Audax Renovables closes the first quarter

Audax Renovables, the renewable energy generation subsidiary of the Audax group, has closed the first quarter of 2018 with a profit of 1.6 million euros, compared to profits of 589 thousand euros in the same period of the previous year.
At the end of the first quarter of 2018, the net amount of the turnover has increased by 7%, reaching 9.2 million euros. EBITDA amounts to 6.4 million euros, which represents an increase of 14% compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
The main events that have contributed to consolidating the improvement in the results obtained in the first quarter of the year have been:

• The continuous commitment to optimization and improvement in the performance of the plants added to the greater wind resource has meant greater production and billing of 8% and 7%, respectively. However, the sale price of energy in the Spanish market (pool) has been 14% lower compared to the same period of the previous year.
• At an international level, production has been in line with the same period of the previous year, highlighting the revaluation of green certificates, in Poland, an incentive that the park receives for the generation of renewable energy, causing its turnover to have increased by 33% compared to the first quarter of 2017.
• Additionally, the trend in terms of reducing operating expenses continues, as a result of the policy of cost containment and cost optimization. For this first quarter, their decrease has been 7%, while for financial expenses the decrease has been 6% compared to the same period in 2017, mainly due to the lower financial burden supported by project finance and the renegotiation of corporate debt. The latter was completely canceled at the beginning of April 2018 as a result of the optimization of the project finance contract for the Hinojal park, which in turn allowed the additional release of funds for Audax Renovables.

Of the energy produced by Audax Renovables in this first quarter of 2018, 75% of it has been generated in Spain, while France has contributed 7% and Poland 18% of the total. The production of the parks in this period has reached 114.2 GWh compared to 105.3 GWh in the same period of 2017.
For its part, the net financial debt at the end of the period stood at 110.1 million euros, which represents a reduction of 3.4 million euros compared to the end of the 2017 financial year and corresponds almost entirely to the financing of the plants in project finance mode.
Likewise, it should be noted that Audax Renovables, which participates together with local partners in the Toabré wind farm project in Panama, announced on May 10 the start of construction works for the first phase of 66 MW of installed power of the wind farm with a total investment of more than 150 million dollars.
The improvement in competitiveness that Audax Energía had proposed after the takeover continues to bear fruit, thus strengthening the future plans of the renewable generation subsidiary of the Audax energy group.