question. I think Sébastien answered for the first one. Let's move to the second one. On the follow-up on capacity, what is your intention going forward in terms of split solar, wind, onshore? Assuming the 2.7 GWs and the one, it means above 60% solar PV. What is the split for the 1.4 GWs awarded?
So on the split between technologies, clearly the solar market is the most dynamic right now in almost all of our countries. Of course, batteries is even more dynamic, but it's a much, much smaller market globally, so even if there is an even higher rate, it doesn't have the same weightage as solar. Because of this dynamism of solar, we believe that solar will be 60% of our portfolio of assets in 2027. This means that since we have today less than 60% of solar, that year after year, we'll have more solar plants.
And if we look at, let's say, our new PPAs, we had success both for solar and wind, but solar is majority. So it's an illustration of that trend toward 2027. Wind... So solar will be, at that time, 60%. Wind should be 25%, with the other technologies representing 15%.
Moving to, Nicolas Royot question. Any visibility on back to normal in Brazil?
Yes. Well, we do have visibility, and yet we still have a bit of uncertainty. Why do I say this? We have visibility because we know well the grid where are located our plants. It is quite obvious that we've been that people are connecting plants without creating difficulties on a grid, which is very big in Brazil. It's one of the biggest grids in the world. So we know that the even though the grid operator has not yet identified exactly what has happened in August the grid has been stable for decades, so there is no reason to be especially afraid. So that is what is giving us visibility. What is not giving us full visibility is that politicians take into account technical factors.
considerations, but probably others, even though I'm not in their head, so I cannot know it for a fact. And they have some extra cautiousness, but we have good dialogue about connecting our plants, and that provides us still, I think, enough visibility to be able to give the guidance we give today. Your situation is a little bit different between Canudos wind farm and SSM 3-6 solar plant. Because SSM 3-6 is already half in operation, so the question is just starting to inject on the other half, where Canudos is waiting to inject its first MWhs .
But in both cases, the extra capacity of SSM 3-6 and the full capacity of Canudos are fully built, fully authorized, connected physically to the grid. So it's just a matter of getting the green light from the grid operator as soon as he feels comfortable about the stability of the grid. I must say that my personal opinion is that there is probably a mistake done at a certain node of the grid which created this, which will not happen again. But this is what most people think, and I'm among them. Let's wait for the final conclusion of the analysis, which is probably getting close to its conclusion.
Now, a question from Emmanuel Chevalier. What assumptions are included in your around EUR 275 million EBITDA target, normalized EBITDA target, in terms of sale of project and in terms of impact of the slower ramp-up in Brazil due to the power blackout?
For the power blackout, the impact, like Loan was saying during the presentation, we think it will be between EUR 5 million and EUR 10 million. I've already discussed it quite a bit, where we have enough visibility on that to come up with this figure. On the business of selling developed projects being developed by the teams, the assumption has not changed, actually, it's the processes are doing good with a series of proposals with contracts being signed. So there is nothing...
There are always some, you know, some small adjustments, but which are not material, and so nothing special to say about these assumptions.
Moving to Paul Chabroux. Last time we talk about you had cautious comments about PPA prices in Brazil, as high hydro resources are pushing prices down. Can you please give us an update on this?
Well, we were quite right to be cautious because the price, the wholesale power prices are low today in the spot market. And the long-term prices for long-term PPAs, therefore, are not picking up to the type of level that we need on our side to justify an investment. Having said that, and if you follow the activity in the Brazilian market, and we illustrate that with our sales in Brazil, many other players are happy either with lower 20-year prices, but most of the time are also happy with some slightly shorter contracts, often less than 15 years, which is creating an exposure to power price in the after the end of this PPA.
As you know, at Voltalia, our strategy is that we make investments when the long-term contracts are big enough, with a high price and not so long or longer, but anyway, to provide a return, where we have the visibility from the contracts. And when we are at part of the cycle where we are not meeting our standards, then we are happy to continue to develop sites like we do in Brazil. And then, to sell these sites to people who have other forecasts of power prices after the PPA, for instance. So, so this is why, to conclude on this question, we were cautious, you are right, and it was rightly so.
We will continue to be sure that, in Brazil but also in other countries, when we invest in the new plants, we continue to be coherent with our strategy.
Question from Paul Chabroux, you present a long-term average annual load factor for wind substantially lower than the 51-52% previously presented. What is the difference due to? Does your normalized EBITDA take into account the long-term average of 42% of the 51? In H1, normalized EBITDA was EUR 61 million, while reported was EUR 56 million, and - 8% difference. Can we take a rule of thumb to assume that actual full year EBITDA is expected - 8% and below normalized EBITDA?
Maybe just to start with the load factor. Indeed, you notice the difference. I just would like to highlight, and we mentioned it in the financial results, the seasonality in Brazil. And usually, when you compare the load factors for 12 months, so in a row here, it includes more the second half of the year. And we do know that in Brazil, the seasonality has an impact overall on the load factor. So this is one point to bear in mind. We have, for instance, more solar in Europe in second half of the year. We have more wind in the part of Brazil, and this is part of the explanation that is for the first part of the question.
