We're here to present the third quarter results for 2019. It has been a busy quarter, maybe I should say as always, but particularly busy this third quarter, 2019. I'm proud to share with you that we reached almost 295 GWh in the quarter. For those of you that remembers back to 2018, this is slightly below what we produced for the whole of 2018. It tells you quite a bit about the growth trajectory that we are climbing up at the moment. In terms of EBITDA, we're seeing an increase compared to the third quarter last year of NOK 133 million, up to NOK 133 million. In the third quarter, we reached commercial operation Egypt, Ukraine, and Mozambique.
Just a few weeks back, we decided to have a couple of updates, where we decided to increase the target installed during construction by 2021 to 4,500 up from 3,500 megawatts. We also had a very successful rights issue. If you go back to the power production by country, the contribution over the past quarters are coming from Brazil, Ukraine, Egypt, Mozambique, and Malaysia. Not all of those plants had a full quarter production. In fact, if you look at the plants and the production in the third quarter, it's actually higher than the 295 that we show here. This project is worth a slide. It's actually worth much more than a slide. It's the biggest project ever that Scatec Solar has conducted. If you compare it back to three years ago, we had 300 megawatts in operation.
We have finished one project of almost 400 MW. This is also a very technological achievement, in that we decided to install bifacial panels. The bifacial panels produces electricity from the front, but also picks up the reflective light from the ground. You will have an increased efficiency, or output, from the panels of 10%-15%. We had almost, or we had 4,500 when we peaked during the execution of the project. I'm extremely proud to share with you that we have only one person that had a day off due to an injury out of 7,500 hours. If you look at that as sort of a more common way of presenting it, LTI, this was 0.1. That's extremely significant, and it means also that we have been successful in implementing our HSSE policies and following that up locally.
Keep in mind that 70%-80% of the people that work on our projects are unskilled workers. There is also a direct link in between the HSSE performance and the quality of the plant. I've seen that from my previous life. If you focus on safety and are successful, the quality of the work that these people do is also better than when you are not focusing on the health, safety, and environment. It's 420,000 households if we were to feed them directly from these plants. That's quite a lot as well. The annual production would reach 870 GWh . In terms of avoided CO2 annually, 350,000 tons, what does it mean? It means 76,000 cars and what they emit during a year. There you go. Now, this is the long-term cash flows.
In fact, these are the plants that are in production at the moment. They have contract periods, remaining periods between 10-25 years. You will see that when more and more projects are being added to our revenues, you will see that this will be stable and producing both revenue and bottom line over the next 25 years. Of course, we will have plans that we will add it over the next 2-3 years as well, which is a part of our 4.5 gigawatt target. We are still constructing plants on four continents. We have been doing that now for a couple of years. We have tested our execution model. Of course, when you do that, you always find areas where you can actually improve. Ukraine, we are at the moment constructing five projects at different locations.
The first one is already in commercial operation, and several plants will follow suit. In South Africa, we have three plants nearby Upington, north in northern part of South Africa. The first one of these plants are approaching mechanical completion. Then testing will start. Then the next two plants will follow suit. Argentina, this is very high up in the mountains. It's sort of Norwegian climate, cold. It's actually more windy. We have to strengthen the structural design of the plant. As you can see here as well, it's going well. This is a project we're doing together with Equinor on a 50/50 basis, both on the ownership but also on the execution. Excuse me. We have Malaysia, 47 MW. We have finished three plants, as you are aware of. This is the fourth plant in Malaysia.
We are also in the middle of constructing that, as you can see. To the financial review, and I give the word to you, Mikkel.
Thanks. Thanks very much. Let's just look a bit more in detail into the results. We are happy to report another set of solid results, and in line with our expectations and the growth plans that we've had. If we start now by looking back at the last 12 months, revenues reached NOK 6.4 billion and EBITDA now close to NOK 1.5 billion on a proportionate basis. The cash flow that we've generated, approaching NOK 800 million. We will continue to report growth here as power production is growing, and we maintain a stable development and construction business. Our current assets base of 1.9 gigawatts represents about NOK 60 billion of contract value over the next 20 years. It's a significant portfolio of assets now reaching operation. A bit more on the Q3 results. Revenues of NOK 1.5 billion, EBITDA of NOK 433 million.
