Scatec ASA

OSE:SCATC

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q4

[Raymond Carlsen, Chief Executive Officer]

Good morning. It's 8:00 Tuesday morning in Oslo. And we're here to share the result from Q4 2020 with you all. As usual, I will do the highlights and provide you with a project update. Mikkel will do the financial review. And then at the end, we'll have a short review of the market and the outlook for Scatec. We -- I should say, on Friday last week, just before 5:00, we closed the acquisition of SN Power. That is and has been a major undertaking for Scatec, and we are extremely happy that we are now one company. For the fourth quarter, we had NOK 223 million on the bottom line in terms of the EBITDA; and for the year as a whole, NOK 1,306 million. We started operation -- or commercial operation of 75 megawatts in the last quarter last year, and we added another 150 megawatts to the project backlog. The project pipeline increased to 10 gigawatt, and that includes the SN Power pipeline. We also raised equity of NOK 4,750 million to fund the acquisition of SN Power as well as further growth. Our Board is proposing dividends of NOK 1.09 per share. The power production, if you compare the last quarter 2020 to the last quarter 2019, increased by 37%. Now we characterize 2020 as a transformation year in many ways. We broadened our growth strategy by acquiring SN Power. We added wind to our technology as well as batteries. And we turned ourselves into a broad technology renewable company. We grid-connected a little bit shy of 400 megawatts. And I'm also extremely proud to say that our environmental, social and governance last year received top ratings from many of the agencies that are following the industry around the world. Now if you look at this in terms of megawatts, we will have, when the remaining projects under construction on the solar side are up and running, 1.9 gigawatt in operation. Hydro will represent 1.4 gigawatts. And we have 39 megawatts of wind. I should add that we also have a small battery PV power plant operating in Africa. That translates into, in terms of power production, 4.1 terawatt hours. We are almost 500 people. If you look at the revenues of the combined company for last year, it's NOK 4.4 billion with an EBITDA of NOK 2.4 billion. This is, I think, a milestone achievement. This was SN Power. They decided to make an acquisition of a wind farm in Vietnam that has been in operation for a couple of years. That was -- that deal was actually closed last year. The size is reasonable, I would say. I mean it's a lot of turbines operating. It's actually 2 parts combined in 1. But it's more than that because it's also a project that is placed in one of the most growth-aggressive countries in the world. And we will add a lot of projects to our portfolio there down the road. I'll return a bit to the market on a slide a bit later in the presentation. Pakistan has been on our map for many years. We have been working very hard in Pakistan to develop projects. And I'm also now very happy to share with you that we are moving the Sukkur project in the southern part of Pakistan into our backlog. That will require around $100 million in capital expenditure. It will produce more than 300 gigawatt hours when in operation and with annual revenues of USD 11 million. We will, in this case, of course, be an owner. We will do the EPC, the operation and maintenance and as well as the asset management of the project once in operation. Financing is in place basically from FMO, a development bank, and from the Faysal Bank. We expect construction to start in the next few months. Conducting business during COVID-19. What -- if I look back, I'm also extremely happy to recognize and -- I mean how important electricity is. I mean we have had all our plants in full operation. They are and have been considered essential industry. All our contracts have been honored. And we have also been able to pursue new business opportunities, thus, the increase in the pipeline of projects. But of course, I shouldn't hide that some of these activities that we do are extremely local. They have been hampered by lack of availability of some of the officials that we have to deal with. We are negotiating contracts for land. We are needing to develop the input to the environmental impact assessments all important documents in order to make a project fly. We have had all through the year, that was started in the early days of 2020, a COVID-19 monitoring task force that we have been meeting several times a week for the past year. We have also redirected some of our development programs to support people that are in desperate need during crisis with food boxes, with assistance at many levels. And the other programs that we have been working as well have been operational throughout 2020. With regards to climate reporting. Of course, we have been working on the ESG side of the business for the past 5 years. And it's also intrinsic to our business that we are -- I mean we are not only a good corporate citizen because that makes sense for us, but it's also extremely important for us because we are in many parts of the various countries where industrial projects aren't that often. And we rely on a very good relationship with the local people, with the villages, with the tribes that are there. In, for example, Pakistan, we have been working for a long time with the local tribes there to explain and involve them in the development of the project. Now we have had an even stronger focus in 2020, and we are happy to share with you that we are an A-listed company in CDP, Carbon Disclosure Project, and this is an extremely comprehensive reporting platform. I'm sure that you follow the industry in general. And the investors and are focused on ESG will appreciate that this is going to become even more important going into the future. We have recently set a climate target for our company, and that will now be updated to include hydropower, the comprehensive portfolio of projects in the backlog and pipeline as well as in production. And I'm happy to also say that our sustainability report will be finished and publicized along with the annual report sometime in March. And I welcome you to take a look at the report. That will provide you with much more details about what I just talked about. Okay. Mikkel, please.

