Good morning, everyone. I'm Robert Klein. Today, I'm pleased to present the 2024 full-year results, together with Yoni Ammar, whom you know already well, Yoni who has been appointed recently as my Deputy CEO. I'm also joined by Sylvine, our CFO, and Loan, our Head of Communication and Marketing. First, I'm presenting myself in front of you, then a few words for the ones who do not know me well. I joined Voltalia in 2006, when the company was still at its early stages. Over the years, I got deeply involved in Voltalia's growth and transformation, particularly through my role in launching and leading our operations in Brazil and later on in other countries. I've worked across various areas of our industry, from land prospection, project development, construction activities, asset management, M&A activities as well, which give me a broad understanding of our industry.
Today, as CEO, my goal is to drive Voltalia's evolution by strengthening our position in our market, driving sustainable and profitable growth, and delivering value to our stakeholders. Now, let's dive into our 2024 results and discuss key highlights of the past year. First of all, we achieved our target of 3.3 GW in operation under construction, of which 2.5 GW are already in operation, which means a 6% more increase compared to 2023. Our EBITDA of EUR 215 million is in line with our announcement of last August. Now, let's highlight our key operational and financial figures. First of all, we increased by 20% our energy sales turnover, reaching EUR 359 million. Thanks mainly to the full-year effect of our plants commissioned during 2023, we reached a strong operating cash flow of EUR 258 million, which will support our growth.
However, many of the combined impacts from the curtailment and the sharp drop of our equipment supply business, the net loss stands at EUR 21 million. Operationally wise, and despite a competitive environment for signing new PPAs, we managed to sign 637 MW of new PPAs. Part of it allows us to launch 469 MW into construction, then 81% more than 2023. The renewable energy market continues to evolve, presenting new challenges and emerging opportunities. First of all, it is a still-growing market, even if the pace may slow down a little bit during the next years. Primarily, it is also thanks to the competitive Capex. We reached a very competitive Capex in 2024, which is a decrease of 20% of the solar LCOE and 10% on the wind LCOE.
Of course, intermittency and grid congestions are a new reality and new challenges, which also bring opportunities of new projects of storage, which gets even more every year more competitive and also hybrid projects. Finally, emerging countries continue to offer opportunities for long-term and as per-produced PPA. Within this context, and in order to embrace opportunities and also be in front of challenges with focus and agility, I decided in January to launch a transformation project called SPRING. SPRING aims at simplifying our business model and governance. Second, prioritizing our return against growth. Third, consolidation of our geographical presence and not expand geographical presence in other countries for the time being, and of course, enhance the overall performance. Let's go back a little bit about our business model.
I know that most of you are very familiar with that, but I wanted to insist on the fact that, yes, we are present in development, construction, and operation maintenance, but what differentiates Voltalia with most of its competitors, whether IPP or utilities, is the fact that we are present in development. I believe it's one of our main competitive advantages and contributes to a high-value creation. First of all, it allows us to secure the best suitable sites. Second, it lowers potentially Capex. As developing projects, we don't need to buy ready-to-build projects to third parties, as most of our competitors do. Third, it generates extra EBITDA with very high margins in selling ready-to-build projects, knowing that developing 100 MW costs mostly the same as developing 500 MW. Finally, it creates opportunities and strategic options that make us potentially whether more competitive or enhancing our EBITDA.
For instance, in Brazil, during the last 12-13 years, we have built almost 2 GW, and we sold even more GW to third parties of projects ready-to-build projects. It comes to the first logical key strategic pillar is, of course, development activities. We achieved 17.4 GW of projects developed in our pipeline. You can see here that it is more diversified geographically, with less weight coming from Latin America and an increasing number of projects coming from Europe. Also, we have focused in something we will continue to do in the further years in the maturation of our pipeline. You can see that in 2024, we increased by 600 MW the projects which are at the phase of tender ready, which reached a total of 3.5 GW. The second pillar is we do not like merchant price exposure.
That's the reason why our projects are secured by long-term and inflation-indexed PPAs like this, ensuring stability and predictability of our revenues from energy sales. You can see here that the remaining PPA lifespan exceeds 16 years, with EUR 88.1 billion of future revenues which are already contracted and an indexation rate of 71% of our projects, of our PPAs which are indexed on inflation. The second one is, I went to the third one, sorry. The third one. The third one is our dual positioning in centralized and decentralized green power generation. This allows us to serve a diverse range of energy needs and market demands. Thanks to this positioning, for instance, we expand market opportunities serving clients who require direct energy procurement as well as those looking for on-site generation. Also, we mitigate our exposure to grid congestion by balancing large-scale projects together with localized generation solutions.
Since the acquisition of HHelexia in 2019, its portfolio has increased from 56 MW to, in 2024, 734 MW capacity. Of course, this strategy is naturally based and aligned with our mission, which makes our employees really proud, and also it frequently facilitates our construction activities. Now, it's time to dig up in 2024 main achievement, and I will leave the floor to Yoni. Thank you.
Thank you, Robert. Thank you very much. Hi, everybody. Very happy to be here with you today, and of course, very proud and honored to be named as the Deputy CEO of Robert and Voltalia. Yes, let's go through the 2024 achievements. First of all, I will walk you through the portfolio, our portfolio and the evolution from 2.8 GW to 3.3 GW portfolio in operation and construction. First of all, we have commissioned 157 MW of plants, mostly HHelexia small assets, but as well the Logelbach solar plant in France. Robert told it, we have started construction for 469 MW of new plants. The biggest and most important ones are Sarimay Solar in Uzbekistan for 126 MW and Spitalla in Albania. We already started also restarted the project Paddock in the United Kingdom, which is a 50 megawatt project we sold at the end of 2024.
