LISBON (Reuters) -EDP Renovaveis, the world’s fourth largest wind energy producer, said on Thursday its first-quarter net profit fell 24%, despite a solid revenue increase, as it did not make any capital gains in the period unlike a year earlier.
The renewables arm of Portugal’s EDP said net profit fell to 52 million euros ($58.78 million), slightly below the 54.8 million euro average forecast by analysts polled by LSEG.
The company said it booked no capital gains from the sale of wind and solar assets – part of a strategy of disposing stakes in mature plants to finance new ones – in the first quarter. A year ago, it booked 58 million euros capital gains.
Overall revenues grew 21% to 763 million euros on the back of a 10% increase in power production to 10.9 gigawatt-hours (GWh), “with Europe and North America representing more than 80% of total generation output”, it said in a statement.
Consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciationand amortisation (EBITDA) rose 5% year-on-year to 476 million euros, beating the average forecast of 466 million euros.
Excluding capital gains, recurring EBITDA grew 20%.
EDPR, which operates in 28 countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas, said that in March its installed capacity was 19.3 GW, up about 2.8 GW from a year ago.
As of March, capacity under construction of new wind and solar farms stood at 2.4 GW, of which 2 GW would be added this year, 80% of it in Europe and United States.
($1 = 0.8846 euros)
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; editing by Inti Landauro and Elaine Hardcastle)
