Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to CLP's 2025 interim results b riefing. I'm Marissa Wong, Director of Investor Relations. Joining me today is Chief Executive Officer, Mr. T.K. Chiang, and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Alex Keisser. We launched our 2025 Interim Results Announcement with the Hong Kong Exchange at midday today. That announcement, in addition to this presentation, is available on our IR website now. This briefing is also being recorded, which you can also access on our website later. Before we begin, it's customary for me to remind you to read the disclaimer on slide 2. For today's briefing, T.K. will open with the business overview, followed by Alex with the financial results, and then T.K. will provide his strategic outlook, finished with a Q&A session. With that, I'll pass it over to T.K. to begin the briefing. Thanks, T.K.
Thank you, Marissa. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Now, as we navigate an accelerating energy transition, shifting market dynamics, and heightened geopolitics in the first half of 2025, the group has demonstrated resilience, anchored by the strength of our core Hong Kong business. However, our performance was moderated by specific market headwinds, including downward market tariff evolution in the mainland and strong retail competition in Australia, both of which impacted this half's results. The fundamentals of the business, however, remain strong. Our commitment to operational excellence continues to deliver results. We maintained our track record of excellent reliability in Hong Kong, achieved commercial operation of new energy transition projects in the mainland, and successfully completed the major maintenance overhaul at Mount Piper in Australia, enhancing its flexibility and reliability. We are continuing to build the energy infrastructure needed to drive decarbonization and the foundation for future recurring earnings.
We are funding this growth from a position of strength, underpinned by our strong balance sheet and our recently affirmed A-stable rating by S&P. This foundation enables our disciplined capital allocation framework, which prioritizes high-value investments and efficient use of capital, including strategic partnerships, in order to drive sustainable long-term returns. We approach the remainder of 2025 with a robust financial structure and clear pathways to continue to create value for our shareholders. Now, turning to the highlights. As mentioned, our results this half were shaped by the market challenges in the mainland and Australia. With that context, our group operating earnings before fair value movements decreased by 8% year-on-year to HKD 5.2 billion. This performance flowed through to our bottom line, with total earnings decreasing by 5% to HKD 5.6 billion.
The board has recommended a second interim dividend of $0.63 per share, bringing total interim dividends to $1.26 per share, equating to a yield of 4.8%. Operationally, we maintained good performance on our safety and reliability matrix, with higher reliability in Hong Kong at 99.999% and fewer injuries in Australia. On the customer front, we saw growth in accounts in Hong Kong, while competitive market conditions in Australia resulted in a reduction in customer numbers. Generation performance reflected core output reduction, and we added more non-carbon capacity to our group portfolio. I'll now hand over to Alex to take you through the financial results.
Thank you, T.K., and good afternoon. A snapshot of our financial results: earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and fair value, or EBITDA, was down by 5% to HKD 12.4 billion compared with the same period last year. Operating earnings before fair value movement decreased by 8% and landed at HKD 5.2 billion. Adjusted for the fair value movement and items affecting comparability, total earnings were HKD 5.6 billion, a decrease of 5%. Capital investments of over HKD 8 billion were lower than last year, as despite a higher gross CapEx in 2025, our headquarters acquisition was finalized in 2024. Total dividends per share declared for the first half of 2025 were $1.26, same as last year. Now, let's go into the details. Our core Hong Kong business anchored the group's performance with higher contributions.
As highlighted by T.K., industry-wide challenges in Mainland China and Australia, plus one-offs in India, resulted in lower operating earnings. There were small fair value movements reflecting accounting losses on EnergyAustralia's forward energy contracts as of the end of June 2025. This half's results included also a one-off item related to the realization of EnergyAustralia's Roaring battery post-introduction of our 50% joint venture partner, Banpu . All in all, the Group Total Earnings were moderately down by 5% to over HKD 5.6 billion. I'll now take you through the detailed performance and outlook for each business unit. All balances will exclude foreign exchange to reflect the organic underlying performance of the business. Starting with Hong Kong, Hong Kong delivered yet another round of solid and dependable core earnings through our continued investment and reliable operations.
We have made good progress on CapEx, standing at HKD 4.5 billion, primarily for key initiatives to support Hong Kong's growth for the Northern Metropolis, new housing development, data centers, and the decarbonization agenda. While there were slightly lower overall electricity sales, largely because of last year's warmer weather and an extra day which set a high base for comparison, data centers continue to show steady growth. Lower interest costs and positive refinancing outcomes for the USD 500 million perpetual capital securities added to Hong Kong's strong results. Hong Kong continues to charge ahead, enabling a low-carbon economy across all major sectors, just as road transportation, shipping, and building. Demonstrating our leadership in decarbonization, we partnered with CNOOC to deliver a Hong Kong-first, simultaneous Liquefied Natural Gas fueling and handling of cargo.