Minus 50 MW comes from the sale of Paddock. Finally, we have sold a small wind project in France called La Faye, and we'll come back to it just afterwards. It brings us to a 3.3 GW solid capacity in operation and construction. As well, we have increased and improved our awarded contracts to 1.2 GW in order to fuel our trajectory for the future. That being said, we have a secured portfolio of 4.4 GW to go forward. Coming back to the PPAs, we have been awarded 637 MW in 2024, 42% more than for the 2023 year. Three categories of PPAs. First one, the PPAs called PPAs, but which are PPAs signed with public entities like utilities, local national utilities. For instance, we have signed 269 MW in Tunisia with two projects, Menzel Habib and Sagdood. We have signed 109 MW in corporate PPAs.
Very proud actually to power the CERN for 27 MW. Of course, HHelexia continues its growth with 59 MW in Europe and 44 MW in Brazil. All solar and part of it in Africa called Africa and International, meaning Central Asia is part of this one, Europe and Latin America. What we can see here is that in 2024, public PPAs have taken precedence over the corporate PPAs, which was not the case last year. We continue to have a balanced commercial approach between the public PPAs and corporate PPAs. Now coming to energy sales activity, we have managed in 2024 to secure innovative projects and important projects. I will talk about two of them. First one is a storage project in Uzbekistan, which is a battery storage standalone, 500 MW, 1 TW hour of energy, so 2 hours.
We confirmed two days ago the main head of terms of this contract, which finally will be a 15-year PPA. Last year, we were communicating it will be over 10. It would be 15 years. There is no merchant risk on the scheme of this 500 megawatt of storage. Second one is Robert went in November in order to secure our positioning in the re-powering of a project named Zafarana in partnership with TAQA Arabia, which is the re-powering of a wind farm in Egypt, which will be at the end a project of 3.2 GW. 50% of this one will be for TAQA, 50% for Voltalia. Of course, you know exactly how we did it in Serra Branca in Brazil. We will have the cluster approach we already have by the past.
Coming to the Services achievement for 2024, we already talked a bit about development, meaning sales of projects. We continue to sell regularly in Brazil 500 MW this year. It is projects which are ready to bid. Okay. We consider as of today that there is not enough profitability in Brazil to build ourselves the project. You know that we have a target to remain 50/50 between Brazil and the rest of the world. We continue to find buyers to buy our projects with our team, which is a very, very performing development team there. There are synergies with the sales. The 12 MW project in France will continue to be managed by Greens olver, our subsidiary doing asset management. Paddock, we already talked about it. We built it with our internal EPC, and we will continue to operate it at least for two years.
For the construction activity in which we have more than 500 MW under construction by the end of 2024, two examples of partnership. First one is Green Arrow Capital in Spain. We are building a first project of 135 MW nearby Seville. As we already communicated a few times, we are also EPC contractors for big and strong players. Here, an example in Ireland where we are building a 128 MW plant for Orsted. Finally, maintenance, 6.5 GW of maintenance for third party at this time, of which 1.4 GW have been signed for O&M in Arinos projects, which are projects which have been developed by Voltalia and sold. This is as well something very important with also another contract in Lajes for 266 MW, sorry, in the northeast region. Finally, coming to 2025, the very last highlights, you saw that we have strengthening our governance.
I guess there's some adjustment and reorganization, but the most important issue here is that we have created, since Robert arrived, an asset management and performance department, which will take care of optimizing the operational assets, notably having a better integration with data collection and data analysis, and as well improving all the processes for development and construction management. The idea here, of course, is to go to grab the very last % of EBITDA for operational assets and the very last % of IRR on our new assets. Finally, on the right, we have announced that we, on the side of the presidential visit of the President, Mirzoyev, we have signed a PPA for Artemisya. Artemisya is our project, hybrid project in Uzbekistan, 526 MW, 126 MW, which is the copy-paste of our project Sarimay, which is under construction.
This one is a new one, 126 plus 300 MW of wind plus 100 MW of BESS, so storage. This is a very good and very important milestone in order to go to financial close. We have then now ensured 25 years PPAs for solar and wind and 15 years, same conditions as for the previous 500 megawatt project for the storage. On the side of this event, we also signed a smaller agreement for the implementation of an agrivoltaic pilot project in order to demonstrate to the authorities all the benefits of this technology. Uzbekistan, still Uzbekistan. On the right, everything is Uzbekistan. Sorry, you're right. There is a small flag, but it's not that obvious. I know. Let's afford to Sylvine for the financials. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Yoni. Let's deep dive to the 2024 financials. First of all, I'd like to highlight four KPIs reflecting how we are constructing our financials. Early generation, we mentioned it before, the production energy generation grew by 9% during 2024, reaching 4.7 TW hours. Energy sales out of a total gross of turnover of 10 plus 10%, energy sales grew by 20%, while our EBITDA is EUR 215 million. Finally, the cash position from operation is EUR 258 million, the one that Robert mentioned at the beginning of the presentation. Last but not least, we here disclose the free cash flow from operations of plants which have been commissioned before 2023, so more than one year of operation, which amounts to EUR 106 million.