[Mikkel Tørud, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you. Let's then have a closer look at the numbers and the proportion of financials. So we report revenues of NOK 497 million and EBITDA of NOK 223 million in this quarter. We saw an increase in power production year-on-year. And we have continued to have a very strong focus on project development. We spent a total CapEx and OpEx of NOK 67 million in the quarter on developing our pipeline and backlog. And as you've seen, we had limited revenues in the D&C segment in this quarter, while we expensed transaction costs of NOK 47 million related to the acquisition of SN Power. And that was also impacting the proportionate figures in the Corporate segment in this quarter. Now we also held a significant cash of dollars at the end of the year to settle the SN Power acquisition. And that -- the fact that the NOK strengthened against the dollar led then to a currency loss of NOK 480 million in -- at the end of the year. Now looking at 2020 as a whole, we report revenues of NOK 2.8 billion and EBITDA of NOK 1.3 billion. And we saw an increase, as I said, of power production -- a significant increase in power production year-on-year, while the D&C segment decreased compared to 2019. Now a closer look at Power Production. We had 1.6 gigawatt in production in the fourth quarter. Production reached 407 gigawatt hours compared to 430 gigawatt hours in the previous quarter and 298 gigawatt hours in the same quarter last year. We see the fourth quarter as being seasonally lower in terms of production than the rest of the year. And we have had a somewhat weaker production across a few of our plants in this quarter compared to the same quarter in 2019. So it came in a bit lower than we anticipated on the production side in the fourth quarter. Operating expenses and depreciations have increased, in line with the increased production capacity, and we've seen fairly stable EBITDA margins. For 2020, revenues reached, as you can see, NOK 1.7 billion; and EBITDA, NOK 1.4 billion. Moving to Services. This is a segment comprising of O&M and Asset Management services that Scatec is providing to the plans in our group. We report revenues of NOK 45 million and EBITDA of NOK 10 million. And EBITDA is down year-on-year, impacted again by some seasonal variations and also some one-off items that we had in this quarter. And the 2020 revenues grew to NOK 232 million and NOK 82 million of EBITDA, a 35% EBITDA margin. Now on the Development & Construction side. The key point here is that we see the project pipeline and backlog maturing. We had limited revenues in the quarter as all the main activities related to the completion of the existing construction project is done. Revenues were NOK 45 million. We reported 12% gross margin but with an EBITDA loss in the quarter and with the OpEx base here increasing somewhat compared to previous quarters as we spend more now on developing our pipeline. Also, the ongoing grid connection and commissioning activities in Ukraine and Argentina is not part of our scope of EPC work. We rely on utilities and grid operators for this, and it's unfortunately been taking longer than anticipated to grid-connect these plants. And we now expect this to happen in the second quarter this year. Yes. And then looking at our balance sheet. At the end of the fourth quarter, consolidated assets stood at NOK 26.7 billion compared to NOK 21.6 billion at the end of last year. And consolidated cash were at NOK 7.8 billion, of which close to NOK 6 billion were free cash available at the group level. And we raised NOK 4.8 billion in October, and we've spent about NOK 3.5 billion of that cash last Friday to -- when we closed the SN Power transaction. And I will get back to a bit more details on that. Finally, the group level book equity increased to NOK 11.2 billion, an equity ratio of 94%, as we measure it in our loan and bank facility agreements. Looking then at the cash movements through the quarter. Again, the capital increase is, of course, dominating this bridge. However, we also received NOK 114 million of distributions from our operating power plants. And we also invested another NOK 83 million of equity into new projects, mainly then Ukraine as we are completing that portfolio. Now I also wanted to highlight our dividend proposal for 2020 or the Board's dividend proposal. First of all, the dividend policy is for us to continue to pay consistent and growing cash dividends to our shareholder and typically then paying 50% of the free cash distributed from the producing power plants. And we received NOK 346 million of distributions from the -- this portfolio in 2020. And the Board is then proposing to pay NOK 173 million, half of that amount, for 2020. That represents NOK 1.09 per share. Obviously, with the SN Power portfolio now added, the cash generation from the operating power plants will increase significantly. And then a bit on the short-term guidance. Here, the guidance is basically for Scatec's -- all Scatec's part of the business, not SN Power. We are not expecting any material D&C revenues until new projects from the backlog is moved into construction. And you can see the guidance for the year, 3.2 terawatt hours or so of production for 2021. And Services revenues is expected to reach NOK 270 million with an EBITDA margin of about 30%. Now we presented this funding of the SN Power acquisition in October. I wanted to recap it here. We're paying -- we paid $1.2 billion for the SN Power assets. And we closed it last Friday, as Raymond mentioned. And we've established debt facilities of about $750 million, while we also spent $416 million of cash to pay for SN Power. And you can see, there's a $200 million vendor note, basically from Norfund, the seller. And the structure here is basically a debt facility with an interest step-up after 7 years. There's a flexibility in terms of interest payments. This is unsecured and subordinated debt instrument. Then we have $150 million 4-year senior secured Green Term Loan from our relationship banks and another $400 million acquisition finance with a tenor of 18 months. Post the transaction, we have liquidity available of NOK 3.9 billion. That includes the $180 million Green RCF that we have now also established. So we're well prepared for taking on future growth and new projects. Finally, I also wanted to share with you the financial results for SN Power for 2020. And the performance here were impacted by hydrology and also, to some extent, COVID. These are plants with a mix of contract types. It's also -- it's capacity payments independent of volume produced. It's also feed-in tariffs in Laos. But it's also then, to some extent, power sold into the wholesale market, into a merchant market in the Philippines. First of all, 2020 production ended at 4.9 terawatt hours on a gross basis and 1.4 terawatt hours on a net basis. And that's below what we expect to be the median annual production, as you can see, 6.1 terawatt hours and 1.8 terawatt hours here net. So we saw reduced water inflow, less water, less rain in the first 9 months of 2020. But it improved at the year-end, so at the moment, we have a much better situation in terms of production at -- across the board. And we also saw COVID-19 impacting power demand and prices in the Philippines after the lockdowns there in a large part of 2020. So we are not -- we are basically expecting the financial results to improve once we see both these factors coming back, better power prices after, hopefully, we see improvement in the COVID situation and also better production with more water available, as we already have seen now in the beginning of this year. We will also then provide further details of SN Power, the assets, the pipeline and guidance around that in the Capital Markets Update that we're planning to host on the 23rd of March. So we'll get back to more on this then. Raymond?

