Canadian clean power firm Brookfield Renewable Partners has published its financial results for the quarter ended 31 December 2023, headlined by a US$35 million net profit figure, in the final three months of the year, and funds from operations (FFO) of US$255 million in this period.
Both of these figures are encouraging reading for the company, as they compare favourably to the US$82 million the company endured in losses in the final three months of 2022, and the US$225 million the company generated in FFO over the same period.
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While Brookfield Renewables’ net losses reached US$100 million in the entirety of 2023, this is also an improvement on the US$295 million losses endured in the entirety of 2022, and led the company to describe 2023 as a “record year”.
“2023 was a record year for our business on almost all metrics,” said Brookfield Renewable CEO Connor Teskey. “We generated record FFO per unit, added almost 5,000MW of capacity through development, and deployed or committed US$9 billion into growth along with our partners.”
“Going forward we are well positioned to continue benefiting from accelerating demand for clean power from corporate customers, and specifically the large global technology companies, whose increasing appetite for clean power is being driven by data centre demand, with securing clean energy now squarely on their critical path to growth.”
Solar projects drive growth
The company’s solar assets provided much of the driving force behind these improved finances, with Brookfield Renewable’s utility-scale solar facilities generating 2,489GWh of electricity in 2023, up from 1,878GWh in the previous year. These projects were also the most profitable in the final three months of the year, generating US$190 million in net income, ahead of wind, which generated US$142 million, and hydroelectric, which generated US$67 million.
This solar revenue is particularly notable considering how solar, in previous years, drove losses for the company. In the last three months of 2022, Brookfield Renewables’ solar projects generated losses of US$90 million, while hydroelectric, wind and distributed energy and storage all turned a profit for the company.
This turnaround comes as the company looks to commission 18GW of new renewable capacity in the next three years, and these encouraging financial figures, suggest that, while solar does not account for the majority of electricity generation capacity in Brookfield Renewables’ portfolio, its solar projects are among the most profitable.
The news follows the announcement that Brookfield Renewables accounted for the most new utility-scale solar capacity, in terms of operational and under-construction facilities, added between July 2022 and June 2023, with almost 18GW. While the company’s total portfolio is smaller than those of Adani Green Energy and TotalEnergies, these companies include contracted capacity in their portfolio figures, whereas Brookfield Renewable does not, suggesting that the Canadian company could have a yet larger influence on the global solar sector.
