Hello, and welcome to ABG Sundal Collier's Investor Days. My name is Olof Cederholm, and I am the analyst from ABG side that covers Eolus Vind. I'm very happy to introduce Per Witalisson, CEO. Please go ahead, Per
Thank you, Olof, for the introduction and for the opportunity to present Eolus here today. Eolus is a developer of renewable energy, being active in Northern Europe and southwestern U.S. We've been in the industry since the beginning of the 1990s, so quite a long experience from the industry. We are a developer, developing projects from greenfield. Our preferred business model is to sell at ready-to-build, so we are doing all the development, all the optimization, all the procurement at our own risk. Selling at ready-to-build means that the construction financing is normally provided by the investor. We are willing to take some risk during construction.
We provide construction management services to the investor, and in the end, we hand over operating assets to our customers. We also provide asset management services, being technical and commercial services. A lot of the financial investors that we are working with, they don't want to build up technical asset management teams, for instance. So, normally, we get quite long asset management agreements with the investors, and they could be, like, five, 10, or 15 years long. We're coming from the onshore wind side of the industry, since that is the most mature technology, and in most markets, onshore wind is the cheapest way to provide new production to the system.
Different markets have a different specifics and different needs for their electrical current and future electrical system. So we should always strive to develop project that we think will be the best commercial viable or the project that solves the issues in the system at the point in the future when they are ready for construction. That's why we are developing not only onshore wind projects, but also offshore wind, Solar PV projects, and energy storage projects. In the Nordics, onshore wind is definitely the cheapest production source.
Due to the mega trends of electrification, a lot of offshore wind will be needed, since it's the second cheapest production source, and to be able to construct those volumes needed, offshore wind will definitely be needed. We're developing solar PV projects both as standalone and as combinations, hybrid projects, together with wind installations to utilize the grid connection, for instance, and to deliver an even more stable output, which increases the value of the facilities. In several markets, for instance, where we're active in the southwestern U.S., solar PV can produce power cheaper than onshore wind.
But it is being built also in such large volumes that you also need to combine it with some other source of production or energy storage. So in the U.S., all of our larger solar projects are combinations of solar and battery energy storage. We also do standalone battery storage projects also that especially in the U.S., where they have major issues with grid stability, for instance. We have headquarters in Sweden, in Skåne. Offices spread across Sweden. We are also present in Finland, in the Baltics, in Warsaw, in Poland, and in U.S., based in San Diego.
So listed at the Stockholm Exchange with roughly 35,000 shareholders. Last Friday, we announced our Q3 report. We had net sales of SEK 127 million, with a net profit of SEK 94 million. To the right, you see the accumulated figures for the first nine months, so SEK 2.1 billion in turnover, with a net profit of SEK 500 million. Financially sound, I would say, with an equity to asset ratio of 57%, as per Q3. Our business model is striving to be asset-light since we're aiming to have the construction financed by the investors.
In some projects, we have to start construction before we can sell. That makes some changes. That drives some changes in both profit and loss and net sales or project margins in percentage. So I usually say that to understand Eolus, it's important to follow the press releases about the projects, how we are selling the projects, and how we are accounting for revenues and profits. Revenues and profits from the third quarter came mainly from three different revenue streams.
The first one being increased degree of completion of our construction projects in Sweden, with 61 turbines under construction in advanced or late stage of construction. Where the first three here, Skärberget, Utteberget, Kårnes and Åsenskog, are the ones that are most advanced. We sold them to the Swiss utility, BKW, this summer. We're now constructing them on behalf of them. We aim to complete it and to hand it over to them before the year end. Then we have the Stor-Skälsjön project, 42 turbines outside Sundsvall. We've sold it to the... Or I should say, we've partnered up with Hydro.
Eolus holds 51% of the project, and we've sold it to jointly then to MEAG, and Hydro will stay on as a minority owner in that project. This project is slightly delayed, mainly due to that the turbine supplier is delayed in the construction. But all turbines are erected, and as of last week, the first 12 turbines were in operation. So we don't expect any major consequences from that, but we will not be able to hand it over before year end. The second important thing that had a large effect on the quarter was the arbitration award for the project Kräktorpet and Nylandsbergen that were completed during 2019.
There was a dispute with the civil contractor. It has finally been settled by the arbitration tribunal, and was a quite positive outcome for us. So it had a positive effect on our profit and loss of SEK 85 million during the quarter. And the reason why we have a negative cash flow out from this in Q4 is that we have, during the dispute, withheld payments to the contractor. Some of them we have to pay now. The third topic was that we received the final payment for the Cald battery storage project in Los Angeles, which we have developed, sold, and we got paid by milestone payments.
So we have done now all our part in the project, and this will be. It was from our side delivered on time, and in accordance with our budget, and the project will be taken into operation by the investor IPA Power in the beginning of 2024. We also announced that we have made investment decision for the next American standalone battery storage project. It's a 100-megawatt project in San Diego with a four-hour duration. We have procured the battery system and entered into the construction agreement for the project.
So most this has affected our cash flow during Q3, and we expect to sell this project during first half of 2024, and also take the project into operation later 2024. Our offshore portfolio has grown significantly during the last year, now amounting to around 10 GW. During the quarter, we filed the application for environmental permit for the 1,000-MW project, Västvind , located west of Gothenburg. The applications were handed into the Swedish government and to the Land and Environmental Court.