[Raymond Carlsen, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you very much, Mikkel. Market and market outlook. Well, everybody seems to look towards 2050, and so will we. And of course, we have then borrowed some information from Bloomberg New Energy that was publicized last quarter in 2020. And the bold statement is that the world can be powered by renewables in 2050. I would probably say the world will be powered by renewables in 2050. The global increase in electricity will be 60%, and 75% according to their projections, will be covered by renewables. The consumption of fossil fuel will be reduced from 64% today to 20% or maybe less of market share in 2050. And solar wind, hydro and storage will increase the share from 36% to 73%. And of course, those are the technologies that is part of new Scatec. You will see also that in our home markets and non-OECD countries, the growth of almost 100% or 91% will be from those countries. If you take a look at this, is this optimistic? No. In my view, I think this is too conservative. If you look at megatrends in the past, you will see that once things start to catch traction, things will move even faster. And why is that? Well, when things are moving faster, when there is a megatrend, that in itself is self-amplifying. That will attract more research and development money. You have in Europe the taxonomy. That have a major impact. You have the ESG that I talked about before. That will impact the investor sentiment. In fact, the investor will drive -- investors will drive some of this development. And there is a foundation, there's a fundament also, as this slide shows, the need for more electricity, a growing market. And most of all, most importantly of all, this is good for the climate. If you look at our pipeline now, around 10 gigawatts with the acquisition of SN Power, you see that it is spread around the growth belt of the world, the emerging markets, high-growth markets. And we have in most of our markets all the technologies that will be a part of future and, I should rather say, a part of Scatec as we are today. So we have continued during the year to develop these projects. And we see that there's a growing interest, a growing need to contract more renewable energy. And we also see that the prices are becoming more and more favorable for the buyers. That can be governmental institutions, large industrial conglomerates or small villages that are in desperate need for more electricity. This is a bit unique. When -- I mean a lot of people haven't really thought too much about hydropower and the potential to use hydropower and rather the reservoirs for future electricity production. I mean we are now testing out in the Philippines a floating solar unit that is being tested out to see how much production you can get out of it. Is it susceptible to high wind speeds? You know that the Philippines is a hurricane-prone country. And of course, these panels should stay on the lake surface when the high winds enter. And so far, so good; good tests in the Philippines. The -- I mean the hydropower reservoirs are -- have a unique facet to it because it's open space, it's land -- well, it's actually floating land, so to speak. You can put solar panels on top. And it is -- what is good about it is that you will be able to reduce the evaporation. You will be able to utilize existing infrastructure. And in some cases, some parts of the world where you need to conserve water, you can actually reduce the production from hydropower during the day while you're getting wind or solar power and then have a better-balanced energy system. So we are seeing a lot of opportunities deploying our floating solar technology onto the reservoirs, not only the ones that are part of SN Power's portfolio but also other reservoirs. We'll get back to you in the future to share more information about this. Now we have some very, very big projects that we -- that are in the making. In the last quarter last year, we publicized the MOU that we have entered into with Norsk Hydro and Equinor in Brazil. We are extremely hopeful about that. This is -- that project is being developed as we speak, both on the technology side but also on the financing side. And Brazil for us will continue to be a very, very important market over the next decades. India, they embarked on an aggressive growth on renewables -- of renewables a few years back, and they are proving to -- have been proving to deliver on that. We are pursuing some very large projects in India, both mainly on the wind -- on the solar side but also on the wind side. So for -- India for us, having not been a part of the targeted markets, are now one of our main markets for the future. South Africa, many times characterized by us as our home market since this is where