We would like to share this figure with you to really show the cash generation now, the plants which are now in running mode are generating. Turnover. The turnover overall increased by 10% thanks to, first of all, the plants which are operated before 2023 had both volume and price effect. As you can see, the volume effect was negative, minus 6, while the price effect was positive of plus 8. Minus 6 is mainly driven with the curtailment in Brazil. As for the full year effect contribution to the turnover, we had an increase of 73. We will come back to that to see which country we are referring to here. Last but not least, the plant put into operation in 2024 contributed by EUR 17 million.
Beside that, we did sell some plants in 2023 and 2024, so therefore the turnover decreased by EUR 17 million. The service contributed on one hand by minus EUR 11 million for development, construction, and equipment procurement, and increased by EUR 4 million for operation and maintenance. Adjusting with the FX rate for 2024, we reached EUR 547 million of turnover. Having an overview of the EBITDA, here we have the components of how it's constructed in 2024. We have the contribution of the plants which are operated for more than 12 months, so the 2020 pre-2023 plants, so it's EUR 154 million contribution, on which we add up the 2023-2024 plants commission, meaning EUR 101 million. We here put the EUR 4 million contribution from plants we sold at the end of the year, and services contribution represents EUR 16 million of the total EBITDA.
Deducting the corporate cost, we end up with EUR 255 million, while the overall effect of both curtailment and FX, mainly from Brazilian real currency, amounts to EUR 40 million. This is the way we end up with EUR 215 million, which is below the initial target of EUR 255 million, and in line with the last announcement of August last year. Let's deep dive now in the Energy Sales. Energy Sales, I said before, increase of 20% of the turnover. First of all, we had the effect of the production, the volume effect, and we also here share with you the price effect. Overall, we can have an estimated average price of EUR 76 per megawatt hour, which is basically the turnover divided by the production, which is higher than the one of last year.
Looking per region, Brazil production went down, not only because of curtailment, we also sold some plants, and we did commission, but the overall effect was a negative one. For France, we have a minus 13%, which is a combined effect of resources, which was not that good compared to the prior period, as well as plants which were sold in 2023 and 2024. While in other countries, they are growing strongly with the production doubled and the full year effect of the plants ending in Portugal and Albania, which are a strong contributor to the 73 I was sharing with you before. As for HHelexia production, it also doubled compared to the prior periods. EBITDA is EUR 218 million, so it is plus 12%.
The plus 12% indeed shows a fall in the margin, EBITDA margin of 4 points, which is linked to our curtailed production, which was actually multiplied by 2.6 compared to what we faced in 2023. On the other hand, it was partially mitigated by inflation indexation. Robert mentioned it about the 71% of PPA indexed, and the contribution of some power plants, which benefits from high price at the beginning, which is the case in Albania. Energy sales is highly dependent on the resource. What about the long-term resource and load factors? Here we illustrate with two countries, Brazil and France. I will pick up wind for France. In 2023, the load factor was 23%, higher by 1% compared to 2024, 1 point, while the long-term average of Voltalia for wind in France is 25%.
Here you have the illustration of the lower resources I was mentioning before. As for wind in Brazil, we actually had in 2024, 34%, which is 6 percentage points less than last year, but this is including curtailment. On the top right, you have the same figures without the curtailment effect. In 2024, the percentage is 44%. Here, I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that in the second half of the year, though we faced the curtailment, the resources, wind resources improved. What about services? Services here, we have several types, mainly two. On one hand, development, construction, and equipment, and on the other hand, the operation and maintenance. Development, construction, and equipment altogether represent 86% of the total turnover.
It decreased by 7% within the year, mainly driven by a lower volume of activity for third-party clients related to the equipment procurement activity, whereas operation and maintenance continued to increase by 16%, representing EUR 27 million, and Yoni disclosed to you several examples illustrating new contracts signed over the year. As for EBITDA, it is EUR 15.6 million, minus 75%, mainly due to the fact that in 2023, we had a record level of sales of projects. It was in total more than 800 MW sold in 2023. This year, we did sell projects because it is our business model, the one we explained before, but the overall project sold, sorry, was 500 MW at early stage for project in development. On the other hand, we also had some brownfields sold, such as the one in France of 12 MW.
Sale of projects explains the main part of the difference we have in value and margin of EBITDA, whereas construction and equipment, and especially construction, had a strong growth not only in volume of activity, but also in EBITDA margin. We will see just after more into detail. Finally, operation and maintenance had a temporary decline in terms of EBITDA margin contribution, mainly because the level of one-off additional service on long-term contract was lower in 2024 compared to 2023, and here I refer to our subsidiary Greens olver. A few KPIs to share with you about service activities for better understanding. As for development, indeed, we sell a plant in operation in 2024, Lafaye, it is a wind plant sold in France, which actually here you can see the ratio had an enterprise value per megawatt of EUR 1 million.
This still shows, as we explained and shared with you last year, the value creation we are able to generate by selling part of the plants from our portfolio. We have the same approach for projects in development and some brownfield, which is a lower volume, but we do have as well. The value generated is approximately EUR 1 million per megawatt. Talking about construction, specifically to third party, we have more than 500 MW being built on behalf of third-party clients in Europe, Latin America as well, and the profitability continued to improve, reaching a 9% EBITDA margin. Maintenance, it's, and we mentioned it, 6.5 GW operated to third-party clients in various geographies for a total margin of 7%. Let's have a look now below EBITDA. We have both Energy Sales and Services activity. We end up with EUR 233 million in 2024.