We also entered into a letter of intent with Volvo Cars, where their interest is to, in the end, enter into a power purchase agreement to buy power from the wind farm to supply their factories in Gothenburg, there and also there in the Northvolt's joint venture regarding the battery factory in Gothenburg. We also announced that we are doing a strategic review of our offshore business. The portfolio has grown so much. It's now 10 GW out of total 25 GW. We see that this will require substantial development expenses over the coming years.
We want to rebalance our total portfolio a bit, and to screen the market for potential industrial and financial partners for the future development of the projects, to give the projects the best possible best possibilities for both being permitted and constructed in the end. So that's an ongoing activity that we are performing. We also submitted another permit application for the Arkona offshore project located south of Trelleborg in Skåne. So looking at our total project portfolio, we have a portfolio of 25 gigawatt.
I mentioned the share of the portfolio of 10 GW being offshore wind, 7 GW being onshore wind, 5 GW solar, and almost 3 GW battery storage project. Looking at how it's spread geographically, we have almost half of our portfolio in Sweden. U.S. is our second-largest market, with a quarter of the portfolio. We are expanding in Finland and Poland also, I would say. Mid-term, we communicate about the projects we have in late stage. This is the projects you can expect from Eolus in the coming years. But we have also to constantly add new projects to this list to be successful.
So we communicate about those projects also at our website, and we update the list quarterly. Just to mention a few things from the report. You can see that fixed assets, property, plant, and equipment, have increased quite significantly. That is land lease in San Diego connected to the Pome project. Due to IFRS accounting rules, we have to have it on the balance sheet, so you have the corresponding figure here on the debt side. So to summarize, an okay quarter. Very much focused now on the completion of the ongoing construction projects.
and we are, I would say, very well positioned to feed on the mega trend of electrification with a high-quality project pipeline maturing, and with a focus to deliver good projects for many years to come. We have quite an expansive business plan. We have more or less doubled the headcount in the company during the last 18 months. Of course, there are challenges in the market with the increasing CapEx prices, the higher interest rates and the higher return expectations.
But so far, it has been set off by or balanced out by the higher future expectations for power prices in the different markets. So thank you.
Thank you, Per. Very good, very interesting. I have a question on the market dynamics right now. We've seen, as you mentioned, the higher interest rates putting somewhat of a cap on the activity in the market, slightly less projects being started and-
Mm
... and so forth. Can you talk a little bit about the changing dynamics, changing of customers maybe, and so forth?
Yes. We see-
Mm
... when it comes to customers or investors, we see that deals take longer time. There's still a absolutely huge appetite to invest in projects in the and in this sector. We see revival for utilities. We see less, or we see the... Some of the financial investors, the pension funds, insurance companies, are struggling a little now to be as competitive as they were, and they also have some other investment alternatives, so more utilities in the game. And they are maybe not the fastest, but they are very good strategic investors.
Yeah. And you also alluded to that prices, project values have come up on the back of the long-term power prices. So you're not giving up any of your returns, do you think, or is there pressure on your returns as well?
We're fighting to keep them, of course. So far it has been possible. And it's definitely our aim to keep it that way. And there is definitely in all markets lack of projects that also keep up project prices for ready-to-construct projects. At the other side of the pipeline, we see for early development pipelines we see that there are more for sale now, which is an opportunity for us also compared to develop projects ourselves, and that prices and seller expectation have gone down a bit in that end.
Yeah. And on, you know, going back to maybe the market over the last, let's say, 2021, 2022, even beyond that, when you had all the financial buyers in there, it was maybe not too good to be true, but at least helped by low interest rates.
Mm.
What do you think can entice the financial buyers to come back? Do you think it's entirely about the interest rate, or could other factors play a role as well?
It's much about interest rate and they're seeing stabilization of the interest rates and hopefully see them come down a bit will encourage them to come back. There's definitely a huge appetite to invest in renewables.
Yeah. And looking at your business mix, it's been, you alluded to it in the presentation. You started out onshore wind. You've done some storage deals, which have been very profitable in the U.S. And now you're working with the offshore side. How should we see Eolus in a three- to five-year perspective? What do you think the business mix will look like then?
In terms of megawatts, where we have the goal to sell 1,000 megawatts, now we're saying we have a growth target to sell on average 1,500 megawatts. That will be a mix of the different technologies. And definitely, the onshore wind has the highest margin per megawatt. The offshore wind have lower margin per megawatt since they are in early phase, and there's so much more risk left in the projects there. So I expect the highest margin for the next five years to come from onshore wind.
In megawatt volume, it will be a lot of both offshore wind, but also from the really large U.S. projects, the large solar projects in the deserts of Arizona, for instance. Our U.S. business is now also really boosted by the Inflation Reduction Act, which has increased the value of the projects a lot.
Excellent. Time is almost up. From my side, thank you very much, Per. Do you have any concluding remarks you would like to share before we close?
that we have a quite positive view on the future, and we're well-prepared to take on whatever comes, so-
Fantastic
... thanks.
Thank you so much. Thank you for joining.
Thanks.
Thank you very much.