Looking ahead, our focus is threefold: to continue providing reliable electricity at a reasonable tariff, to deliver the $52.9 billion program of work in the Development Program, and to advance our decarbonization efforts toward government's 2035 climate target. Moving now to Mainland China, where financial performance was affected by market challenges. The combination of softer demand, accelerated growth in new generation capacity, and wind resources viability contributed to earnings reductions of 15% to $870 million. Operationally, our nuclear joint venture plants delivered strong performance, highlighted by another outstanding performance from Yangjiang. However, lower tariffs for Yangjiang ultimately impacted operating earnings from the nuclear portfolio. Renewable earnings were also lower, driven by lower wind resources, higher curtailment in the northern and eastern regions, as well as lower tariffs.
Successful commissioning of three new renewable projects in the first half, as well as higher output from Hydro, provided a positive offset, demonstrating tangible value to our disciplined growth strategy. While our minority core JVs were impacted by reduced dispatch from lower demand. Our reputation as a reliable foreign investor enabled us again to secure a GEC off-take agreement with one of the largest green power purchasers in the world, enabling earnings visibility and positioning CLP as a provider of choice for green solutions. Our development pipeline is solid, with over 1 GW of renewable and battery projects in various stages of development, including our largest wind and our first Independent Battery Energy Storage S ystem. Looking ahead, and in response to Policy Document 136 and the move towards market-based pricing, we will evaluate the renewable portfolio to maximize value.
Capital allocation will be based on our value over volume principle and focus on risk return as we track policy implementation and supply and demand trends. Nuclear performance is expected to remain dependable, also for Yangjiang. We expect increasing market tariff exposure and evolving taxation issues that are being reviewed. Turning to EnergyAustralia results, which overall reflected solid energy market performance but challenging retail conditions. The first half saw another period of intense retail competition, coupled with cost of living pressure, leading to margin compression and reduction in customer accounts. Importantly, despite the weaker performance in the customer segment, our increasingly flexible generation fleet performed solidly.
The combination of favorable wholesale prices and the ability to capture value in volatility, plus the recoupment of development expense for Lake Lyell, more than offset higher loan depreciation, plus the absence of one-off benefits from last year, namely Mount Piper's coal compensation and strategic value book outcome. The net impact was a decrease to $167 million operating earnings. We continue to actively shape our Energy Transition with our growing portfolio of flexible capacity assets, which include six battery storage and one pumped hydro into operation or construction. With the objective to have EnergyAustralia self-funded and with a solid credit rating, a key component of our business model is to fund a flexible capacity portfolio through a mix of contracted capacity and partnerships. This first half, we signed two partnerships: one with Banpu Energy to develop Roon, a 350 MW 4-hour battery, EA's single largest investment to date.
Another one with EDF Power Solutions to co-develop the potential 330 MW 8-hour Pumped Hydro Energy System. Looking ahead, our focus will be to underpin a foundation for stability and earning growth with three key actions: ensure performance of our generation to respond to demand and price volatility in a favorable wholesale price environment; improve our customer margin through pricing, recontracting activities, and cost-saving initiatives, including expected longer-term benefits from the multiyear platform replacement; and lastly, advance our strong pipeline of flexible capacity projects with new partnerships alongside EnergyAustralia's strong customer base. Our product energy operating earnings reached almost $80 million, thanks to solid renewable performance and Jhajjar's continued reliability. Renewables performance was driven by higher wind resources and full commissioning of our product's largest renewable asset, the 250 MW Sidhpur wind farm, while Jhajjar continued to uphold its reputation as one of India's best-run thermal plants.
Earnings performance was, however, offset by a one-off item for the KMTL asset, which included a non-cash impairment charge of HKD 83 million, following a reassessment of a more conservative assumption in the discount rate. Furthermore, in 2024, we had a retrospective tariff gain from prior years that was not repeated. Our product made solid advancements in smart meter rollout, with around 7 million m under installation, though near-term costs weighed on contribution. Finally, corporate expenses rose due to mark-to-market losses for aluminum hedges taken for transmission projects. Growth momentum remains robust, 15 projects won within two years for an equivalent of 2 GW capacity. As India, the world's third-largest electricity producer, strives to reach 500 GW of non-carbon capacity by 2030, our strategic joint venture will deliver its growth potential, funded by its own balance sheet.