We deduct the corporate cost. It is EUR 18 million. Corporate costs are higher compared to 2023, mainly linked to some IT investments we started at the end of 2023 and continued in 2024. We end up with EUR 215 million of EBITDA. Below, you have depreciation, amortization, and provision. These depreciations are mainly linked to the increase of plants that we commission and we start to depreciate, as well as the full year effect we have from the plants put into operation in 2023. We have other income and expenses, and the deadline, you do have some write-off of old projects that we are rationalizing in our portfolio, which are mainly explaining the gap and increase between EUR 18 million and EUR 21 million for other non-current income and expenses in 2024. Operating revenue EBIT ends up with EUR 68 million.
The financial result is minus almost EUR 75 million, so it increased by 29% and includes on one hand EUR 128 million of the cost of net financial debt, while we do also have some revenues and the margin on loans remains stable overall. Finally, tax and income and equity affiliates, so it was minus 13, mainly because of the fact that last year we did have tax effect linked to the project we sold, so a lower tax burden in 2024. Minority interest is minus 1.7, so we end up with a loss of 20.9, which is definitely linked and linked to the fact that we do have the curtailed effect in Brazil, but we do also have the decrease in the solar pANEEL value of inventories which weighted on our results. A loss of minus 20.9% compared to a profit of 29.6 in 2023.
Let's have a look on the debt and our structure of net debt. Total, it's EUR 1.9 billion, growing mainly driven by the portfolio of plants we are developing, constructing, operating. The debt structure is the one you have on the top left with mainly project finance together with bridge to project finance, it's 61%, while the corporate loan amounts to 28%. Finally, the green bonds represent 11%, is the one we reimbursed early in January 2025. The currency denomination is mainly euro, two-thirds of the total debt, while the Brazilian one represents one-third. The 26% of debt denominated in Brazilian is also the one you see below in the rate structure, which is indexed to 26%, while the main and the majority is either pre-hedged or fixed or hedged for a total of 63%.
You do have here the logos of all the partners, the bank partners we are working with, either for project finance and corporate debt. To highlight last year, we share with you our debt strategy, which remains the debt strategy we keep on following, and to put some KPIs related to debt together with business KPIs. First one, we were explaining that the PPA remaining life is 16.4 years, face to the residual project debt maturity of 14.5 years. It's something we monitor, which shows the value creation of project finance and the optimization and the monitoring of PPAs toward debt maturity. Corporate debt, we do have some to use it as a flexibility tool. We have EUR 319 million of corporate debt bridge long-term project finance, out of which EUR 74 million are drawn.
These are projects for which we use our corporate debt, and in the beginning of 2025, we finalize, close, and use the project finance debt, so it's temporary. We do have a prudent approach to the overall leverage, which is at the end of 2024, 62% net debt divided by net debt equity, and the multiple of net debt to EBITDA, sorry, reached 9. Finally, we had a slight increase in cost of debt from 5.9, sorry, to 6.1, which is mainly due to some of the short-term loans that we are drawing, as well as the new financing on project finance, which are definitely at higher rates than the one we used to have, but this we monitor it comparing to the PPA price as well, which increased in the same time.
Finally, about the cash, here you do have the change in cash from 2023- 2024, we go from EUR 319 million- EUR 360 million. Operating cash flow, we mentioned it before, increased by EUR 258 million, which includes both contributions from energy sales activity, cash flow from our services activity, EUR 68 million. Then we deduct the corporate costs, some non-operational expenses, a working cap, which is contributing due to lower inventories, to finally, after company tax, end up with EUR 258 million. Investing cash is, as we expected, around EUR 500 million, EUR 519 million, while the financing cash flow is composed of EUR 640 million of net debt drawdown, while we repaid and paid interest for EUR 311 million. Having the FX effect neutralized, we end up with EUR 360 million at the end of the year. Let's continue with 2025.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Sylvine. What to expect for 2025?
First of all, we'd like to give you some visibility regarding the SPRING planning, and second, of course, some guidance regarding the capacity that we expect to install in 2025, as well as the energy production forecast. Regarding SPRING, then, as I mentioned before, we are at the moment in the middle of the diagnostic phase, for which we are helped and supported by the consultancy company Kernet, and we hope to reach some conclusions from the diagnostic by June of this year. The second phase would be the implementation phase during the second half of 2025, and of course, we will come back to you during the presentation of the half-year results with the conclusions and the detailed roadmap of SPRING.
Regarding the energy sales outlook and the guidance, we expect to reach around 3.6 GW capacity of plants in operation or under construction, which would be an evolution of around 10% compared to what we performed in 2024, and in which around 3 GW would be already in operation, knowing that most of our plants will enter into operation by the end of the year 2025, representing a 20% increase compared to the installed capacity in operation in 2024, which would represent, taking into account 10% of curtailment in Brazil, around 5.2 TW-hour, which means a 10% increase compared to 2024. Take away and Q&A very quickly. Basically, we reached our capacity target and EBITDA, taking into account the announcement of last August. We secured more than 600 MW to fuel our growth of new PPAs.
We have a strong cash position of EUR 360 million and also a strong operating cash flow of EUR 258 million. As I mentioned before, the reason why a negative net result in 2024. SPRING will help us to grab the new opportunities and face also new challenges. The perspective of 2025, already talked about in the slide before. Thank you very much, and let's open for the Q&A.
Thank you very much. Yes. I will let the operator remind the questions. How to raise ?
touch-tone telephone. You may also ask written questions via webcast. Back to management for questions in the room.
Yes. Thank you, Cherie. Let's begin in the room. Yes, I can see Arthur from Morgan Stanley. Please, Arthur. Hello.
Thanks for taking my question. The first one would be on Brazil and curtailment there. You assume 10% in 2025. I was wondering if we should consider this as structural going forward, this level of curtailment, and if that's the case, if this has any impact on your project returns on operational projects, and if this could create a risk of impairment in the future. Still on that question, I think the Brazilian regulator voted against the compensation of curtailment for grid bottlenecks. If you could provide any update on that and potential future compensation, that'd be helpful. The second question is just on your transformation plan.
I understand we are still quite early in the diagnosis phase, but any thought that you could share on what you've observed so far in your time as a new CEO, early thoughts of the diagnosis would be helpful. I know you probably can't say much at this stage and you want to keep some announcements for later in the year, but yeah, that'd be helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much for your questions. Regarding the curtailment in Brazil, I am still confident that we will find out some solutions together with the government and also the regulator. First of all, I think we have to divide the issue in two technical issues. And second, what ANEEL wants to do, on its restrictions and also a political context that we are facing in Brazil.
First of all, the high curtailment that we faced last year was mainly due to technical issues for transmission lines which were late in their operation. The curtailment has slowed down, and we have a low curtailment, by the way, in January and February in line with our expectation, what we considered in the financials. Now, you said that ANEEL voted against, yes. Three directors of ANEEL voted against, and there are two directors that voted in favor. There is an internal fight, I would say, within the ministry, the ONS and ANEEL, but I'm really confident that we will find some solutions.
Lately, we have all the governors of Northeast Brazil, which are impacted by the curtailment with a lower level of investments that are happening in Northeast Brazil, are going and talk frequently to Lula in order to find a political solution on that. I remind you that there is a law. We have invested in Brazil in all those assets, taking into account the risk of curtailment because in 2004, a law has been voted which planned the compensation of the full curtailment. Today, what we're facing is that the law is not applied, and there are some legal actions and also political actions, lobbying actions from the governments of the north of Brazil in order to reach an agreement for compensation and also to have a perspective regarding how the curtailment are going to be considered in the future.
I continue to think that for legal reasons, political reasons, we should have some compensation of the revenues that we lost in the past, that there are some technical solutions that are being applied. By the way, in the second semester, there is a storage auction that will take place, and it will lower the risk of curtailment. That is the reason why I believe that it is not structural, and we shall be compensated for the past, and we will have some visibility for the future as well. Thank you. Regarding SPRING, look, I have been appointed for two and a half months. I am still digging about a lot of subjects, taking into account all the obligations of being here today, for instance, the board, etc.
I prefer not to comment about it and leave my answers for later on so that I would be maybe more precise. With an action and an action plan that will be presented to you by September.
Excuse me, Philippe. Maybe Philippe, yes, from Odoo.
Yeah, Philippe Van Oorchoot. Several questions. One, you mentioned EUR 76 per MW-hour as a capture price in 2024. In this figure, you have Karavasta pre-PPA. Could we have an idea about the same price without the pre-PPA? Just to have an idea about what's going to be the magnitude for 2025 in terms of pre-PPA also, because it's until August, if I'm not wrong, for Karavasta and the normal, I would say, level of prices.
The second thing is that globally, it means that are you expecting to have somewhere a kind of stable capture price, 2025 versus 2024, linked to the same structure, means including the pre-PPA of Karavasta ? Could we have an idea about the net debt 2025 you are forecasting? Because debt, it's quite sensitive in terms of financing. It's quite heavy. Just to have no surprise in your landing position at the end of 2025, could we also have an idea about, I would say, the cash cost of interest? You mentioned your financial operating cash flow of EUR 311 million, but in this figure, there is also cash cost in terms of debt. Could you just elaborate on that to help us to calculate, let's say, a global operating cash flow, including the financial charges cash? Are you also comfortable with the level of the consensus?
You sent to the market a consensus in February. We were discussing about EUR 244 million in terms of EBITDA and the net profit of EUR 4 million. Two other questions, sorry for that, but one, could we have an idea about the Helexia contribution in terms of revenues and EBITDA, just to help us to figure out this growing weight of the decentralized solar? Last point, when you mentioned that you sold 500 MW of project currently in Brazil, could we have an idea about what is the ratio between the disposal value and the invested capital? Is there any, let's say, deviation versus what you did in the past? Just to have an idea about the trend of the appetite of investors, financial or industrial investors in Brazil for energy assets. Thanks.
It is a long list. No, no, no, no problem.
I will probably ask help because I'm not sure I wrote everything. Starting with the price, indeed, you're right to mention that we do have so-called early generation and high price at the beginning of the operation of Karavasta, so the Albanian plants in 2023, in 2024. Estimating the effect for 2025, actually, indeed, it's going to be higher than the average price we got in 2023, but indeed lower than the one I calculated in 2024. Basically, if you do the same estimates, you have EUR 69 per megawatt in 2023, EUR 76 in 2024. It will be in between the 2023 and 2024 prices. You're right to say that we will have not this contribution within 2025 for Karavasta, which will come back to the long-term contribution we had in our business model.
As for 2025 forecasted net debt, actually, as we planned in our long-term and strategic plan for which we shared with you some 2027 targets, we knew that we will have a peak in 2024-2025 in terms of net debt ratio to EBITDA because we have a volume of plants putting into construction which are not yet generating EBITDA. Indeed, the nine multiple is high, and we would return structurally and step by step to the one we used to have in 2023 by 2027. You mentioned about the Helexia contribution. Helexia contribution, the overall EBITDA, it is about contribution, it is about 40 IPP, EUR 40 million out of the total EBITDA. It is a business model where we do have a strong growth because we have seen the 140 MW which have been put into operation during 2024, which will continue to grow on the same trend.
Maybe no, these are something you want to comment on the consensus, maybe. Yes, on the consensus, we released a consensus based on the analyst updates last February 2019. They are based on some assumptions that you can find also in the presentation based on the curtailment and 10% curtailment and the fact that commissioning will occur at the end of the year. Of course, we do not comment specifically on the figures, but this consensus represents kind of a vision of updated views from the analysts based on that.
Regarding the question about Helexia, then the turnover of 2024 has represented around EUR 50 million with an EBITDA of around EUR 40 million. Regarding the sales in Brazil, it is very difficult to answer to that question because we sell the projects at different stages. In that case, it was really to bid, not really to build.
The margin is lower. In percentage, it's extremely high, but in terms of absolute value, lower than we've been performing before with ready to build and build projects. Regarding appetite, I am happy that despite the context of the curtailment in Brazil, we've been able to do that sale of 500 MW. Of course, the appetite for the time being, up to the time there is a regulation visibility regarding how the curtailments are going to be taken and considered, it's more difficult today to sell ready to build or ready to bid projects. I believe it will come back as soon as there are some visibility about compensation, especially what's going to happen in the future and how the curtailments are going to be considered in the future projects to be operated, to be commissioned. The cash cost of financials, please.
Could you just repeat the question because I didn't catch?
Cash cost, if you add financial charges, you have in the 311 of operating cash flow, financial one.
Yeah. Actually, it's around EUR 130 million total cash cost, which includes all costs we've paid to all the debt project and project finance and corporate debt.
Thank you so much. About the price, you have answered, but where? About the price, you have answered, but where is coming from this price of EUR 76 per MW-hour mainly? Is it possible to have a breakdown of price depending on countries? The second question is about the debt, except if I am wrong, we haven't seen the evolution of debt between 2023 and 2024. Are you comfortable with your level of investment? Because, except if I am wrong, all the investment is paid by debt, in fact.
Is it good management on that line? Third question is about stationary storage, battery stationnaire en français. I've said to Total and Engie that, in my opinion, stationary storage is very, very, very profitable. Have you an idea of the marginal profitability of adding storage to renewable energy power plant, not only because of storage itself, but because of the possibility of producing more electricity because of storage and having a better efficiency of such a plan? Finally, among all your activity, what is, in your opinion, the one which is more profitable between maintenance services and so? Because I'm not sure that one-digit margin on services is enough in terms of expectation of margin for such activity. Thank you.
Sorry. Of course. No, of course. I'm sorry. No, of course, the breakdown of price per country is not available here.
Nevertheless, many of the lot of prices are actually public. For instance, all the auction prices for Brazil are public. Each time it is public, we are disclosing it. Nevertheless, we have some, of course, specific contracts, corporate PPA contracts, which are more tricky in terms of confidentiality. We are not disclosing them. That is why we are doing a blend in order to give you an indication to build models and to look at the value. The good news is that our prices remain at a good level. As compared to some of our competitors who saw their prices drop dramatically, 20%-30%, because of merchant exposure, Voltalia remains very secure on its policy about pricing.
Maybe to complete on the debt, indeed, last year, the net debt was EUR 1,590 million. This year, it is EUR 1,943 million, what I mentioned before.
It is plus EUR 353 million increase from one year to another. Basically, you have two-thirds, which relates to project finance, and one-third, which relates to corporate debt. What I explained before is within the corporate debt, we have EUR 73 million, which are already drawn to be bridged to be converted in project finance. The increase in the net debt is driven by the financing of our project. Now, talking about how do we monitor the debt and the leverage of the debt, actually, this is the reason why we monitor the maturity and the weight on the debt compared to the PPAs. Because we do have project finance, which is non-recourse debt.
The lenders actually test the robustness of our plants by doing some strong analysis and ensuring that we have the repayment ability, especially because we do have long-term PPAs, which are fixed, which are indexed price, I mean, and not exposed to the merchant. This is really a way to strengthen our, indeed, we have a high level of debt because it is our business model, but our ability to reimburse the debt we generate to finance the plants we operate with long-term indexed revenues, which are not exposed to volatility of merchant price.
Regarding your question about batteries, as I mentioned during the presentation, yes, the penetration of renewable, the issues which we face, the market is facing regarding grid congestion and because of the high penetration now of solar, of course, gives some new opportunities regarding storage. It will depend really each country by each country.
In countries, for instance, where the energy price is really low, it's going to be more difficult to be able to make some money on stationary storage, while in other countries, and depending also on the regulation, something that we are looking very deeply, and it's part, by the way, of our SPRING transformation plan to see where we could do some business regarding storage, where it could make sense. It's a good subject for perspective in order to understand the mechanic of such a deal between battery and congestion.
Exactly. It's really a moving reflection that's happening mostly in emerging countries where the penetration of solar is pretty high and where the grid is starting facing some issues. Before we have, and also it's a balance between new transmission lines to be built and also what is the most cost-effective to do.
