Greek power utility PPC is establishing itself as a leading player in southeast Europe and the Balkans, an energy market offering the potential of roughly 40 million consumers, its top-ranked officials have told a Capital Markets Day event in London.
PPC’s leadership presented the energy group’s ambitious business plan, a nine billion-euro investment package, at the London event, staged yesterday, as a strategy through which the company will strive to capture a substantial share of the Balkan market.
The business plan includes development, between 2024 and 2026, of an 8.9-GW renewable energy portfolio, one of southeast Europe’s biggest, as well as an upgrading 381,000 kilometers of grid networks in Greece and Romania.
PPC’s business plan promises to place the company in a market quadruple the size of the Greek energy market.
PPC holds a 51 percent stake in Greek distribution network operator DEDDIE/HEDNO and controls the distribution networks of three regions in Romania, including Bucharest, by far the country’s biggest.
Besides greater renewable energy interests, PPC also plans to soon offer a wide range of energy solutions for consumers, including smart-home products, home advisory services, and insurance packages, all of which will be available both in Greece, through the company’s fully-owned Kotsovolos electrical and electronics retail chain, as well as in neighboring markets through PPC’s associates.
Since its leadership change in the summer of 2019, when CEO Giorgos Stassis and his administrative team took charge, PPC has progressed from the brink of financial collapse to stability and growth, and is now in a commanding position in the Balkans. Analysts have not ruled out an upward revision of targets as a result of PPC’s potential.
PPC overachieved on its EBITDA target for 2023, which ended at 1.5 billion euros, well above a 1.1 billion-euro goal set in a 2020 business plan. This has led a growing number of analysts to believe that a 2.3 billion-euro EBITDA target set for 2026 could be achieved sooner.
PPC’s planned RES growth, to 8.9 GW by 2026, or 68 percent of the energy group’s production capacity, promises to secure greatly improved lending terms for the company, once one of Europe’s worst polluters.
PPC plans to shut down all of its existing lignite-fired power plants, totaling 1.5 GW, by 2026, which will slash the company’s CO2 emissions from 23.1 million tons in 2019 to 5.9 million tons in 2026. The energy group plans to continue operating its forthcoming Ptolemaida V power station for back-up services. It will initially operate as a low-emitting lignite-fired power station before eventually converting to natural gas.