Finally, to the Taiwan region and Thailand, lower earnings contributed from HOPING in Taiwan were attributable to a lower recovery of coal costs. Low-barreled solar performance in Thailand remained stable. In line with the group's strategy to explore new opportunities in the region, higher corporate and development expenses were recorded in the first half for development in the Taiwan region and Vietnam. Together, earnings decreased to HKD 19 million. Looking ahead, HOPING will focus on managing fuel costs, and more broadly, we are evaluating renewable energy opportunities backed by long-term contractual agreements as part of our Taiwan region and Southeast Asia growth strategy. Turning finally to cash flow.
Free cash flow generation was HKD 7.1 billion, down HKD 0.9 billion versus 2024 first half, and explained by the underlying EBITDA performance reduction of HKD 0.6 billion and unfavorable working capital movement of HKD 1.3 billion, which was mainly due to a one-off advance receipt for EnergyAustralia in the first half of 2024 that was subsequently rebated to customers in the second half. On the investment side, with our new headquarters now complete, overall capital spending was lower. The group invested HKD 7 billion in the first half, made up of HKD 5.1 billion for Hong Kong SOC business and nearly HKD 2 billion for renewable energy projects in the mainland and wind battery at EnergyAustralia. Cash payment for dividends was higher as a result of the higher final dividends for the financial year 2024.
Now, our financial structure remains strong despite an increase in net debt to HKD 62 billion and with a sound liquidity position of close to HKD 30 billion. Our prudent financial management has been recognized by S&P, which reaffirmed our strong investment-grade rating for CLP Holdings , CLP Power, and CAPCO, all with stable outlooks. The team successfully raised over HKD 10 billion in competitive financing for Hong Kong SOC business, in addition to the refinancing of the USD 500 million perpetual capital securities, all with a favorable credit spread. I'll now pass this over to T.K. for the update on the group's strategic priorities.
Thank you, Alex. Now, in our last result presentation, I outlined our strategy to deliver sustained value in a world that is rapidly moving towards electrification and decarbonization. Our execution is focused on clear pillars, and I want to update you on our progress for each. It starts with investing in foundational growth in our core Hong Kong regulated business. Building on that strength, we are systematically targeting opportunities in some of the fastest-growing energy transition markets that we are currently operating in: the mainland, India, Taiwan region, Southeast Asia, and Australia. Finally, our enabler for execution is our people, our regional and operational expertise, and access to capital and partnerships, all capabilities that allow us to turn strategic ambition into results. Our integrated utility business in Hong Kong is central to our continuous investments and dependable earnings, supported by predictable returns under its asset-based regulatory framework.
We are executing the HKD 52.9 billion five-year development plan to deliver safe and reliable power at a reasonable price and decarbonization. With gas infrastructure now fully commissioned, the focus will be on expanding and modernizing our power systems for new development areas, data centers, and supporting government's economic and infrastructure agenda. We are also accelerating Hong Kong's Energy Transition, electrifying the transport sector, the second-largest source of carbon emissions, and working with government to enable more zero-carbon imports to achieve the city's 60%- 70% clean energy targets by 2035. Delivering a world-class electricity system to support Hong Kong's long-term development sets a strong foundation for the rest of the organization to deliver returns and value to our customers and shareholders. Almost three-quarters of all Solar and Wind Power projects being built globally are in the mainland, highlighting the country's rapid expansion of renewable energy.
Just in this first half, some 270 GW of renewables have been added, with another 3,000 GW expected by 2030. Our initial target of less than a 1 GW a year is modest in comparison but very much aligned with the mainland's build-out. We are making solid progress, with just over a 0.5 GW of solar, wind, and batteries in various stages of execution in the first half, and importantly, new projects contributing to earnings. We are closely monitoring the recent introduction of Policy Document 136 market reform framework as provincial authorities develop implementation plans. During this transition, we'll assess our portfolio and pipeline and allocate capital based on three pillars: risk return, focusing on geographic selectivity, prioritizing expansion projects, and green power and green certificate contracts. Maintaining our investment discipline with our value over volume approach. If project economics doesn't meet the return threshold, we'll not build it.
Lastly, optimizing our funding. Our Chinese Mainland business is on track to be self-funded by 2026, and we'll continue to leverage partnerships, a model we have successfully executed in Australia and India, to de-risk capital and enhance returns. Now, to India, the world's most populous country and one of the largest energy transition opportunities. To meet its climate goals, India needs to invest up to 2% of GDP over the next decade. Apraava Energy is our strategic joint venture to capture these opportunities. It's a self-funded platform with local expertise and strong governance that gives us a stake in the growth without consolidating debts onto our balance sheet. It is delivering with projects across the energy value chain.
In the first half of 2025, we achieved full commissioning of Sidhpur wind farm and progressed critical infrastructure with 0.5 GW equivalent of transmission under construction and around 7 million smart meters being installed across six states. All in all, Apraava has an equivalent of 2 GW low-carbon projects underway. Crucially, they are all underpinned by long-term government-backed contracts locking in predictive, attractive returns. The result is a capital-efficient and diversified growth engine that enhances our earnings and our growth profile. Now, to Australia, where the retirement of core capacity combined with supportive government policies like the Capacity Investment Schemes creates a favorable environment to deploy capital. Our strategy is short energy and balanced capacity, pairing contracted renewable energy PPAs with owned and contracted flexible capacity on a self-funded basis. For renewables, we are adopting a capital-light model, targeting 3 GW of renewable energy PPAs by 2030.
For flexible capacity assets like Batteries and Pumped Hydro, we'll develop those opportunities on our existing sites where there is access to grid connections and skilled workforce. For opportunities outside our footprint, we will secure capacity through contracting. Smaller flexible capacity assets will be funded on EnergyAustralia's balance sheet, while larger projects will be project financed and leverage strategic partnerships. Momentum is good, with almost 1 GW of committed firming capacity, and we are actively exploring additional battery developments at our Mount Piper and Hallett sites. Our partnership model has yielded results in the first half, with EnergyAustralia signing two important partnerships: one for the 350 MW Boreen battery under construction with Banpu , the other for the 335-megawatt Lake Lyell pumped hydro project under development with EDF Power Solutions.
These new dispatchable capacity, combined with our existing highly flexible gas and coal fleet, create a resilient and competitive portfolio that delivers reliability and value in our evolving markets. Now, turning to our broader growth ambitions in the Asia-Pacific region, we are actively evaluating renewable energy opportunities in the Taiwan region and Vietnam, two markets that have significant growth potential. While we see potential, we remain disciplined. We'll only commit capital if an asset meets our requirements for profitable growth and dependable earnings. This includes securing the right partners and financing structure. We are working on creating the opportunities for future earnings and dividends. Anchoring our efforts will be our continuous work to uplift and enhance capability. This is guided by our cultural framework of care, excellence, and responsibility, which we are embedding throughout the organization by accelerating three core areas. First, Workforce Transformation.
We are building the teams of the future, making our people more adaptive, skilled, and connected. This reflects our care for our people and our commitment to their growth. Second, Digital Agility. We are modernizing our backbone. Our goal is to shift from doing digital to being digital. With phase one of ERP go-live completed, we have the foundation to unlock efficiencies and drive more innovative, cost-effective solutions. Third, Operational Excellence. We are embedding a culture of excellence at every level. In Hong Kong, AI grid monitoring and drones enabled early fault detection before they occurred. In the mainland, centralized control centers connecting renewable energy assets boosted efficiency. Across the group, upgraded platforms deepened customer engagement. These three pillars are interconnected and reinforcing.
They fulfill our responsibility to deliver safe, reliable energy at a reasonable price, and they are the engine that will power our disciplined growth for years to come. I'll now hand over the floor to Marissa to facilitate our Q&A session.
Thank you, T.K. Thank you, Alex. We will now turn to the Q&A session. Instructions are the analysts on Zoom, please use your raise hand icon to ask a live question, and others on the webcast chat, please type your questions in the Q&A box in the bottom right corner of your screen. We have Pierre on the line. Pierre, if you can unmute yourself and go ahead and ask your question.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes, Pierre.
OK. Good afternoon. Thanks, CLP management, letting me ask questions on economy. I have three questions. The first one is regarding your Australian business. If we look at your presentation material on page 44, you show that the forward prices will follow a downward trend in the next three years. Do you expect the margin of your energy business in Australia under EnergyAustralia in the second half of this year and 2026 to be lower than the first half of 2025? The second question is about your China business. If we look at page 19 of your PPT, you target to raise your operational renewable capacity in China from right now 2.3 GW to 6 GW by 2029.