Regarding the profitability margins about our businesses, you are in the heart of our SPRING project. I have some answers, but if you do not mind, I will reserve my answers for later on. Of course, the most profitable maybe activity is development. As I mentioned before, it is not a secret. We have high margins. As I mentioned before, developing 100 MW is pretty much the same, not everywhere, but it is pretty much the same cost as developing 500 or sometimes 1 giga. Why not affording doing that? As a matter of fact, at the end, when you manage to do good development, you manage to be serious also because there are a lot of types of developers. I can tell you because I sold a lot of projects since I have been in Voltalia.
At the beginning, investors or competitors were reluctant in acquiring projects from a competitor. At the end, they were happy because they say, "I prefer to buy projects from someone who has also the expectation of building, who has this knowledge of building than a pure developer that his core business is developing for selling." That's the reason why we've been really successful in selling projects and the higher margin. Of course, we have to consider the risk of developing activity. Higher margin versus risk as well has to be considered. Like for instance, service for third parties, you don't need CapEx for that. It's a reflection that is extremely important that we are conducting in this SPRING project.
Yes, Julian Pino from Stifel. A few questions.
First, can we have an idea about the CapEx you expect for 2025, for this year, considering your plan, and how the costs are evolving in terms of spending? Second question, we'd like to come back a bit with your Egypt projects, which are big projects. What type of contract you have, the type of currency, guarantee? We have seen Brazil has been has an impact with the Brazilian real in euro terms, I guess, when you transfer in euro. What sort of protection you have for Egypt? Same question for Uzbekistan in terms of currency. Question coming back to Brazil, you mentioned effectively one of the points, how you can improve profitability in Brazil. Brazil has been declining profitability over the years due to curtailment, due to indirectly Brazil real in euro terms has been also impacting.
What type, and it is part maybe it was a SPRING project, but what type of things you could do in Brazil to recover effectively better margins that you have today, excluding if you see the, in addition to the curtailment issue, which is an issue which might remain?
I'll take the first one on the CapEx, and then we'll follow on. For this year, for 2024, it was EUR 516 million. For 2025, we expect between EUR 550 million-EUR 600 million CapEx for the year.
The question about the project in Egypt and Uzbekistan, what is very, very important on this project in Egypt? Because of course, you know that we all suffered about convertibility lately on Egypt last year. This particular project will be paid offshore in USD for more than 80% of the contract.
The rest is AGP will allow us to actually pay for DONM. It is a very good scheme and very protective for Voltalia. For Uzbekistan, where there is definitely less issues with convertibility, the project is paid in local currency, pegged on USD. This is definitely the project and the prices are denominated in USD. You receive some, then you have to convert them into proper USD currency.
Regarding Brazil, indeed, we have been suffering for the last two years from the real currency effects. Lately, unfortunately, regarding curtailment, as I mentioned before, I believe that there will be a solution. It has to be, must be a solution for curtailment. Again, all the IPPs, all the investors are impacted and everyone immobilized in order to find a solution.
There are all the details that I will be able to provide you afterwards if you want regarding that, but things are moving. I believe that we should, the situation should normalize one day or the other in order to improve our economics on the projects. Also, you know, I've been in Brazil, I've been knowing Brazil for a while, and I know that it's a country where you have ups and downs. A lot of investors have understood that and played on that. We played on that as well with some really good operations we did. For instance, this contract in some energy at one point of time when there was an excess of electricity and sell it at a higher price. There are some possibilities to do that, and I expect that in the future it will happen again.
There are also, when the context, the economical context will be better, it could be, you know, it's getting, by the way, depending on the perspective of the political context, and the next election will be in 2026, which may bring the interest rate lower than we have today. It could be a time to refinance our projects in order to bring some more value. Of course, operational-wise, there are some adjustments to be made in order to improve the economics. A bunch of things that we're thinking about, but some of them are external and other ones are internal. I would say that in overall, the assets are really good. We cannot play on the local currency at the moment, but reminding that our PPA are inflated on inflation, then it's a kind of protection as well.
It is fully, fully 100% of the PPA in Brazil are indexed 100% on the Brazilian inflation, meaning while you are having, of course, devaluation, there is high inflation. The devaluation is roughly the difference between the Brazilian inflation and the euro inflation, meaning at the end, the value over the 20 years of the equity, which has been injected in euro, is protected. Okay, you can see it very easily. When you are looking to the euro-Brazilian FX over 20 years, you see this devaluation. Of course, there is some variation coming with actually a high, highest inflation, but it is a model which is definitely robust.
Maybe we have some questions on the line. Maybe we take one or two. Can we have the question from the conference call? We will come back.
Certainly, madam. We have a question from Paul Gerla of Kempen.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. First, maybe a question for Robert. It's an open question. You've been with the company for a very long time now. Could you maybe share your view looking back on what Voltalia could have done better or just differently and what you think could improve moving forward? A second question on governance. You were a Deputy CEO. I was just wondering, what does this position allow that essentially you could not do as a director? Because I think you keep the same geographical scope. Just maybe some clarity on this change. Thank you.
It's a tough question, this one, actually. What could I do? I'm looking at the moments pretty much for the perspective and the future. What we could have done differently? I do not know. I have not thought about that, actually.
I'm so focused on the future that I have not prepared. I don't know if you have.
No, certainly that the end results about the past will be reflected in the future. Definitely, it's a bit a SPRING reflection about.
It is indeed. If I answer you, then I will say we should not have done that, which maybe we should do in the future. I will answer somehow some of the questions that we are wondering for Spain. I am going to prepare that answer for the next meeting that we will have. I am sure I will have much more information considering the SPRING transformation project we are working on right now .
