Good morning everyone, also from my side. Thank you for joining us today in this conference call on the results of the first quarter 2021. Before I start with the presentation, I would like to share with you an outline of the presentation and the procedures of today's call. As usual, I will start with an overview of the operational and strategic highlights of the first quarter 2021. After that, I will comment on our financial figures. I will conclude my presentation with our outlook for the remainder of the year. As always, we will then open the line for the sell-side analysts only. All other participants will stay in listen-only mode, as it is our company procedure for years. As usual, our slides that I will use can be found on our investor relations website. Having said this, I would like to draw your attention to slide three.
In operational terms, we have made a dynamic start to the 2021 fiscal year, despite the still difficult general condition caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Operational performance in Q1 was again clearly marked by the expansion of our power generation portfolio, as well as the progress with our business expansion. Regarding the expansion of our own generation portfolio, we were able to complete two wind farms with around 17 MW and increase our portfolio to 151.6 megawatts. In addition, five wind farms with a nominal output of approximately 98 MW were under construction in Germany at the end of the first quarter. In total, we talk about 156 MW under construction for, if you consider the Polish project of 59 MW as well, on our own balance sheet. Scale up, we are still in implementation, is fully on track.
We could look and see new power purchase agreement and offer new PPA services and some special products bring it to the market. The PV pipeline expanded further to 674 MW. In the last year, at the same time, we had 132 MW peak in our portfolio. The numbers of employees has increased from 432 to 460. Looking at the financial on the next slide, I want to highlight, despite some negative impact from COVID-19 investments in our own generation portfolio and the weak weather conditions, the Q1 results are on target.
Thus we can confirm our guidance for the full year 2021. We have to consider that the investment in our generation portfolio, reflected in a non-realized earnings. In total, we have now above EUR 85 million as a non-realized earnings to consider. It was added to EUR 6 million this quarter. We said another EUR 6 million has been added.
We are still on a high cash level with EUR 94.1 million. The equity remains stable with EUR 201.4 million. Only to give you a short overview, in the last 11 years, the biggest, the best year in terms of EBITDA, the best first quarter had been at EUR 6.9 million. We are not far away. If you look on the next slide, our own generation portfolio. As I said, we are working on 98 MW, just right now in the construction, whereby 18 MW project is expected to start operation next year due to a lawsuit which was filed against the building permission. Nevertheless, we talk about roundabout above 80 MW, which should be finalized this year. That we come in total to a volume of above 230 megawatts, close to 235 MW.
That means that we are still on target to come up and start operation or have in operation 500 MW by 2023. Related to the pipeline, it is remarkable that we could increase the pipeline number in total again. In wind onshore, we are now on the level of 5,588 MW. It was in Q1 last year 5,125 MW. If you consider that we already finished Jasna projects and other projects, which are not anymore in the pipeline, then it is remarkable. Again, we have the highest level of projects in permitting phase, so in phase III, or which are already permitted in Germany and France with 730 MW, that are usually projects which can be considered to be built in the next two to three years, latest.
Remarkable in Germany was that the German EEG was changed in a positive way. One point was that we could recognize that the tender in year 2022 will be extended from 2,900 MW- 4,000 MW. I think this is remarkable and shows that the support from the German government is increasing. It is increasing as well as our pipeline. As you can see, we are now at 1,870 MW. In the first quarter, we had been at 1,664 MW in Germany. In total, we are at 1.1 GW, close to 1.1 GW in application for building permission in all our markets or where we have already building permission in place. In Germany, I spoke about close to 70 MW we already finished for our own portfolio and the construction of project Erfurt Ost was 5.5 MW was completed. This was one project which was sold.
We got new permits of about 30.4 MW, which are now in the application for the actual tender in Germany. Three construction management for Malberg-Geyern is ongoing and the construction for Wind Farm Chodzież , this project was sold in this quarter, or finalized the sale in this quarter. Poland, two projects, in total 59 MW are under construction. Looking to photovoltaic, we see that we have a significant growth. Three new markets where we are already in, we could start our business in PV. In France, Canada and Poland, with 90 MW peak, that could be added to our PV pipeline in the first quarter. We have a total pipeline of 674 MW peak, and this is again a strong growth to the last year and to the end of the last year.
Looking to the results, the total output with EUR 49.4 million is the highest total output for the first quarter we ever had in the last 10 years, I have to say. This was what we looked at. It's mainly related to the construction of our own portfolio, and you can see how much we invest in that. Again, one point which we have to look at is the increased non-realized earnings. I mentioned it all together already, is EUR 6.0 million versus EUR 6.1 million in Q1 2021. The remarkable is all the time we had a bad influence because of the interest rate swaps. Now we have a positive effect due to the fact that the interest rates are increasing, so the financial results positively impacted by the valuation of interest rates by EUR 2.3 million.
The performance across the business segments are again increasing and shows that we are on a good path with one worse or better. The worse thing is related to the electricity generation because the power generation decreases to EUR 6.48 million, This is related to the weak wind years. In the moment we have a wind year which shows a wind yield which is 74% of the usual 100% wind yield rate over a year in our portfolio. This means that can only partly be compensated by the increase of the production capacities, it means that the EBITDA decreases to -28%, All other segments are on a good path. Project development output increases to EUR 47.9 million +131%. EBITDA increases to EUR 6.5 million in project development. The service output grows to EUR 4.9 million +11%. EBITDA increases to EUR 1.7 million. Also driven by international expansion.
We get the first money back. We are on a good path on this. The wind will come back, and we will see years where we have more than 100%. We expect it. We are in hope that these numbers will become better in the future. If you look to the balance sheet, we have an increase from EUR 630 million, EUR 640 million to EUR 672 million in total. The liquidity is still high, on a high level. If you look in the background, and you consider that it is really at a level that we are working on 156 MW, which we have under construction, then we have a very good cash position having this in mind. The equity rate is still solid, 30%. As you know, we have non-recourse project financing of EUR 230 million on non-current debt and current liabilities of EUR 40.7 million.
That means that most of the liabilities are related to non-recourse financing. I think this is again remarkable. Scale up. The implementation is progressing. There's nothing new on that. Just right now we work on the expansion of our portfolio. We look for new products and services and look that we get the results, which we can see now, hybrid project, power projects we are working on, look to market entrances. This is really something what we will look at if we have more the possibility to meet each other personally. To step into markets on an MS Teams basis is a little bit difficult. Nevertheless, our target is there, 500 MW in operation or start with operations 2023. We can confirm our outlook for 2021. EBITDA of EUR 24 million-EUR 32 million, we are still in plan.
The next step is what is ongoing, is the next Annual General Meeting, which is taking place next week on Wednesday as a virtual general meeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic rules. We are ongoing with our projects. Tender volumes are increased in Germany, e.g. We have a lot of projects, around 329 MW under construction for us and for others. We have 98 MW under construction in Germany. We are in plan to get our targets met in the portfolio. Our own portfolio pipeline is increasing despite the fact that we already finished bigger projects. PV is increasing.
We have the highest volume of permitting phase projects or permitted projects in Germany and France, which is a good situation because with our core business, where we are on sale in Russia, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Panama, and we hope that we get most of these projects sold or finalized this year. We invest in our own generation portfolio and scale up. Therefore, we are absolutely in plan in our targets and thanks for your attention. We are now open for questions.
Dear ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our question and answer session. To ask a question for all speakers, please dial zero one on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask the question. If you find a question that's the preferred to enter to speak, you can dial zero two to cancel your question. If you are using speaker equipment today, please listen on before making your selection. The first question received is from Karsten von Blumenthal, First Berlin Equity Research. Your line is now open, sir. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Markus. Thanks for the presentation. PNE has shown a very strong service, EBIT. Much better than last year. If I see the total output, that was also increased from EUR 4.4 million to EUR 4.9 million, but could you explain in a bit more detail why EBIT was so much stronger? The margin also widened significantly. That would be very interesting.
Yeah, there are three points which we have to consider. One is, first of all, we have more own projects. We could increase the project pipeline or our own project pipeline where you get additional orders. Secondly, we invested in the recent years in foreign countries, Poland, Sweden. Now the first results are coming back. We get additional business out of our PPA business, for example. The services we are offering to the market are just right now paying back. PPA business is increasing business for special lighting systems, for night solutions in radar-based light solutions. These are special offers we can do now and bring to the market.
All in all, it is on the one hand internationalization and on the other hand expanded service offering.
Yeah, exactly. Last but not least, I have to say that the corona effects are lowering down, how we used to work, how we can do training together.
All right. That's really very promising and we now see that the decision to invest into services pays off. That is good to see. My second question is regarding your PV business, your pipeline. You made a lot of progress there, and in one quarter you entered three new markets, Canada, Poland, and France. Could you perhaps elaborate on that? Why these markets? How did you organize it? How did you get the projects there? What was your approach?
Yeah. We have already organizations in these countries, like in France, Canada, and Poland, we are already in. What we did, we always hired people who are used to work in PV business and extended our offices in this respect, our staff there. If you have in mind that Poland is the next new market, and you have always constraints in some regions because of wind, but PV is very seldom there, and we see an increasing market there. You have the same situation as in Germany in terms of sun effect and yield. On the other side, you have landscape enough in Poland which can be planned. That is exactly a good situation, and I often think we are in the right time there.
Canada, even if you don't believe it, in the south of Canada, you have the same situation as in Bavaria in terms of sun yield. Therefore, we see there a market which is upcoming. French, in any case, is a market where we have a bigger team and which we could extend and where we see a good development of the PV market, which is already ongoing. We think that will increase furthermore.
Perfect. Thanks for that. You mentioned in the call that you plan to increase the own plant portfolio to roughly 230 MW by the end of the year.
Yeah.
I remember in the last call, you were a bit more cautious. Obviously, things develop a bit better than you mentioned in the last call. 230 MW is now the target for your own plant portfolio at the end of this year?
Yeah, we have always to wait. The last time when I spoke, it was not clear if we get any lawsuit filed for any permission. What we want to have at minimum 230 MW, maybe we get more. In any case, that should be our target and what we can see now that the time for lawsuits are gone, therefore we can go ahead with our projects and could order the machines. We are much safer now to give any prediction when we are ready or not.
Perfect. Happy to hear that. You mentioned in the call that in Germany, the overall tender volume for 2022 is significantly expanded from 2.9 GW to 4.0 GW. My question is, tender expansion's of course fine, but do you think that the approval situation will also develop into a very good direction? In the last tenders we were undersubscribed. The largest tenders do not help if we don't have any permits in Germany.
Yeah, we see a development there, and there is a political will to change this, and just right now, there are a lot of changes are in discussions and finalized so that the permission procedure will be shortened, that we will have a look to the radar situation where you have special radar stations, where they will shorten the cycles around this, which have to be free of wind farms. We have a lot of different issues which are happening just right now. We see improvement there. We think that the megawatt numbers will increase, which will be permitted and can be built in the next time.
Perfect. Happy to hear that. One last question from my side. You did not take part in the first German wind and solar tender rounds in Q1?
No.
Okay. Perfect.
Now in the second.
Okay. Very good to hear.
With 30 MW on it, for your information.
Okay. That are the permits you just won?
Exactly. We could get them immediately into the tender.
Perfect. Excellent. That have been all my questions. Thank you very much for answering them, Markus.
Thank you, Karsten.
The next question received is from Holger Steffen of SMC Research. Your line is now open, sir. Please go ahead.
Good morning. I have only one additional question. In your presentation, you have mentioned that you might sell the Panama project this year. According to your report, you didn't start the sales process until now. I think COVID-19 was a burden for the project development there. Maybe you can give us some more details about the actual development in Panama.
Yes, you are exactly right. The COVID pandemic hits Panama very heavily. Now it starts to become a little bit lower in terms of restrictions. For a long time, they had to stay at home, and had not to leave their flats and this was real hindering us to step ahead in some licensing processes. Nevertheless, we think we are in a situation where we can finalize our project situation in the next one or two months, and then we go into the sales process. We hope, yeah. This is really something which depends on how the COVID-19 pandemic will go ahead in Panama.
Okay, fine. Thank you very much.
Before we take the next question, just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. The next question received is from Jan Bauer of Warburg Research. Your line is now open, sir, please go ahead.
Good morning.
Good morning.
First question. You said you will participate in the tender with 30 MW, but as far as I know, you received the permission for 46 MW, so there is a gap of 16 MW, right?
Sorry, what did we get? Sorry, I couldn't hear it. I couldn't get it.
Okay. You received permission for 46 MW, but only participate with 30 MW in the tender.
No, we got permissions for 30 MW, and these are all in the tender now.
Okay, good. What time do you expect those, so if you assume that you will be successful in the tender, so those projects could start construction already this year or only next year?
Yeah, the usual delivery time is 15 months for machines only. We expect, due to the fact that we on early stage, talked with the manufacturers and we think that end of the year, beginning of next year, we can finalize these 30 MW as well. That we, at the year-end, we say minimum 230 MW and, in the first quarter next year, in any case, 260 MW. That is our plan.
All right. Thank you.
Maybe we get it faster.
Yeah. Let's hope for that. As far as I know, there are some deliverance issues with Nordex [crosstalk] f or [audio distortion].
Yeah. Just right now, there are a lot of delivery changes to expect, yeah.
Okay. You're saying you are in advanced sales process for projects in South Africa, Romania, and also France.
Yeah.
Could you give us a little bit more details about that? Can we expect the sale in each country this year or this is still, let's say, some high visibility that it won't work out?
Yeah, it is always the situation that in some regions, we have to finalize our projects in terms of permissions or licenses or something like this. See, like Haga Haga is a project in South Africa where the tender came up and now we are in negotiations for sale. Therefore, this is a situation where we have to finalize the sale. In Chilocco, in the U.S., we are working on heavily and we are in negotiations with, now we gave one exclusivity, and we hope that we can finalize this project and the sale of the project. In France, we already sold the projects which we have to finalize just right now. It looks like that we can get it finalized, therefore this is in good shape.
In Romania, our negotiations of our wind portfolio, 152 MW and of one PV farm of 60 MW, we are in a, I would say in the middle stage of sales process.
Okay.
We have the Polish project where we are in negotiations.
Okay. The Polish projects, you're already under construction, so you will sell it [crosstalk] on the commissioning, right?
Exactly. We will, but we are in sales process, and whenever we get it fixed, then we sell the project, even if it is under construction or finalized. It doesn't matter.
Okay. Perfect. Just one question regarding the wind portfolio. What EBIT contribution you expect from your in-house portfolio for this year?
For the EBIT contribution, I cannot give you any answer on this in this moment because we have a lot of effects, then we have to consider all our numbers due to the fact because we have different effects. Depending on when the projects come into operation, we have writing off issues. On the other side, we have EBIT and EBIT margin coming in. Therefore, that's why we say all the time, EBITDA is our key indicator. Yeah. Otherwise, you can't get a true picture out of it with EBIT.
Okay.
The expectation for EBITDA, I can't tell you in detail because we will not give any segment guidance. This depends often on the wind application. The first quarter, the first project, 16 MW, they have had a chance only to work several weeks. The EUR 6 million are mainly related to the 135 MW. Yeah. This is the only, and bit of a 74% wind year. This is what I can tell you, what I can't tell. And you should have in mind maybe that 70% of all income will be done during the winter months, October until March. Maybe you can calculate it.
Yeah. Keep giving my best. One last question regarding the Services segment. Can you give us an idea of what's your target EBIT margin or target margin on EBIT or EBITDA levels for your Services segment on long term?
Yeah, we said all the time 20%-25%. This is what we want to look at, that we get this margin level. Yeah. It depends on all the time, which if we take further acquisition into having into mind, we have always to consider that we have write-offs. Yeah. All these different issues and sometimes it makes sense. You need to get some synergy effects. First of all, we are now in the expansion phase. That means that we are a little bit lower, but in future, this should be our target.
All right. Perfect. Thank you.
The next question received is from Peter Rothenaicher of Baader Bank. Your line is now open, sir. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. I have some questions regarding the PV business. You were quite successful in getting here a new project. What is your general policy regarding the project sales? On the one hand, when can we expect here the first noteworthy project sales? On the other hand, what is your intention to bring these PV projects also further towards phase III, phase IV, so with construction? Is there more intention to sell them in a more early stage?
The first thing, what we are saying, if we don't need and we get the nearly same price level, which we will see when we tender the projects, in every country it might be different, then we want to make a project right sale. Sell it with finance and equity. They have to put only equity in and then they can build. This is our plan, but we will look in each country. It might be different what going to be paid. If the construction is going to be paid, then we need to have a deeper look on this. We look to the cash situation, and then we have to decide what we do. In the moment, this is the plan.
The first noteworthy project sales, when do you expect here some profit?
Next year, we said. Next year, we want to make the first project sales.
Okay. One question regarding the expected compensation payments from this WindSeeG story.
Yeah.
What is your general expectation? What magnitude of compensation could you expect, and when do you expect here to see some profit?
Yeah, we got a new Windseegesetz. This Windseegesetz showed that the compensation, or the studies we made and the work we made, is not compensated in the right manner. That's why we are now again working on, or we now insist and make the application for the next procedure for the Constitutional Court. We are in the process again, only because we say we don't want to accept that, what is the rule in the Windseegesetz. Therefore, we are fighting still for that to get a higher volume. A higher amount.
It may take some years again.
No, I don't think so. This is a procedure which already have taken place, so the decision is there. It's only a matter if what they have made in the Ministry of Economics is right. This is not a complete procedure, this is a smaller procedure. I think somewhere end of this year, beginning of next year would be right. It is my estimation.
Anyhow, it's not part of your earnings guidance for the current year.
No.
Okay. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. As far as we received no further questions, I hand back to you, Mr. Lesser.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your attention. I wish you a good day. See you the next time. Bye.