Then, to complete on the normalized, indeed, just to remember the way we calculate. So indeed, we do normalize on a long-term average, what we call the P50, which is allowing us, enabling us to neutralize these load resources effects.
Okay, moving to last, let me see, Philippe Ourpatian question. Are you comfortable about the SSM 3 and 6 Canudos additional COD?
Yes, we, this is this plant, as I said, is fully ready to operate from all standpoints, like Canudos, by the way. SSM 3-6 has, on the top of that, the benefit of being already producing at half of its capacity. Half of the panels are already injecting electricity in the grid, so it's even easier from our standpoint. It should be done any time. Frankly, there are no challenges in term of the grid operator for taking electricity, which are small volumes compared to the total grid. So, it takes a bit longer for all the reasons I've mentioned. It's unfortunate.
But yes, we have a lot of visibility happening. As I said, a full blackout in a grid is happening once in a lifetime. Now I have gone through one, and I expect this will never happen in the rest of my life. Even though at the end, it's still a small event in the life of a power plant.
A second question from Philippe Aubertin. Could you help us to quantify the financial costs expected full year 2023, as well as the amount of income tax?
So yeah, as for financial costs, indeed, so it refers mainly to the financial costs related to plants which are already into operations. So, taking this and bearing this in mind, and the commissioning that we had between second half of the year 2022 and the first half of the year 2023, we will have a small increase in term of volume of financial costs, which remains, I would say, lower than what we expected since in the first part of the year, as I mentioned, we did use the cash to speed up the project finance with some corporate financing. Then we moved to local project finance.
So financial costs, we do not have any significant increase expectation, and we remain supporting the financing of the plants into operation. As for tax, I mentioned it previously, here for current tax, we do have incentive, I'd say, in term of rate in Brazil, but then it's calculated on revenues. So you do not have a PBT calculation, usual one. So therefore, the main part of the taxes we do have in our PNL on the half year, and that's the same at the end of the year, refers to the Brazilian taxes on the revenues of our legal entities, SPVs, providing and already put into operation. This is the biggest part, and it's a percentage on the revenue.
Last question from Philippe Ourpatian, what are your current expectations in terms of D&A, excluding non-recurring for 2023?
Expectations. So for D&A, we have, we've seen, that we have all together depreciation and amortization. I've mentioned that in depreciation we have non-recurring items, which increase and which are not expected, hopefully, and to reiterate on the second half of the year. Therefore, we just expect amortization to increase in line with the put into operation of the plant, but not no more than that, I would say.
I think let me see if we have other questions. Last question. Could you... Oh, from Gonzalo de Cueto Moreno, Exane. Could you give us more color regarding your asset rotation strategy, that we don't call asset rotation? How many MWs do you intend to rotate in the short term?
Geographically, where are you seeing more interest and demand from investors to acquire your assets or project?
Yes, indeed, we don't call it asset rotation because as it is our business model to have our own teams with many people employed to get the land, people doing technical studies, and so on. So rotation is a situation where you face one point, you rotate on yourself, and when you have finished your rotation, you are at the same position exactly. For us, when we start to develop and then we sell, we go from point A to point B.
Yes, of course, the end result for asset rotation, for some others and for us, developing and selling, comes with the same contract, which is a share purchase agreement to sell the share of an SPV with a ready-to-build project. And when we do that at Voltalia, more often than not, we also sell services, construction, and maintenance. Now, to answer your question, we pursue this strategy more or less in all, everywhere we can, with so all our countries. And we have as a strategy to develop more than what we plan to keep. For instance, our pipeline of projects that we have revealed today, as of June thirtieth. We don't plan to keep all the projects in this portfolio. We plan to keep some and to sell some.
Well, this has two benefits, which are important in terms of understanding our strategy. The first effect is we create value by developing and then selling the projects we don't keep. And the second effect, which is so important that I need to underline it, is that by keeping just the better half of our portfolio, we improve the quality of our balance sheet, we increase value creation. What I was talking about a few minutes ago, about Brazil, is a good illustration of that. The sites we sell don't have the long-term power sales contracts, which provide visibility as an investor. Some players are happy with this, but clearly it is not as good as when you have the full visibility that we like.
Our sales are mostly in Brazil for last reason, which is that Brazil, for us, is our largest country, and even when we even though we like very much this market, it is good to avoid having too many eggs in the same basket. And therefore, this is clearly the one country in the world where we have the biggest volumes of projects for sales, year after year, for now, around 10 years. My last point, and that could be the conclusion of this session, is that these sales that I've just described now are doing well in the... And Loan provided us some information on that.
We are cautiously estimating what we can do, and we can be too cautious about that, huh? We have a true potential to have better-than-expected services, which is, by the way, true for all services. I've mentioned development, because it's the biggest item for this second half, but also construction. And let's not forget operations and maintenance, which is smaller, but the growth rate is very high. So it is now time to thank all of you for having asked questions and listened to what we wanted to tell you. So thank you again for that, and I look forward to meet quite a few of you together with the Voltalia team.
And meanwhile, I wish you a very nice day.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones.