Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the PNE H1 2025 Results Conference Call. I'm Vicki, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Heiko Wuttke, CEO. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Also from my side, thank you for joining us today in this conference call regarding the results of the first half of 2025. My name is Heiko Wuttke, CEO of PNE AG, and I am accompanied by Harald Wilbert, CFO. Let me first give you an overview of the presentation and the course of today's webcast on slide three in the presentation. As usual, I will begin with a summary of the first half of 2025, followed by an update regarding the operating business. I will pass over to Harald for an update on the financial, and after that, I will conclude the presentation with the outlook for the remainder of 2025. We will then open the line for questions, and as always, our slides can be found on our investor relations website. Having said this, I would now like to draw your attention to slide five.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to announce that we have already received permits for onshore wind and photovoltaic projects with a total capacity of 489 MW in the first half of 2025. This is a remarkable figure, and one of which we are proud. Also, operationally, we had a successful first half, which was characterized by very good progress in our development activities, especially in Germany, where we completed four projects with a total capacity of 65 MW. At the end of the first half of 2025, 12 own wind farms with 214 MW were under construction, thereof 98 MW new in the second quarter of 2025, plus two wind farms for third parties with 68 MW.
As expected, we did not sell any projects in the first half of 2025, but we sold the projects' rights for Clermont in France with 14.4 MW in July and the wind farm Sundern-Allendorf in Germany with 34 MW in August 2025. In addition, several other sales processes are currently ongoing, and we are optimistic that we will successfully close some of them in the coming months. In power generation, the expansion of our own independent power producer (IPP) portfolio continued to 491 MW as we added the four projects we completed in Germany with a total capacity of 65 MW in the first half of the year 2025. One project with around 25 MW could be sold in the remainder of the year, so the total figure might still change somewhat. These positive developments make us optimistic for the future.
However, even though the wind was in line with expectations in the second quarter of 2025, it was unable to make up for the very weak first three months, which also affected our power generation segment. According to BDEW, the German onshore wind market declined by 18% in the first half of 2025 compared to the previous year. Nonetheless, our services business continued to develop well. In financial terms, for the PNE Group, our total output slightly decreased to EUR 173.8 million, and our EBITDA decreased to EUR 4.7 million, mainly burdened by the weak wind yields, especially in the first quarter, and due to the fact that we have not sold any projects yet. Please note that in terms of seasonality, the first half of the year is historically weaker as project sales tend to happen later in the year.
With this, let's move on to the project pipeline on slide seven. As you can see in the chart on the right-hand side on the slide, the project pipeline in the first half of 2025 was stable at 19 GW, but strongly increased compared to the 30th of June 2024, with 17.9 GW. The pipeline in our core markets, Germany, France, and Poland, grew by 16% to 7.6 GW. Having a look at the subdivisions compared to the 30th of June 2024, wind onshore increased by 6% or 0.6 GW to 9.9 GW. PV increased by 8% or 0.5 GW to 6.6 GW peak, and offshore wind was stable at 2.5 GW. The total project pipeline wind onshore, which is the basis for our IPP portfolio, grew to 9.9 GW, coming from 9.3 GW on the 30th of June 2024.
Our home market, Germany, which accounts for 33% of our project pipeline, increased by a strong 25% to 3.3 GW. The wind farms Stuvenborn 1B, Herbsleben- Dachwig, Bokel, and Gnutz West 1B were completed and put into operation for our own IPP portfolio, plus one wind farm for third parties, which was 28 MW. In addition, 11 wind farms with 203 MW were under construction in Germany, plus two wind farms with 68 MW for third parties, and we received permits here for another 167 MW in the first half of 2025. With respect to other markets, we have another project with 11 MW under construction in France, and our project pipeline in South Africa grew by 14% to 2.8 GW. Finally, we received new permits in Poland of 24 MW and in Turkey of 72 MW.
Moving on to slide nine, we see that the PV pipeline grew nicely to 6.6 GW peak compared to 6.1 GW on the 30th of June 2024, and development activity is picking up. This results in good progress from projects to the later project phases, resulting in a 70% growth of phase III projects to 676 MW peak, coming from 398 MW peak in the first half of 2024. Especially in our core market, Germany, we see a favorable increase of our PV project pipeline with 37% to 929 MW peak. We also achieved strong growth of 44% to 755 MW peak in Italy. We are happy to share with you that we received new permits in our core markets, Germany with 124 MW peak and Poland with 102 MW peak in the first half of 2025.
If you look at the expansion of our own generation portfolio in the first half of 2025 on slide 10, you see that we made good progress here as well. We added 65 MW on the IPP portfolio in the first half, and with that increased the total megawatt in operation to 491 MW at the end of the first half of the year 2025. 475 MW are coming from wind onshore Germany, 11 MW coming from wind onshore France, and 6 MW coming from the wood-fired combined heat and power plant Silbitz. Further, approximately 214 MW in Germany and France were under construction at the end of the first half of 2025, partially intended for the IPP portfolio. Burdened by the low wind yields, as already mentioned before, the German onshore wind market declined by 18% year on year, according to BDEW.