We all understand that for new renewable capacity added from June this year onward, they will have to sell all their output on a market basis, and hence it's likely to be of lower return. What kind of expected return that you think you can get for this new project to be added from June 2025, and how much lower compared to the existing one? The last question is for CLP overall. Obviously, we see that your overseas business performance in the first half seems to be weaker than expected. I want to know what managements have considered in your overseas business strategy in view of the performance in the first half, and that means what is your overseas investment strategy right now compared to, say, six months or 12 months ago? What has been changed? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Pierre, for the questions. Now, for the first one on Australia forward price, actually, you can see 2026 forward price actually is at a more or less similar level as we currently have. Maybe going forward in 2027, 2028, right now we do see a slight kind of a decrease. Actually, when we look at the markets, in particular in the second half of this year, because the government has just announced the revised default offer, both the DMO and the VDO in Australia, and there are increases in those prices. When we do the repricing, we'll see we can increase our price. At the same time, we are also doing recontracting when our existing contracts of our customers come to an end, and then we try to recontract. There is also an opportunity for us to renew the price with a higher price.
We do see opportunities for improved margins in the second half. At the same time, if you look at our retail business, I think one of the issues is about our cost. We are actually also embarking on a cost optimization exercise, hopefully to improve the efficiency of our operation, to improve further efficiency. Over the medium- term, we are also looking at replacing our customer platform to a more kind of state-of-the-art platform so that we can improve our product and services and also efficiency, customer experience to improve our customer performance. Customer experience, sorry. Now, for the second question about China, right now we still maintain our target of achieving about 6 GW by 2029.
Given the fact that there is new policy being launched and the fact that the details of the documents, the implementation details would be determined by individual provinces, and actually, a lot of them are still not available, there are some uncertainties in the markets. Because of that, while we would still continue to maintain the target, we will be more selective in identifying projects as well as making investment decisions, as I explained in the presentation. We will look at geographical areas where the demand is a lot more promising, the tariffs are higher, as well as the grid curtailment risk is much lower. At the same time, we will also look at projects that are an expansion of our existing assets so that the overall cost could be lower, improving our profitability.
Last but not least, continue to pursue longer-term kind of Green Power contracts or Green Certificate contracts. Now, I think one point I want to stress is that we will maintain our discipline in the investment decision. That means if the project cannot meet our target return, we will not invest. Up to now, we have not changed our threshold hurdle rate, so we'll continue to expand our portfolio with discipline. Now, for the group overall performance, the first half definitely is weaker because of the headwinds in China and in Australia. As I mentioned, I think in Australia, we do see the generation business is doing good. That actually pays off through our continued investment in the reliability and stability of our generation fleet, as well as in the flexible capacity, which definitely benefits from the wholesale market volatility.
The issue is on the retail segments, and as I mentioned, we'll continue to improve the performance going forward. In China, I think there are a mix of reasons. Some of them are temporary. For example, our renewable energy assets, the reduction in wind resources, we see it more as a cyclical issue. For the Grid Curtailment, I think it's also attributed to softened kind of demand growth, as well as kind of accelerated capacity addition. Partly, I think it's because of Document 136. A lot of people, they rush completing projects before the so-called deadline, so that resulted in higher kind of surplus capacity. I think in the coming short- term, we do see this kind of uncertainty and volatility. We'll continue to closely monitor the situation and to stay disciplined in our strategy execution.
Thanks, T.K. Evan Li from HSBC has a question. Evan, if you could unmute yourself and ask your question.
Hi, thank you, Marissa. Evan Li here from HSBC. I have actually just two simple questions. As T.K. just mentioned, in Australia, we are looking to achieve a certain amount of renewable energy projects. That's 3 GW of contracted renewables and 1.6 GW of flexible capacity by 2030. I just want to check if this target will be achieved all by self-funding, even without any further potential divestment of EnergyAustralia. Based on the cash flow and the balance sheet position of EnergyAustralia, will the company be able to achieve that target based on the current funding situation? That will be my question number one. The second question would be, if we sort of have to look a little bit further beyond in the next development plan for the future five years, or basically looking in the longer- term, is there any upside in terms of CapEx spending in Hong Kong?
If so, where those areas might be coming from? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Evan, for the question. Maybe I'll ask Alex to answer the first question on the funding. I'll try to answer your second question first. Now, for the next development plan, I think we are in a very early stage right now, so I don't think I would have a lot of information to provide. If I look at, like, more bigger picture, as I just mentioned in the presentation, in Hong Kong for decarbonization, we have just finished the, I would say, the first phase of investing and building the gas infrastructure in Hong Kong. That has been finished. The next step actually is to further decarbonize. We need to import more zero-carbon energy from the mainland. Maybe the initial part would be our Clean Energy Transmission System that is now being built. The amount will not be very significant, but it does help.
