AES reaffirms 7-9% annual growth rate and upgrades renewables target

Energy tech company AES has reaffirmed its annual growth target of between 7-9% through to 2025 and expects to add 5GW of renewables, up from a previous target of 4GW, under long-term contracts this year after performing better than expected so far, according to its Q3 results released yesterday.
The Arlington, Virginia-based company is reaffirming its 7% to 9% annualised growth rate target through to 2025, from a base year of 2020, and has adjusted its EPS guidance, a non-GAAP measure, of US$1.50 to US$1.58 per share.
It now, however, expects to be at the low end of that range because of an “updated interpretation of accounting literature” that assumed these additional shares would be included only upon settlement of the equity units in 2024.
“Based on our current outlook, we are confident in our 7% to 9% annualized growth target through 2025,” said Andres Gluski, AES president and CEO.
Year-to-date, AES has signed 4GW of new PPAs for renewable energy projects, increasing its backlog to 9.2GW and as a result has increased its whole 2021 target to 5GW.
“With our progress year-to-date, we now expect to add 5GW of renewables to our backlog this year, representing a 25% increase from our prior target and 66% more than in 2020,” said Gluski.
The company’s 9.2GW backlog is expected to be completed by 2024, this includes 2,645MW under construction and 6,568MW of renewables under long-term PPAs.
Since this time last year, AES has completed the construction or acquisition of 643MW of renewables and energy storage, including a 344MW solar and solar-plus-storage project in the US, a 59MW solar facility in Colombia, a 58MW solar site in the Dominican Republic and a 159MW wind farm in Brazil.
And, since its Q2 earnings call in August, the company has signed 1,088MW of renewables and energy storage under long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPA).
AES’ energy storage joint venture Fluence completed it’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) in November, with AES retaining roughly 34%.
In November last year, AES merged its US-facing clean energy development business with independent power producer sPower, creating a platform with a 12GW project pipeline in the country.
And in July this year, it made a strategic investment in 5B, an Australian energy start-up that manufactures modular ‘plug and play’ solar solutions.