we, for the first time, implemented utility scale, large projects back in 2010, very important for us. And I'll give you an example of one project that we're working on, on the next couple of slides. Vietnam, also been a market that we have talked about for quite some time. We now have a wind project in operation. We are developing both floating and onshore solar projects, but we are also looking at large-scale offshore wind project in Vietnam. Why is that? Well, the Vietnamese have publicized their interest in renewables. They have a foundational increase in growth between 8% and 9% for the next decade. And for that, to drive that growth, they need more electricity. And of course, renewable energy has also in Vietnam become much more competitive. South Africa, they have had their challenges in terms of stable electricity production. Their utility, Eskom, have been suffering brownouts due to old coal-fired power plants. And with the new President, President Ramaphosa, at the helm, they have decided to implement an accelerated electricity program. And that -- I'll give one example on what we have been doing in this program on the next slide. But the -- this was launched in 2020. It is 2 gigawatts that will be contracted. It will be with a sovereign guarantee. It will be contracts that will last for 20 years. It will be technology neutral. I mean it doesn't matter whether this is hydropower-, solar-, wind- or LNG- or LPG-based programs or electricity-producing units. And what's even more important is that you have to connect the project only -- you have to start building only 4 months after the award. And you have 12 to 18 months to deliver. So if these contracts are awarded in the first half now, in -- by late -- or by the beginning of 2023, they will be operational. So what have we been working on? Well, you know that we have been working on PV and solar before in a small scale. Well, this is big scale. We have submitted an offer of 150 megawatts of dispatchable capacity. What does that mean? Well, it means that it is baseload for a certain part of the day. In fact, here, we have offered a system that will start delivering electricity to the market at 5:00 in the morning, and it will shut down at 9:30 at night. Baseload is guaranteed. And of course, we have to go through various tests to prove that we are able to. So this is not like the high electricity production during the day, at noon when the sun is shining. Well, we have to deliver for 16-plus hours. How do we do that? Well, we quadruple up the installed capacity of PV. During the day, we only deliver to the grid 25%, while the remaining 75% that's being produced are being stored in the batteries to be utilized in the evening or the early hours of the morning. This is important, and it's very cost competitive. And it is a message, it's a signal for what we should expect in the future. This type of combined systems will replace even more of those peak producers that used to be combined gas power plants. So nobody can now say that don't consider solar, don't consider wind because they are intermittent. With batteries, that is all under control. I've taken the liberty to show you this slide several times, and we are now a renewable company, technology -- multi-technology company that will enjoy a growing market in the future, a tremendously growing market for us, focusing on solar, hydro, wind and storage in many facets, contracted in long-term contracts, short-term contracts, hedging contracts, different settings, different customers. And we are extremely optimistic about the future as we are at the very beginning of 2021. We are building a global renewable company. We have -- I mean we did indicate in early 2020 that we were looking at opportunities, possibility to acquire. We delivered on that. We have a very, very financially solid position. The available liquidity at the moment is almost NOK 4 billion. The backlog during 2020 has increased to 10.5 gigawatts if you also include the pipeline and backlog altogether. And we are targeting a capacity of installed or under-construction projects of 4.5 gigawatts by the end of the year, meaning that we only have 11 months left of the year to deliver on that, and we have to bring those projects to financial closure, and we have to start construction. And what goes into this is, of course, some of the large projects that I showed you on the previous slides in the key markets for us. Now with the acquisition, with the broadened technology profile that we have, with the growth that we see not only towards 2030 but also beyond, we will have decided to have a Capital Markets Update on March 23, in a little bit more than 1.5 months from now. And we are looking forward to see you then. Thank you very much, and we are open for questions.