In the medium-term future, I think based on the government's Climate Action Plan 2050, there is a target of achieving 60%- 70% zero carbon in our generation fuel mix. Right now, I think we have been importing nuclear power from Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station to Hong Kong. From a whole Hong Kong perspective, it amounts to about 25% for the whole Hong Kong. That means if in order to achieve this 60%- 70%, apart from importing renewables, we do foresee that we need to import a lot more nuclear energy from China. In that sense, we do need to have additional transmission infrastructure, cross-border infrastructure in order to import the power. I would expect that might be one of the new requirements in the next plan. Of course, details are yet to be finalized.
We still need to carry out more study and also discuss with the relevant parties.
Sorry, T.K., if I could ask, I'd follow up with that, just right on that. How significant would the Northern Metropolis plan of the government be for the future CapEx of CLP?
Yeah. Now, for Northern Metropolis, it would be a development spending quite a long period of time. If we look at the government's plan, I think at least like 10 years. For the current development plan, actually, it covers part of the CapEx requirements for the development. I would expect it may be like a more kind of stable CapEx over a long period of time kind of profile, rather than suddenly there would be an upsurge in CapEx.
Got it. Thank you.
To answer your question on EnergyAustralia, first, we have a strong cash flow generation by EnergyAustralia with a plan to continue to operate our generating assets at performance following the upgrade that we did in Yallourn and the multi-contracting activity that we did in Mount Piper, plus a generation of what we do on our gas plan. We have a turnaround plan also, as mentioned by T.K. on the retail side. The funds for operation are on a good path. Regarding now its debt capacity, we took the decision to do two things. First, to finance on the balance sheet of EA, I would say the relatively small CapEx, which are the ones which are linked to generation for maintenance, retail, and the new small flexible capacity, while we decided to do two structures for renewable and flexible capacity of large yard.
For renewable, we decided to sign PPAs, while for flexible capacity of large yard, we decided to contract the outcome of them with EA while doing a project finance and looking for partners. We were successful in our Banpu project partnership, as you could see, and we think that would be successful in the future battery development. We've also found the right partner for our Pumped Hydro Project with EDF. Now, the question is more, will we be able to reach our targets? We believe so for the flexible capacity, because as you could see, we have today a total of 1.1 GW underway with a portfolio of feasibility of 0.8 GW, so well above our 0.6 GW. It's on a good path. The challenge is more finding the right renewable projects, which is an Australian challenge. Today, there's not enough renewable projects being developed in Australia.
We don't see that as a funding challenge, but more as a market challenge.
Thanks, Alex and Evan. You can find those details on slide 21 if you want to see the progress of the flexible capacity additions. OK, next question from Stephen Tsui at JP Morgan. Hi, Stephen. If you can hear me, you can unmute yourself and ask your question.
Hi, thank you, CLP's management. I have three quick questions. The first is about finance costs, because high ball has been declining since the second quarter. What's our second half outlook on the average interest rate and also the full-year interest expense? The second question is about the dividends, because we raised dividends per share last year. Given the earnings headwinds in Australia, shall we expect a stable dividend per share on a full-year basis? The third question is about the growth CapEx, because if we look at the cash flow, we have around a $4 billion gap between cash inflow and outflow. Given that we may increase CapEx for the next SOC plan, will it be more prudent in the growth CapEx, especially in Mainland China reliable projects, given the uncertainty of project return? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Stephen. Maybe I'll ask Alex to answer the first question on financing costs and also the CapEx question. For dividend, our dividend policy has been giving a reliable and consistent dividend, targeting steady growth, provided the underlying business has sustainable growth. In the past, you can see that we have never reduced our dividend. We will be very prudent when we want to adjust our dividend. It is also, I would say, a practice that we'll try to maintain the dividend for the first three quarters, and then the last quarter will be based on the board's decision on the overall dividend level, taking into consideration the underlying business performance. I think we'll have more information, obviously, when we have the year-end result announcement.