We produced 366 gigawatt-hours of green energy in the first half of 2025 and saved 277 kilotons CO2e . The hidden reserves accumulated in our portfolio increased to EUR 206.7 million and compared to EUR 195.3 million by the end of 2024. I would now like to hand over to Harald for the financials.
Thank you, Heiko. First of all, I also would like to welcome everyone here in this call. Looking at slide 12, the financials in the first half of the year were impacted by our high development and construction activities, the addition of further projects to our IPP, as well as by the negative impact from the weak wind yields and the fact that we have not sold any projects in the reporting period. Total output slightly decreased to EUR 173.8 million compared to EUR 174.9 million in the previous year.
Cost of materials decreased while the cost of materials ratio was almost constant, and personnel expenses rose due to an increase in the average number of employees of 49. Our EBITDA decreased to EUR 4.7 million compared to EUR 8.7 million in the previous year, mainly due to the lower wind yields. Adjusted for these exceptionally low wind conditions in the first quarter, EBITDA would have been above the previous year's level. Looking at the segments on slide 13, we see a mixed picture. Total output of the segment project development increased to EUR 150.5 million compared to EUR 137.8 million in the previous year. The reasons for this were the high construction and development activities. However, total output of the segment power generation decreased to EUR 36.3 million compared to EUR 42.4 million in the previous year, mainly due to the weaker wind yields mentioned before.
Total output of the segment services increased to EUR 18.3 million compared to EUR 17.6 million in the previous year, driven by a strong order book. EBITDA-wise, the segment power generation had the highest contribution in the first half of 2025 with EUR 21.7 million, even if it decreased due to the weaker wind yields. EBITDA from the segment services decreased to EUR 0.9 million, and the project development segment contributed with - EUR 1.3 million. However, I would like to mention in this context that a new allocation formula for the distribution of overhead costs led to personnel and other expenses by segment not being comparable with the previous year. Consolidation was driven by the elimination of project development for our IPP portfolio.
On the asset side, we see on slide 14 that most is allocated to property, plant, and equipment, as well as inventories, which we see as investment in stable values. Our cash position fell to EUR 65.6 million, as did our equity, which amounted to EUR 166.4 million as of the 30th of June 2025. The equity ratio was 12.9%. The decline of our cash position, equity, and equity ratio can be explained by the construction projects during the year and the sale of projects at the end of the year. These KPIs recover at the end of the year. However, we continue to aim for a target equity ratio of 20% and more. Adjusted for hidden reserves, the equity ratio was at a comfortable 25%.
In the second quarter, we increased our existing bond by a EUR 10 million tap, and also liabilities to banks further increased as the buildup of our IPP portfolio continued. It is worth mentioning that the majority of these bank liabilities are non-recourse project financing. With that, I would like to hand back to Heiko for the outlook.
Thank you, Harald. Ladies and gentlemen, this leads me to the outlook on slide 16. We confirm our guidance for the full year 2025 with a group EBITDA in the range of EUR 70 million- EUR 110 million. Our high development activity in the first half of 2025 is the prerequisite for targeted project sales in the remainder of the year.
As already said before, we just completed the sales of the project rights in Clermont and of the wind farm Sundern-Allendorf and are currently working on several other sales processes in Germany, Poland, and France, which we expect to close in the coming months. According to our stronger focus on selected core markets, we are still targeting market exits for Panama and Turkey. All these measures are in line with our strategy. Let me therefore assure you once again, we are committed to sustainable growth and value creation. With this, I would now like to conclude our presentation and open the call for questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only headsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Guido Hoymann, Metzler. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gentlemen. Maybe the same question as I think last time regarding margins. As we can see and have seen, and we can hear also from other developers, there's a lot of projects coming to the market. We have seen all the approvals, consequently, the supply situation should improve. The question is, do you still see sufficient demand and how are potential customers behaving? Do you notice any sort of margin pressure? That's my question.
Okay, thank you for your question. If I got it right, you point out to possible margins that may change due to higher demand or more projects coming online. According to what we see, first focusing on onshore wind, we have seen that there's quite a relatively stable volume of newly permitted wind farms, which was around 4.7 GW per quarter. This is rather stable looking backwards. This, of course, led to a slightly oversubscription in the auctions. That's one part. On the other hand, the demand is for us at this stage not really a problem, and we don't see, looking at our sales projects, that we are affected in a way that the margins are going down, at least not at this stage.
