On Thursday, the electric company said in a statement sent to the Securities Exchange Commission, that EDP closed the first three months of the year with losses of 76 million euros. On an annual basis, this represents a decrease of 256 million euros. A year ago, the company, led by Miguel Stiluel d’Andrade, recorded a profit of 180 million euros.
The results came in less than the expectations of analysts consulted by Bloomberg Agency, who pointed to losses of only 43.4 million euros. Looking at the entirety of 2022, experts consulted by the North American agency expect the energy company to generate €859 million in profit, with EBITDA of €3.91 billion.
With the beginning of the year in red (an unusual scenario), the electricity company explains that the company’s result until March “was severely affected by the severe drought in Portugal in the winter of 2021/2022, the driest in the past ninety years, which led to a record water production deficit in Iberian market ”(-2.6 TWh), which led to a decrease of 400 million euros in this period. To make up for the lack of aquatic production (renewable), the EDP recorded “a significant increase in the use of thermal production in the Iberian market [quase mais 160% com recurso a gás natural e mais 162% com carvão em Espanha, ambas fontes fósseis e poluentes]The result: a 35% increase in the company’s polluting emissions at the start of 2022 compared to the same period last year.
The other significant impact this quarter was related to volatility in the wholesale markets, which also resulted in another 400 million being removed from EDP accounts.
“This water deficit resulted in the need for an equivalent volume of electricity purchases in the Iberian wholesale market, in order to meet the consumption of the customer portfolio, at a quarter of historical maximum prices (average electricity price of €229 per MWh in the first quarter, an annual increase of 407%), the company said in a statement, confirming the damage caused by the “significant increase in the cost of electricity sold, which was not reflected in the customer portfolio.”
In terms of EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) EDP showed a decline of 18% to 710 million in the first quarter (compared to 864 million in the same period last year). The power company revealed that losses associated with the “high water deficit in the Iberian Peninsula” were “only partially offset by the positive performance of its remaining lines of business.” An example is EDP Renewables, whose EBITDA grew 46% (+125 million euros) to 394 million euros.
However, in the EDP analysis of the EBITDA group, it can be seen that only the REs area decreased (-9%), largely due to the discontinuation of dams in Portugal and Spain.
On the other hand, the electricity grid sector showed a 17% (+53 million) increase in EBITDA to reach 362 million, focusing on a 51% increase in Brazil’s electricity networks, “resulting from the distribution investment plan and Including the completion of the acquisition of CELG-T in February 2022.”
And as far as investment is concerned, it rose to 2.3 billion this quarter (more than three times).
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