[Ingrid Aarsnes, Vice President of Communications & IR]

Okay. So first question from John Olaisen in ABG. Was the lower-than-expected production only due to less sun than normal? Or did you have any other operational issues in fourth quarter?

[Mikkel Tørud, Chief Financial Officer]

No, I think it's always a bit of a combination of weather and sun, as you say, and operations. I think overall, the plants have performed well. But mainly, I would highlight weather. We have also from time to time some issues with grid availability not sitting on our side but on the grid operator side. So that's also one thing to mention in this context.

[Raymond Carlsen, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes, I think what we have experienced particularly in Brazil is exactly what you're saying, Mikkel. But the good news there is that the grid operator is actually strengthening the grid.

[Mikkel Tørud, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes.

[Raymond Carlsen, Chief Executive Officer]

So we expect to see less of that. And that's natural. When you're adding a lot of intermittent energy, so to speak, without having sort of the equalizer or the batteries I just talked about, then you will have those issues until they are technically resolved. In this case, it will be to strengthen the grid that is connected to our plant.

[Ingrid Aarsnes, Vice President of Communications & IR]

And then there are some questions from Mikkel Nyholtt-Smedseng in Carnegie. Backlog up 150 megawatts and organic pipeline up 770 megawatts, we appear far away from the 2021 target. Could you please elaborate a bit more on what we can expect of project announcements going forward?

[Raymond Carlsen, Chief Executive Officer]

What is contained in the statement that I will not be more specific about and what I'm just aware are some very big projects that are at an advanced stage. If that was not the case, I wouldn't be standing here and confirming the 4.5 gigawatts. But of course, it's not a long time until the end of the year, but some of these projects are very large and are at an advanced stage of development.

[Ingrid Aarsnes, Vice President of Communications & IR]

And then he's also asking, can you elaborate on expected pricing and margins on dispatchable projects versus traditional plants?