Regarding your two other questions, if you allow me, I'll start with question number three, which is our funding strategy and our ability to fund our incremental CapEx. Our funding strategy is quite clear, and it's based on four principles. First, we want to have strong cash flow being generated by our business unit in order to define what the level of debt that we can target. Second, it's crucial for us to keep a strong credit rating in order to enable us not only to have the financial flexibility, but a low cost of debt. As a reminder, S&P have confirmed the rating level for CLP Group , for CLP Power, and for CAPCO with stable outcome a few weeks ago. Third, as mentioned by T.K., we want to continue our dividend policy to growing dividends with the earning growth.
Fourth, and coming to your question now, we want to be able to fund our CapEx, giving first privilege to our CapEx commitment that we have in Hong Kong, and then putting in competition the different alternatives that we have throughout the different regions. In H1, there was effectively a gap, as you could mention, but we are also moving toward a change of strategy by looking for the partners on where we have the growth. We did that a few years ago in the case of Apraava . We have just shown to you that we are able to do that in EnergyAustralia with the partnership on a large flexible capacity.
We are currently executing our clean energy fund, which is basically putting a fund with limited partners for the grid parity project, where the fund size would be $4 billion for a total CapEx of $20 billion, which will enable us not only not to have these funds anymore on our balance sheet, but on top of that, it enables us to sell our development, our construction, and O&M capabilities in order to have a higher return. This is the strategy that we have put in place. Now, going to your first question, it's a good observation that our debt has increased by more than 10%, but our funding cost, our interest, has reduced in the first half. This is linked to two reasons.
The first one is we have reduced our debt in the high-cost environment, which is the case of Australia, while increasing our debt level in China, which is a low-interest cost environment. Second, we did a material interest cost reduction in the case of CLP Power and CAPCO, which enables now to reduce our interest costs well below our 4% threshold. I will not give you what the outlook is for H2, but what I can tell you is that HKD 24 billion are coming to refinancing in the group. With the direction of the interest rate and the ability to be able to capture, as you mentioned, the right interest environment, as it was the case two months ago in Hong Kong, we hope to be able to reduce further interest costs.
Thanks, Alex. We have Rob Coro from Morgan Stanley in Australia on the line. Rob, go ahead and unmute yourself.
Good afternoon. Can you hear me OK?
Yes, we can.
Thank you. Thank you very much for the presentation. I just have three questions for you, sadly all related to Australia. I apologize. I guess my first question, just to make sure that I understand the minor resegmentation or restatement of earnings within EnergyAustralia, it says that the customer earnings there, you've removed a hedge book to make it more comparable. Should I be interpreting those customer earnings to now be your kind of actual customer results versus the default tariffs? Is that the way to think about that? That's question number one. Question number two, a bit more high level, you mentioned the strategy in EnergyAustralia is to be short energy balanced capacity, and that's not new.
As the price of capacity is going up, if you're balanced capacity, does that mean that your net earnings leverage in the integrated business would actually be neutral, or is that the correct way to think about it? My third question is related to the Boreen Battery Transaction. Congratulations on that outcome. Very simply, is that kind of a deal template, kind of a 50/50 JV with EnergyAustralia as operator and offtaker. Should we be thinking about that because your pipeline has another 0.5 GW in execution and another 0.8 GW in feasibility? Is that the kind of template we should be thinking about for that pipeline? Thank you.
OK, thank you, Rob. Can I ask, maybe Alex, you answered the last one on the JV partnership. Now, for the first one, I think now, in a way, actually, the customer business, as you mentioned, the reason why we want to so-called remove the Hedge Book from the customer business is such that we can really understand the performance of the customer business in terms of our efficiency of operation, as well as the product and services that we have been providing to our customers, whether they are really competitive. Actually, the customer business in Australia is more like a margin business. Based on government's default price, there's an assumed margin. I think the competition is basically in two fold. One is efficiency. If we can have more efficient operation, then actually we can have a higher margin.
At the same time, if we can package our product and services, in particular those behind-the-meter products, then we may be able to earn an even higher return. I would not say that it's totally just based on price. I think it's also depending on the so-called value adding to our customer. For example, if we can have solar plus battery, that could be a current product that can give value to our customer. Now, for the second question about the Solar Energy and Balanced Capacity, sorry, maybe I may not fully understand your question. Could you repeat that again?
Yeah, sure, T.K. I guess you've talked about the company having leverage to higher volatility and being able to capture more volatility through the flexible plans. If the integrated operation of EnergyAustralia is balanced for capacity, is there an equal offset to that gain, or is it net positive that prices become more volatile?