Again, you can see here, revenues and EBITDA increased compared to the same quarter last year. It's up 68% EBITDA year-on-year. 70% of the EBITDA is now coming from power production. With a stable D&C business, we'll see an increased proportion from power production and the long-term contracts again in this mix. That will also improve the EBITDA margins overall for the group on a proportionate basis. Again, on the power production side, a very steady growth, solid growth year-on-year, obviously. Production is up significantly. Revenues reached NOK 357 million, EBITDA NOK 296 million. Last 12 months, revenues passed NOK 1 billion and EBITDA NOK 800 million. It's the new plants in Mozambique, Ukraine, and Egypt that have mainly explained this, but also Malaysia have contributed over the last year for this growth. When it comes to O&M, smaller part of our business, but very healthy margins.
Also reporting growth in this segment this quarter, reflecting the larger O&M portfolio that we now are operating. You also see a bit of a seasonality here in the results. We see second and third quarter normally seasonally higher than the other two quarters due to the contract structures that we have in South Africa. We'll expect to see that same pattern also going forward. Yeah. Then on the development and construction side, continued high activity. It's been fairly stable over the last few quarters, as you can see here. Looking back at the last year, revenue passed NOK 5.2 billion, EBITDA NOK 659 million. If you look at the accumulated progress across the construction portfolio, it was 51% at the end of third quarter.
Of course, we continue to mature a wide range of projects in our backlog and pipeline, and we added 80 MW to the backlog and close to 400 MW to the pipeline in the quarter. When it comes to our balance sheets, obviously our financial position has now further strengthened with the equity raise. That is certainly giving us capital to fund further growth with the new growth plans that we have presented to you, both within the utility scale, but also within the new Release concept. Overall, if you look at the consolidated assets, it stood at NOK 20.4 billion at the end of the third quarter, up NOK 6 billion almost since the end of last year. Consolidated cash in the group was NOK 3.5 billion roughly. Cash at the group level of NOK 1.5 billion. Our revolving credit facilities remain undrawn.
Book equity strengthened now to NOK 4.9 billion, and the equity ratio reached 87%. This is based on the methodology we have and the definitions we have in the bond and loan agreements. Looking at the bit more on the movements of cash in the group for the quarter. Obviously, the equity raise stands out in this graph, NOK 1.3 billion of cash coming in. I will mention that we also received $73 million of distributions from our operating plants. We, year-to-date, received $175 million of distributions from the operating power plants, and we expect that to increase also in the fourth quarter. It will be a solid contribution overall from operating power plants. That's important for us, of course, as a proof of the business model and the model here in terms of operating plants. Cash flow from D&C, a bit more than NOK 100 million.
We invested equity in new projects again, mainly Ukraine, NOK 300 million in the quarter. Lastly, we had a working capital movement, a negative working capital movement in the quarter of NOK 170 million or so. We see the cash balance ending at NOK 1.5 billion. A bit on the short-term guidance. The O&M revenues, NOK 110 million-NOK 115 million, with an EBITDA margins of about 35%. This is slightly up from the 30% we have guided on previously. When it comes to the D&C value of the construction portfolio, the total value of this is about NOK 3.9 billion. The remaining not booked value is NOK 1.9 billion, i.e., this is the revenue that we are expecting to recognize from the third or fourth quarter onwards related to this portfolio. We are guiding for increased production into the fourth quarter.
This is based on the plants that are already in operation at the end of the quarter. There will be some additional production also from the last plant in Egypt that we announced this week that was reconnected. I thought I could also repeat some facts and figures from our capital markets update related to our portfolio. I mentioned the NOK 60 billion of contract value for the 1.9 gigawatts that we are currently completing. If you look at this from a currency exposure perspective, I think it's important to remind you about the currencies here. It's EUR and USD. More than 50% of the portfolio is linked to EUR and USD. When it comes to ZAR and the BRL, these PPA tariffs are also inflation adjusted. That's also important to keep in mind when looking at the contracts.
We're now basically having assets in 11 countries, from an EBITDA and cash flow perspective, South Africa is still important. Ukraine and Egypt also important in this mix, but a well-diversified portfolio. Just to explain the graph, the colors of the countries are then also indicating what currencies they're in when you read the two pie charts here together. We have, for instance, in Jordan and Honduras and Egypt, USD-denominated tariffs. Lastly, the remaining contract period for the PPAs, on average 20 years. 10 years in Ukraine, Czech Republic is also 10 years remaining, but quite a lot of new plants that have just started production. Okay. I'll give the word back to you, Rune.