[Raymond Carlsen, Chief Executive Officer]

I can. We -- I mean if you look at solar, for example, in South Africa, which is sort of the best reference we have, you will see that, that has been reduced with every bidding round. In fact, we're also expecting bidding round 5, that I forgot to mention previously on those 4, that will happen a bit later in the first quarter or early second quarter. When you're adding batteries, you're adding a bit of cost. But it is probably 2 to 3x higher than the intermittent solar price, but you're getting a baseload. And this is emerging power, so what you have to compare it to is electricity produced from diesel-generating machines or gas power plants, peaker power plants, that are probably 2 to 3x higher than what combined PV and battery solution would cost. So it makes sense for everybody. But you have to compare it to the right price. You don't -- you can't compare it to sort of the lowest possible price during the night at some of these locations. So that's why I'm saying, this will catch traction and become even more important in the future.

[Ingrid Aarsnes, Vice President of Communications & IR]

And then finally from Carnegie. Combining battery and solar is interesting. With projects growing in size, have you considered hydrogen as a storing medium instead?

[Raymond Carlsen, Chief Executive Officer]

We are, of course, watching with interest everything that's going on. And we are also seeing that with the reduced electricity prices that renewables can offer, it will, amongst others, make hydrogen generation more cost competitive, which it needs to be to become even more attractive to the market. So yes, we are watching that market. And I wouldn't preclude us participating together with the hydrogen producers sometime in the future. But it is more than hydrogen. I mean they call it Power-to-X. The X, of course, is the X factor, the unknown factor, where you, for example, can use cheap or cost-competitive, cost-efficient energy from solar and batteries, for example, to produce water. Desalinate seawater to make freshwater, with the climate changes, there is a desperate requirement for more water where the weather patterns are changing. Power-to-X, this power could also be used in other -- with other results than what I just mentioned, hydrogen and desalination.

[Ingrid Aarsnes, Vice President of Communications & IR]

Then there is a question on Vietnam. Could you please elaborate more about offshore project in Vietnam? Are there any partners? And how far has the project developed, et cetera?

[Raymond Carlsen, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes, I will not entertain that too much in detail, rather than to say that this is a very, very large project, and it is at the location where the wind reserves, to put it like that, are very attractive. I'll be happy to return to you with more information once we have decided that, that is what we want to do.

[Ingrid Aarsnes, Vice President of Communications & IR]

And then question from Andreas Bertheussen in Kepler Cheuvreux. Can you explain why the increased debt repayments on nonrecourse debt started in Q4 and was not averaged through 2020?

[Mikkel Tørud, Chief Financial Officer]

I have to get back to Andreas on that question. I will not try to answer that here and now.

[Ingrid Aarsnes, Vice President of Communications & IR]

And then a question from Andrew Dobbing. Can you please comment on how you expect pricing to evolve in your traditional solar market and how this can impact your margins and project returns in the future?

[Raymond Carlsen, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes. The price of solar has, of course, come down. And in Tunisia, I think the average price that we bid there was USD 2.50 per kilowatt hour -- sorry, USD 0.025 per kilowatt hour. That is very cost competitive. It meets our return requirements. But I think it doesn't make sense to -- if that's what the question implies, to only look at one technology in the future. You have to look at several. You have to look at batteries. And it will not be solar alone. It will be solar along with something else. So we will, down the road, become more of a system or a solution provider where solar is an element. And then, of course, the returns will reflect the various contributors where you participate in the value creation. Keep in mind that our business model remains in place, intact. We are getting income from seller electricity, construction or construction management of the plant, the operation and maintenance of the plant and the asset management on the plant. So that's 4 sources of revenues and income that is contributing to returns of the projects that we talked about. So it's more than just what you see publicized in the press, more than just the kilowatt hour price that seems to be every day getting down to even more cost-competitive levels. So I see that -- and also, I think that the customers, I mean, will be more interested in stable power supply, meaning solar and batteries together, than only getting the peak producers isolated -- as isolate technologies.

[Ingrid Aarsnes, Vice President of Communications & IR]

Okay. That was it.

[Raymond Carlsen, Chief Executive Officer]

Okay. That was, I hear, all the questions. So Ingrid, thank you very much. Looking forward to see you next time. Thank you.

[Mikkel Tørud, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you.