Now, when we say balanced capacity, that is for kind of ensuring that we will not be long, even during the maximum kind of demand periods. During other times, the reason why we have short energy is that we can make use of the capacity for arbitrage when the wholesale price volatility is high. That's where we can generate additional profit using our capacity without taking up additional risk if we have length in capacity. That's the rationale behind.
Maybe the answer to the third question will help you also to understand the second one. We have the strategy first to contract capacity if we don't have a cost-competitive advantage. We do that by contracting, of course, this capacity with our retail portfolio. When we consider that we have a cost advantage, meaning being on one of our sites where we have land, transmission, water, and people, we are able to capture, as we have proved last year, the cease tender. When we do that, what we have decided as a model, and this is our base model, is to contract the capacity with EA, provide the O&M from EA, looking for project finance, and Warren was 50% oversubscribed by banks, and looking for the right partner for this. We plan to do the same thing for Mount Piper if we have this project being developed.
We plan to do the same thing for Hallett. We have not done it yet because it was too small. It was only 50 MW . If we extend it to another 150 MW, which would give a total of 200 MW, the cost necessary in order to put such structure in place is outweighed a lot by the benefits of it. We plan to do it. Now, regarding the development of hydro plant with EDF , we have here capped only 25%, while they capped 75%. I think here it's important not to see that solely as a structuring financial deal, but there's not a lot of pumped hydro being developed.
It was also important for us to look for a partner who has a lot of operational and construction capabilities in order to fund a partnership, bringing on top of money skills from the two in order to develop these projects.
Thank you, Alex. Cissy Guan from Bank of America. Cissy, go ahead and unmute yourself and ask your question.
Thank you for taking that question. I have two questions. First of all, in the first half result, you mentioned that CLP has been making progress upgrading the Clean Energy Transmission System linking Hong Kong with Diabei. Can you share more about that? For example, by how much has the capacity of the power transmission system increased, and how much more CapEx will be needed if we were to import more clean energy from Mainland to meet the Clean Energy target, like how much more CapEx will affect from the transmission system? That's the first question. Secondly, about EnergyAustralia, we've seen a few partnerships on project level. I would like to ask, going forward, will CLP continue to pursue project-level partnerships, or will EnergyAustralia actively look for corporate-level partnerships? Thirdly, I understand that our shareholders value the dividend payout.
Can we commit to a final DPS hike, or what are the considerations for us to decide whether we'll have the DPS? If we were to have DPS in the final dividend, will that be a $0.05 increment just like before, or are we flexible in terms of the magnitude? Thank you.
OK, thank you, Cissy. Now, for the first question about the nuclear imports, we are now, I would say, in the final phase of completing the CETS. It will be completed early next year. We are considering how to make use of that to import additional zero-carbon energy to Hong Kong, but the amount will not be significant. As you just rightly pointed out, in order to import more to Hong Kong from the mainland to fulfill the 2035 target as laid out by the Hong Kong government in the Climate Action Plan 2050, the amount will be much more significant. Of course, it will consist of both renewable and nuclear. Given the fact that in the nearby region, importing nuclear would be the major portion of that zero-carbon energy. Right now, because it's 2035, we still have time.
Also, right now, there's no concrete sources identified, and we need to do system planning design in order to determine how to import the power to Hong Kong. At this moment, it is still a very early stage to have any estimation on CapEx required. Given the fact that it will be a cross-border kind of infrastructure, it will be quite significant. Again, the fact is that it will take quite a long time to do. When there is more information, then we may be able to share later. Now, for the EA partnership, as I maybe mentioned previously, we are open in terms of partnership at project level or at enterprise level. The more important thing is that EA really can optimize its performance. Right now, in the generation assets, we are doing quite good.
We have completed all the major kind of investments in upkeeping the reliability and safety. Maybe the next kind of improvement area will be in our customer business, as I just mentioned, in order to reduce our costs, as well as improving the platform to provide more kind of product and services to add value to our customers. In terms of our dividend payout, I also just explained that we have a dividend policy of providing a reliable and consistent dividend. Based on history, we have never reduced our dividend. We will be very cautious when we want to adjust our dividend upwards. We'll look at our underlying business performance. If it is supported by more sustainable growth in the future, then we'll consider increasing our dividend. At the end of the day, of course, the dividend will be approved by our Board.
Thank you, T.K. We have come up to time, so I'm going to have to close the briefing there. Thank you, T.K. and Alex, for answering the questions and providing the briefing. My team and I will be available if you have any other questions. We'll happily take them after this briefing. Thank you very much for all your very good questions today. With that, I will now close the briefing.
Thank you.
Bye.
Thank you.