Yes, maybe just to be clear about at least my perimeter. I was in charge of Europe and Africa, but without North Africa, without France.
We have structured this with two hubs, which are France and Portugal, which will report to Laurent Pillot, as well as the subsidiaries. I'll take over the overall finally development and IPP over the regions of Latin America, Africa, the full one, and Europe and Central Asia, excluding France and Portugal. This is in the same spirit of the Department of Asset Management and Performance Creation in order to streamline the old processes and the old knowledge to have better cross-experience between all the country managers of the region in order to be more performing on the development and to be more careful and on the construction, where, of course, as you know, it is a very important moment and key milestone of the profitability of the project. It gives consistency on the overall regions. Now.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Paul.
I will move because I think it remains only five more minutes to the platform questions. We have several questions related to the arrival of Robert as CEO and why and how it has been done and about the departure of Sébastien Clerc, that was a former CEO. If you want to answer, Robert, on this one.
Yes, I think why I have been chosen at the end, well, it's a question also I asked to the people who interviewed me. First of all, it's been really an open process with external candidates and internal candidates as well. They did not say, "Oh, we thought about Robert. He's come from Brazil. Maybe he would like to visit Paris and let's call him." No, it's because actually I've worked on the project Voltalia before Voltalia existed, before 2006.
As I did in my introduction, I participated to the growth and transformation of Voltalia. Brazil represented at one point of time more than 80% of the installed capacity and the revenues. In Brazil, we had all the departments, support department, engineering already in place. Basically, I kind of manage a big part of Voltalia from Brazil and from the local team. I have this experience of managing large teams and also the experience of dealing with all the value chain in terms of competencies that we can have in the IPP. I believe that due to my experience in the business, the track record of what we've been building in Brazil and my ability to manage a large number of people, that's the reason why probably they chose me. Of course, Sébastien left at the end of 2024.
It was 13 years he was the CEO of Voltalia. He led a fast-growing period for Voltalia and definitely wanted to move forward to new challenges. Robert is definitely a continuity, but with a new period and a new philosophy moving forward that we will disclose after the SPRING diagnosis.
A new boost for Voltalia. Maybe another question that we have, several questions related to the current share price situation and related to the fact that if the group will be sold, if the group will be taken private by the majority shareholder. Do you have a comment, Robert, on that?
Actually, it is a question to us, to our shareholders, not us. We are the managing people of the company. They may have this kind of reflection, but they do not share so much with us. It is a question to address to our shareholders.
I think we're going to take a last question to the room. Last, last, because I see.
Y eah, thank you. Just a very quick question. It's Thomas Stephan from Stifel Research. Could you talk about the data center opportunity in your PPA pipeline? Somebody said plug, baby plug. Does that apply to you? Where do you see the opportunity in data centers?
Yeah. Actually, okay, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Development, and then there's a question. Yeah, of course. Now, we're looking, of course, to those kinds of opportunities. The growth of data centers is huge. It will continue for the next decades with all the AI development and so on. It is a big opportunity for us. Nevertheless, we see as well that the owners of data centers are very educated players. They were the first ones to go for big green PPAs.
A lot were done in Northern Europe, of course, because of the heat and global improvement and efficiency of the data centers. We believe we will have opportunities. We are thinking about how to get them within our business model, which is not that easy because PPAs with data centers are mostly short-term PPAs, which is not what Voltalia is looking for. Nevertheless, we are digging. We are looking to the best business model. We are looking also to other kinds of opportunities because, unfortunately, there is not only data centers growing. There is also hydric stress everywhere in the world. Desalination is, for instance, something we are looking really deep because the business model is definitely very compatible with Voltalia.
We are looking more than that kind of opportunities right now, but definitely data center will have its will play something in the game in the coming years. Thank you.
The last one. As far as diversification is concerned, are you intended to potentially answer to any request from Brazil to produce hydrogen coming from renewable? They are apparently proposing in Arbor, in the northeast of Brazil, in order to fill the potential market of hydrogen. Are you ready or will you be ready to answer to any proposals that Brazil will do in the future to have hydrogen production from renewable energy and mainly solar, for example, in Brazil?
Brazil is looking very closely at its role in the green hydrogen market.
There has been a law which has been voted last year, which incentives for the production of hydrogen and also of ammonia, mostly for exportation, knowing that Brazil also is a large importer of fertilizants. It is a way of what we call neo-industrialization of Brazil. Coming back also regarding curtailment, it could be also a solution. Regarding the demand, it could increase a lot and could be one of the solutions regarding the curtailment because the demand of electricity will be in northeast Brazil and basically where the wind farm and the solar farm are located. We are in touch with several developers, which there has been some public announcements regarding that. Casa dos Ventos together with Total in the port of Pessem in northeast Brazil.
There are also FFI for Tesco who is developing projects, Valle do Rio Doce, which is a large industrial company, mining company there. There are a lot of projects now. What is the time frame? This is a question. I'm sure that if Brazil is one of the winners of the market of green H2, of course, there will be plenty of opportunities and we are positioned for that with a large pipeline. The future will tell us. I mean, there are still a lot of question tags regarding that market and when it will evolve, especially for the countries which will be exportators of green ammonia because we have to settle the infrastructure for the upstream, but also the downstream and everything has to talk together. Yes, indeed, it could be a great opportunity.
It is a good question, the question coming from the data center and desalinization. The users of renewable energy are large. Which one is going to be the biggest and will evolve the most? We will see, but we are positioned at least.
Thank you very much. I think we need to close the question and answer part.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you.