Enefit Green produced 141 GWh of electricity in September, which is 48.3% more than in the same period last year. During Q3 as a whole, Enefit Green's electricity production increased by 31.8% to 342.1 GWh, mainly due to the addition of production from new wind and solar farms. The result was about 109 GWh below what was previously planned, mainly driven by the slower-than-expected production start at the Sopi-Tootsi wind farm, downregulation of production capacities and weak wind conditions.
Wind energy
Enefit Green’s production volume in September was mostly driven by the 65% y-o-y increase in the volume of wind energy production to 120 GWh. An important contribution to the growth was made by new wind farms in Lithuania and Finland. A tenth of the wind energy production in September was also provided by the Sopi-Tootsi wind farm, which is gradually being brought online. Delayed start of production of the Sopi-Tootsi wind farm to the end of the quarter had a significant impact on the production of the third quarter compared to expectations (-68.5 GWh).
The average wind speeds in Lithuania and Finland in September were better than last year (6.1 and 8.1 m/s, respectively, compared to 5.7 and 6.6 m/s in September 2023), but in Estonia, where the most wind capacity is based, wind conditions remained modest (5.4 vs 6 m/s last year). The average wind speed across the portfolio in September was 5.8 (-0.7) m/s, with -6.4 GWh impact on production.
Q3 as a whole was also relatively windless – the average wind speed (difference from the previous year) was 5.4 (-0.3) m/s in Estonia and 5.6 (-0.1) m/s in Lithuania, which had an impact on production of -20.7 GWh. There were very good wind conditions in Tolpanvaara, Finland – average wind speed reached 6.9 (+0.8) m/s, which had +10.8 GWh impact on production. Total Q3 impact of wind conditions on production was -9.9 GWh.
Solar energy
Solar energy production increased to 9 GWh (+18% y-o-y) in September, and to 30.9 GWh in Q3 as a whole (+18%). The increase was driven by new solar farms added to the portfolio. The weather conditions had a positive impact, nearly +0.7 GWh. Compared to the expectations solar energy production was -3.8 GWh lower due to the delayed start of production of new solar farms in Latvia.
Cogeneration
Cogeneration segment’s production of electricity and heat energy decreased by 19.0% and 19.5% y-o-y in September to 11.9 and 37.8 GWh, respectively. More than half of this change was due to last year's higher reference base, which included three biomass-fired cogeneration plants that have been sold during since the end of comparative period.
In Q3 as a whole, electricity and heat energy production in the cogeneration segment decreased by 30.3% and 29.9% to 25.8 and 80.5 GWh, respectively. In addition to the sale of cogeneration plants, the production was also influenced by the extension of the planned maintenance stoppage of the Iru CHP plant in July and 5 short-term unplanned maintenance stoppages due to technical problems. In total, the Iru CHP plant was stopped for nearly 163 hours during Q3, the majority of which was due to the longer duration of scheduled maintenance, the impact of downtime on electricity production totalling -2.7 GWh.
Q4 production forecast
We have reduced the forecast of Q4 2023 electricity production from previously published 753 GWh to 643 GWh (+56% increase compared to the Q4 2023). The reason is the slower-than-expected start of production at the Sopi-Tootsi and Kelme I wind farms. As the production shortage compared to previous expectations can potentially lead to a greater need to purchase electricity to service baseload PPAs, we have concluded electricity purchase transactions for the Q4 similarly to the previous quarters of this year in order to reduce the exposure of the electricity portfolio to electricity purchase risk.
Innar Kaasik, Member of the Management Board and COO of Enefit Green, comments Q3 production results:
"The launch of new wind farms is a process full of challenges and in the short term it has kept the growth of our electricity production slower than we had previously anticipated. The availability of operating wind farms in Estonia and Lithuania has remained at a high level, and in Finland's Tolpanvaara wind farm it has remained at higher than expected level for second month in a row. The total impact on Q3 production was +1.6 GWh.
The impact of various production restrictions and downregulations in Q3 was the largest in recent memory (-26.4 GWh). Almost 65% of it was due to negative prices, more than half of which were related to the Finnish Tolpanvaara wind farm. More than 12% was related to the network services provided by Enefit Green to system operators, creating added value for both the company and the market as a whole. Q3 also stood out due to grid works and restrictions, with nearly 24% of the downregulations related to the transmission grid, the majority of which consisted of grid tests that affected the production of Akmene, the disconnection of the ?ilute wind farm due to the works at the network operator's substation, and the production restrictions at the Tolpanvaara wind farm during the construction works of a new power line by the local network operator."
Enefit Green is one of the leading renewable energy producers in the Baltic Sea area. The Company operates wind farms in Estonia and Lithuania, waste-to-energy CHP plant in Estonia, solar farms in Estonia and Poland and a hydroelectric plant in Estonia. In addition, the Company is developing several wind and solar farms in the mentioned countries, Latvia and Finland. As of the end of 2023, the Company had a total installed electricity production capacity of 515 MW and a total installed heat production capacity of 50 MW. During 2023, the Company produced 1,343 GWh of electricity, 604 GWh of heat energy and 156 thousand tonnes of wood pellets. In the end of 2023, Enefit Green exited the biomass based CHP and pellet production businesses.
