Enefit Green reports Q3 profit drop on sinking power prices in 2023

Estonian renewables company Enefit Green AS (TAL:EGR1T) on Thursday reported a net profit drop of 78% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2023 as its revenues took a hit from lower electricity prices compared to the year-ago period.

Despite generating 37% more electricity that in the third quarter last year, Enefit Green took home revenues of EUR 39.3 million (USD 41.8m), down 31%. Electricity prices in the company’s core markets dropped by 69% year-on-year to EUR 97.8 per MWh. Implied captured prices, which take into account long-term fixed-price power purchase agreements (PPAs), renewable energy support, purchases of balancing energy, among others, fell by 59% to EUR 84.9/MWh.

With operating expenses rising by 4%, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) plunged by 51% to EUR 15.9 million.

As a result, net profit totalled EUR 5 million, compared to EUR 22.9 million in the same period a year earlier.

The Baltic power producer operates 457 MW of installed capacity, including hydroelectric plants, wind and solar farms in Estonia, Lithuania and Poland. The company also has 81 MW of heat production capacity.

Enefit Green produced 259 GWh of electricity during the third quarter, up from 189 GWh a year ago, but chairman of the board Aavo Karmas expressed dissatisfaction with the three-month output.

Karmas said that the main reason was the missing production of the Akmene wind farm in Lithuania, which had to be deactivated due to a turbine tower collapsing in May 2023, but also availability challenges at Enefit Green’s power plants.

“Due to seasonality, the last quarter of the year is very important for Enefit Green, and our main goal is to maintain high availability of production assets to achieve high production results. We will continue to work on the short- and long-term development portfolio and keep the focus on hybrid solutions. When making new investment decisions, our goal is to ensure the promised return on capital,” Karmas added.

(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.064)

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