António Mexia stressed that "the results of EDP's international business were very positive, which made it possible to mitigate the loss accumulated over the last year and a half in the conventional business in Portugal. These results in Portugal came from an adverse regulatory and fiscal context and an extremely dry first half. The continued commitment to an international investment and growth policy, focused on renewable energies and combined with the asset rotation plan, has proven to be a successful strategy."

The strong growth in the renewable business and in Brazil influenced the results of the first half of the year. Wind and solar set-up capacity rose 6% to 11.4 GW and the asset rotation strategy generated a gain of €0.2 million owing to the agreed sale of a wind farm portfolio in four European countries. In Brazil, the network business showed strong growth as demand for distribution networks increased and the first transmission line came into operation.

On the other hand, results in Portugal were hindered by adverse regulatory and fiscal context and by an abnormally low output of hydro energy production in a year drier than the previous (50% less rain than in the same period of the previous year and 44% below average).

Net debt stood at €14.0 million (4% above December 2018), but still 1% lower than in June 2018, while being enlarged by the high amount of net expansion investment. This investment more than doubled year-on-year (€1,252 million vs. €592 million) and was almost completely devoted to renewables (85% of the total) and the transition in Brazil.

In this first half of 2019, EDP continued to implement its leadership strategy in the energy transition as foreseen in the current strategic plan for 2019-2022.

Learn more about the results for the first half of 2019.