Photon Energy with positive results in 2014

Photon Energy has published its annual report for 2014, whichsaw a surge in new O&M contracts and a foothold in the solarstorage sector, as well as a strengthened balance sheet.

Despite feeling the last remnants of retroactive measures insome of its core markets, the company managed to grow its EBITDAand returned to a positive total comprehensive income.

In its annual report for 2014 global photovoltaic solutionsprovider Photon Energy NV lists a number of achievements recordedlast year, both in terms of operations as well as on key financialparameters. 

The group’s operations and maintenance (O&M) business unit,Photon Energy Operations, increased its business by 63 MWp as ofyear-end 2013 to 123 MWp under management. „The year 2014 turnedout to be our most successful year so far in terms of newcontracts“, said Photon Energy CEO GeorgHotar. „We now provide our O&M services in eightcountries in Europe and Australia. In particular the acquisition ofnew clients for our “Inverter Cardio” services has been showing avery encouraging trend with an accumulated capacity of 61 MWp undermaintenance to date, compared to 9 MWp at the beginning of theyear“, Hotar added.

„Despite challenging market conditions in Europe, we have beenable to make progress towards our strategic objectives of expandinginto grid-parity markets, both on-grid and off-grid, notably in ournew core market Australia,“, CEO Georg Hotar continued. In 2014Photon Energy completed a 284 kWp power plant on an office buildingin Sydney – one of the largest rooftop power plants ever built inan Australian city  - as well as a revolutionary solar storageproject for a radio broadcast site in the Australian countryside.“With sheer endless possibilities for solar storage projects inremote Australian off-grid locations, the completion of thisproject is a true milestone for Photon Energy”, explains CEO GeorgHotar.

Financial results for 2014 reflect a challenging year with pastissues, mainly stemming from the retroactive changes in the CzechRepublic, weighing down on the company, and during which a numberof initiatives were implemented to generate recurring revenuestreams and take further costs out of the business. “In 2014 Q3, weexecuted a partial repayment and refinancing of our short term loanfacility and also concluded financing facility amendments with ourpartner banks for our proprietary portfolio of power plants”,explains Georg Hotar.

Despite a decrease in consolidated revenues by 15.2%year-on-year to EUR 11.8 million, the company managed to grow itsEBITDA by 6% to EUR 3.5 million. Even though a EUR 2.2 million(non-cash) loss on the revaluation of derivatives linked to thestrong decline in market interest rates was recorded, the EUR 5.0million net loss incurred in 2014 remained unchanged to 2013.Reflecting changes in the financing structure and the decrease inmarket interest rates, in combination with a for now stabilisedregulatory environment in the Czech Republic, the fair valuecalculation of the Group’s portfolio led to an increase in itsvalue by EUR 6.0 million. As a result consolidated totalcomprehensive income for 2014 reached a positive EUR 1.5 millionafter a EUR 11.9 million loss a year ago.

“We entered 2015 in a good position and with confidence for theyear ahead: we are harvesting the fruits of our new strategy,experiencing overperforming production levels on our proprietaryportfolio of power plants, have already secured new contracts forour O&M division, and the fifth solar power plant built andoperated by Photon Energy in Australia was just commissioned”, CEOGeorg Hotar describes his expectations for 2015.

Download the report as a pdf here.

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