Thank you, Mikkel. There are a lot of simulations that are trying to predict what the future is going to look like and how quickly the world, in terms of energy generation and consumption, is going to change. I've decided to use Bloomberg here, but there are others, Statkraft yesterday, DNV GL, that are actually even more optimistic if you look at the change in that type of context. Here, you will see that by 50/50% of the generation capacity is going to come from wind and solar. For solar, it means that it will increase from 2%-22%. Keep in mind, the total new electricity additions are going to increase by 62%. Now, is that all for solar? No, it isn't.
Because what will also happen is that some of the installed capacity will have to be transformed from diesel, heavy fuel oil into solar or wind. For example, in Africa, you have almost 250 gigawatts of diesel-generated power. In the world, in total, almost 600 gigawatts. Looking ahead, if you only look at those numbers, it's a bright future. Of course, it doesn't come by itself. You have to develop a business model that are actually able to extract opportunities that are translating into a positive contribution on the bottom line, and also the company's ability to transform, not only apply new technology, but also applying new business models, like Release that I'm going to come back to. By the way, I had a meeting. I'm not going to share exactly who that was, but we discussed peak oil demand. Two months ago, that was in 2035.
We met a week and a half ago, and new simulations have been carried out, and peak oil demand in that model was 2028, meaning that it's not peak oil, it's demand. The demand curve is going down. It's something to think about if you're in that part of the energy business. How do you actually take advantage of or tackle such a situation? Most of the growth that you see here is going to come from emerging markets. OECD will remain with a moderate growth. They will be electrified, so there will be a growth in that. Of course, 98% of the growth is going to come from emerging markets. If I dare to call it our home market, I will call it that, but at least this is where we are focusing for the time being.
I think the most challenging picture here for the energy industry as a whole is how to be able to foresee, tackle, implement, and transform the companies and the business into something that is going to be long-lasting. It has had an impact on the way that Scatec Solar has organized themselves. Of course, we have the long cash flows that Mikkel talked about, the utility scale project. We have also set aside a specialist group within our company two years ago to look at new opportunities that we see in our markets. The Release concept is a product of such an exercise. If you look at our backlog and pipeline, it has increased quite a lot.
If you look below the big number and if you look at the various projects that we have access to, of course, we also see that the quality of the pipeline has improved. That gave us the motivation, as we shared with you all in the capital markets update, to increase the target by end of 2021 from 3,500 megawatts to 4,500 megawatts. The market is vibrant, and as I said, most of the growth over the next 30 years will come from emerging markets. If you look at the segments that we are going to concentrate on, utility scale solar is, I guess, more or less all of the 4,500 megawatts. Also the additional 2,500 that we will build from now until end of 2021. There will be different types of long-term contracts. It'll be feed-in tariff, it'll be power purchase agreements, bilateral agreements.
It'll also be, as we see, I've talked about over a few quarters, an increase in corporate and industrial opportunities. In many markets right now, you're not doing your job if you're not looking at alternative energy. You may not be too focused on the CO2 emittance. Of course, everybody should be focusing on how to save money on operational budget by cutting cost operating the plant. Today, in many markets, we can right away offer opportunities that can reduce the energy bill by 50%. I know that in a lot of boardrooms this is being discussed as we speak, and we have been contacted by many, and we are in negotiations with many.
We presented Release redeployable solar to address a market that has been there all along, it doesn't match the utility scale market that we've been in, meaning that these entities weren't able to enter into contracts that were 20, 25 years long. They had a different business model. It could be that they had a license that lasted for five years. It could be other things. They didn't have an investment budget and that kind of thing. Release is an answer to a customer demand, shorter contracts, something that can be charged to their operating budgets, something that can be redeployed because if the contract runs out after two years, we can redeploy the equipment at a different location and then start up again. We have received quite a lot of good response, and we're very hopeful that this will develop rapidly in the coming years.
If you look at the way or the road ahead towards end of 2021. Right now, we have 1.2 gigawatts in operation. That's up four times compared to two or three years ago, so it's quite substantial. You've seen that manifesting itself into the production of power and the long-term cash flows. The same amount is under construction at the moment, and which will be completed, these projects, over the next eight to nine months, I believe, give or take. Then we have the near-term growth that will bring us up to a level of 4,500 megawatts by end of 2021. Where is that coming from? It's coming from the slide that I showed you previously.
