Holaluz, the energy transition company aiming to decarbonize the economy, reduced its operating losses by 78% in the first six months of 2024 -4 million euros compared to -17.9 million euros for the same period of the previous year, despite the unfavorable market context, particularly in the Solar activity, due to low electricity prices, high interest rates and lack of subsidies.
Likewise, the company achieved a positive consolidated normalized Ebitda of 3.9 million euros compared to the negative result of -5.4 million from the same semester last year.
The improvement in Ebitda is the result of the operational efficiency plan that the company has been implementing since 2023 and which has led to improved margins and a substantial reduction in operating costs.
The Fair Rate product has played a key role in this greater efficiency, which has significantly reduced outstanding costs – currently at historic lows – thanks to the energy management technology platform that the company is developing for more than a decade, for which customers do not leave unpaid invoices since the amount is the same every month. Additionally, it resulted in significant savings in customer service, as subscribers significantly reduced the number of calls due to doubts about the amount of their electricity bill.
Concretely, the Energy Management division increased its gross margin to 26% compared to 22% in the first half of the previous year, fundamentally driven by the migration of customers to the “Fair Rate” product, which made it possible to reduce the volume of invoices. unpaid. . by 83% compared to the same period of the previous year, and a reduction in customer service costs. Furthermore, the profitability profile increased, with a positive Ebitda of 3.9 million euros compared to the negative result of -5.5 million euros in the first half of 2023, while the normalized Ebitda of the division increased by 40% year-on-year to 9.8 million euros compared to 7 million euros for the same period of the previous year.
The technology developed by Holaluz has also been fundamental to the group’s efficiency, and in particular Artificial Intelligence, which has enabled greater performance in the company’s key processes. Thus, normalized operating expenses decreased by 46% to 11.9 million euros at the end of June compared to 22.3 million euros a year earlier.
“Our technology platform, which is part of Halaluz’s DNA, has been a fundamental lever in the evolution of our business, enabling the creation of innovative products like our subscription product. Fair pricewhich makes it possible to deliver a personalized electricity rate to each customer using predictive models based on AI. Likewise, our focus on technology has allowed us to significantly reduce our cost base through the automation and optimization of our back-office processes,” said Hoaluz Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Carlota Pi. “During these years we have created a leading company in the distributed production sector, with a powerful and efficient organization to offer the best value proposition to our customers. We are therefore proud of the economic model that we have promoted, which allows the rapid integration of distributed generation and storage to provide flexibility to the system and reduce its investment needs in transmission and distribution networks by using already existing structures such as roofs.
The Solar activity also increased its gross marginup to 52% compared to 44% a year earlier, due to growth in the average size of photovoltaic installations, battery penetration (50% of sales in September compared to 15% at the end of 2023) and continued improvement supply and installation costs. The division’s accounting EBITDA improves to -7.9 million euros compared to -12.4 million euros at the end of the first half of 2023 thanks to lower costs and an increase in gross margin . The negative normalized Ebitda result was reduced by 53% in the first half to -5.9 million euros compared to -12.4 million euros for the same comparative period of 2023, thanks to better operational performance resulting from the improvement of the company’s gross margin and operational efficiency plan.
In total, the company achieved 747 solar installations over the period compared to 1,750 over the same period in 2023, due to the low electricity prices observed in 2024 and the continuation of high interest rates and the scarcity of subsidies.
According to the data recorded by the Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF)the majority association of solar energy in Spain, the pace of installation of self-consumption in Spain slowed by 26% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the previous year due to the drop in market prices, historically high interest rates and reduced availability of subsidies.
However, the penetration of self-consumption in Spain it is less than 5% compared to 25% in other European countries, the growth potential therefore remains high. In fact, there are three trends that will be very positive for the distributed generation and storage market in the coming months: on the one hand, the Official Credit Institute has just put into operation with the main Spanish banking entities the ICO Green Line, equipped with 22 billion euros, to contribute to financing decarbonization activities of households and businesses, in a context of reduced interest rates (Euribor is already below 3% compared to 4% reached by mid-2023); Second, the sharp decline in PV panel prices in 2023 is replicated in the battery segment in 2024 due to the sharp increase in production capacity worldwide and technological improvements (batteries are essential in distributed generation, as they make it possible to couple the production and consumption curves which occur at different times of the day in the residential segment); Finally, the recently opened public consultation on RD 2019/244 represents a unique opportunity to facilitate the deployment of collective self-consumption in Spain, in accordance with European guidelines that encourage the diffusion of local electricity markets.
Holaluz closed the first six months of the year with a turnover of 152.3 million euros against 323.5 million in the same period of 2023, in a context of falling electricity prices, while the consolidated net result improved by 35.4% to -13.5 million euros against -20 .9 million in the same period of the previous year.
As of June 30, Holaluz had more than 300,000 contracts, including 16,118 for the management of solar installations, i.e. 11% more than one year on the next. Holaluz enjoys high customer trust in the company, as confirmed by the rating of 4 out of 5 on the Trustpilot review platform.
Holaluz joined the SBTI in 2024 to make its emissions reduction commitments public. The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTI) is a collaboration between CDP, the UN Global Compact, the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) that helps companies and institutions around the world to reduce their emissions and fight the climate crisis. Its goal is to limit global warming to 1.5ºC and cut emissions in half before 2030, with the idea of reaching net zero emissions before 2040. Holaluz is one of the first companies of its kind to join this initiative , in which Acciona, Cellnex, Iberdrola, Inditex, Indra, Meliá, Siemens Gamesa, Telefónica and Sacyr already participate.