On the material cost side and the turbine price side, I think with this higher demand and diversity of turbines, this may change somewhat, but currently we don't see the effect. This is on the wind onshore side. I don't know if you refer also to PV there. It's not very clear the volume because there's no central register for new PV being registered. What we have seen in the last auction rounds, I think the indicator is that for the new permitting, we see also a stable figure of some 4 GW per round. The prices just recently changed up again. I think the last market price is still on a not too low level. Overall, currently we don't see less or lower margins.
If pressure comes up, of course, pressure is somewhat given further as well to the supply chain as it has been the case in the markets or in the previous years in the past.
All right. Yeah, sounds good. Thank you then.
You're welcome.
The next question from Karsten von Blumenthal, First Berlin Equity Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Heiko. Good morning, Harald. My first question is regarding photovoltaics. We have this year seen strong cannibalization effects, low market values for PV, and it gets more difficult to conclude PPAs. We had a lot of hours with negative pricing in the market. I have now seen that you have received the permit for a 124 MW PV project in Germany. Congratulations. That's really a large project. I would like to know how you see the situation for this project and in general for doing PV on a large scale given the market environment.
Thank you, Karsten, for your question. PV is, if you look at it, standalone. Of course, it looks like it is, let's say, following its success on one hand, but of course, meeting the constraints on some points, looking to what you just mentioned, capture prices and grid connections. Still, we see that PV will be part and really significantly part of the electricity generation and especially the renewable electricity generation in Germany. PV will remain one part on the German government side and on the PNE side of that strategy. I think it was at least foreseeable that there are two measures that are to be met. One measure is that, of course, the regional grid build-out is necessary, which has begun, and the other is adding flexibility to the grid.
That means we will see and see, let's say, business cases that will be in a better range if we plan PV with options for battery energy storage, to counterbalance these market developments on one hand, and to have even hybrid projects combined with wind. Yes, PV is, let's say, getting more under pressure. As always in the past, you have to look into new developments, and flexibility is, I think, one answer that every developer has to find. With our new projects that we have now permitted, we expect, at least on the sales side, that this will be taken into consideration as well.
All right, that helps. Thank you for that. Next question from my side is, you mentioned that you have added 65 MW in your own plan portfolio, but you mentioned in the call that 25 MW may be sold. Perhaps you could put a bit more flavor on that.
Yes, of course. I think as in the past, we said, yeah, we have a goal on adding IPP to our portfolio. On the other hand, we stay to be flexible and decide case by case. I think the first projects have been a very good success, and we stick to our targets there. This depends on the different projects. Yes, it could be by the end of the year that that mentioned project is not part of the IPP portfolio, but then maybe another one. This is just to, let's say, be transparent on that side that the current figure may change somewhat, and you will not be surprised if we have the call in Q4.
All right, completely understood. The project works for some time. You put it in your own plan portfolio, and if other projects may take a bit longer to sell, you have the flexibility to sell it to fulfill your guidance. That is a good buffer for you to get ahead this year. Okay, that's clear. Thanks for that. One rather detailed question. When I look into your services segment, we have seen when I look into the quarters, the Q2 EBITDA is even a bit negative, and although sales were quite okay. I know, and you mentioned it, that you have changed the allocation of costs. Is there a particular reason for the weak Q2, or what could explain the fact that now your services business looks like a low-margin business?
Yeah, Karsten, thank you for the question. I take this one. Indeed, we changed the allocation key. It's not different than it was before. We allocate more costs, overhead costs to the services segment, which leads then to this lower segment result for services. When you look at the total output, you see that it's quite comfortable here for the services segment. It's even a little bit higher than last year. The total operative results are really good in this segment. We have to see, especially for the services segment, the full year because a lot of settlements and invoicing will happen in the second half of the year, especially in Q4. We have the full picture, and then it makes sense to look deeper for the segment services. Overall, it's running really well. The order books are full, and we are quite happy with the services segment.
Okay, perfect. That explains it. It is rather a seasonal matter, and we can look for stronger H2, especially Q4. Perfect. One last question from my side. Currently, I hear from the market that we see many smaller project developers that have problems to finance their pipeline and to develop projects. Is there any external growth you may look for as you may get some pipeline cheap, or do you stick to your own pipeline because then you know what you have developed?
Yeah, thanks, Karsten. We stick to our pipeline. That's, I think, the first statement. With the slight move in our strategy, we have, I think, reacted to finance it so that we find the right balance in selling and keeping, and therefore, let's say, allocate the money on the projects where we know where the value is, where rather buying always is a margin that we then not generate on our own. Therefore, we stick to our own pipeline development.
Perfect. Thanks a lot for taking my questions.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for questions, please press star and one on your telephone. Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to you for any closing remarks.
Okay. If there are no further questions, we would like to thank you for your participation in today's webcast. We look forward to welcoming you next time, maybe at our next webcast on the publication of our quarterly statement for the third quarter 2025, which is scheduled for the 13th of November. Have a great day, and thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you.