The pipeline of 5,600 that has, compared to previously, been improved in quality. We have taken out some projects, for example, in Iran, for natural reasons that you may appreciate, and some others, to allow us to even further concentrate on the 2.2 gigawatt and the deliver of that. Now, we have also, of course, looked into the D&C contribution. This is a number we have shared with you from the very beginning. It shows our ability to generate cash from development and construction activities that will be reinvested into the long-term cash flow as equity. We're just slightly making an adjustment of that number to 12%-14%. In terms of the returns that we're expecting from sale of electricity, we have also made a slight adjustment to that.
Keeping in mind that, as Mikkel shared, most of these projects, or at least 50% of the ones that we have now, and maybe even more in the future, are in currencies that you are familiar with, USD and EUR. We have adjusted that to 12%-14%. Then we talked about what is going to happen after 2021, and we have given a number of 1.5 MW, sorry, GW in addition for every year. If you look behind this is the organizational capacity that this company has as well. Of course, it's easier to increase that. We have shown that we can grow fairly rapidly in terms of organizational capacity in different locations of the world. Then on top of that, when Release is really getting traction, we can add another 300-500 MW from 2022 and onwards.
I talked about the organization. We have 45 different nationalities now, 400 fixed employees. Add another 200 to 300 of short-term people that are helping us with the project, plus the several thousand people that are actually doing the very, very important work of putting the plant together. 4,500, as I mentioned, in Egypt. I think statistics have been good on the H2C side. We continue to focus on the long-term relationship with the communities that we're in. Not only with the communities, we are also cooperating with universities. We've done that for the past five years in South Africa, sponsoring a renewable program, and also letting the master and doctor students do research on our plants. Frankly speaking, we're benefiting from that because the quality of the work that they do is actually excellent.
I believe that that's a formula that is going to, I think, work also for us in Vietnam. Vietnam for us will be an extremely important growth market. Of course, we'll get back to you once more details can be revealed. I guess that concludes my presentation for today, and Mikkel's, and we're happy to take any questions that you may have.
Just between you and me, Raymond, Release, when do you think you will see the first contract being signed? Do you think it's going to be this year or next year?
Yeah, it could either be this year or next year.
Okay. Due diligence. Just a question on Argentina and Malaysia. It looks like you're delaying the timeline by one quarter versus the guidance from Q2. Is there any specific explanation to that, or it's just normal operations?
Argentina, we had some startup issues, ground conditions. As I mentioned to my board yesterday, I tried to explain why we had to make an adjustment. If you drill in sort of sand compared to granite it's slightly different. It was more like granite type of ground conditions. We had to change the approach, which made sense, of course. The best thing was to make an adjustment to the time schedule. There's nothing big. It's just common sense execution of projects. It's normal to have challenging things like that. You had it in South Africa, dolerite. You can look it up if you're geologically interested. It's hard stuff.
Thank you. Just a final one. On the bifacial technology on Benban.
Yes.
We talked about this 10%-15% output increase for the last few quarters. Do you have full visibility on how the technology works, so the 10%-15% is what we should expect also going forward? It's not going to be any surprises either on the upside or downside from that 10%-15% range we're talking about, right?
This is a kind of leading question, and I like the leading question because we have had confirmation with preliminary analysis is that we are actually around 14% compared to the previous models. I can't tell you that it's going to remain for all future. This is also linked to procedures that we're doing for the first time. Panels have to be cleaned. This is in desert area. That's in our financial model, how often do you clean? What is the reduction on performance? Do you have to clean on the backside, too? We still have to perfect some of these processes. I hope that it will confirm what I just shared with you, around 14%. Of course, it's very good for us because we're getting high-quality data that we can use on other projects where we're going to implement bifacial.
Bifacial, the other side of the coin, which is also producing electricity, is linked to something called albedo effect. Look it up. It's interesting. It's reflective capacity of the ground. Sand is very good. Snow is even better. Lava is not good. You have to take that into consideration, and it varies quite a lot.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Okay. Doesn't seem to be any further questions here. Anything from the web?
Yeah. We can take one from the web.
Okay. You want to read it up? Yeah.
There is one question about Vietnam. Will the estimated returns from this pipeline still meet required returns if they reduce the tariffs as the government has stated?
Yeah. Maybe I can answer that one. Just to clarify this, it's been some news articles around the tariff levels in Vietnam, a reduction of the feed-in tariff. That is a reduction that have been on the table at least for the last six months, and this is what we are using as planning assumptions. It's nothing other than that. This is in line with the expectations when it comes to the new tariff level that has been discussed for Vietnam, and of course, that's reflected in the guidance that we provided when it comes to returns. Yeah. This is no further adjustments to the tariffs than what we already had expected. That's great. Okay. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you all. See you next time.