The financial performance of RWE Renewables’ onshore wind and solar division is expected to be negatively impacted by the extreme weather conditions being experienced in Texas.
The company said it expects the adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of a low to mid three-digit million euro amount in total for 2021 as a result of the freezing conditions.
The icy temperatures have severely reduced power generation across all technologies.
Part of RWE’s onshore wind fleet in Texas was also partly out of service from 9 February because of icing and grid issues.
It said the RWE operations teams were continuing to focus their efforts on getting back the affected wind turbines to full operation.
RWE Renewables’ chief operating officer for wind onshore and solar photovoltaics in the Americas Silvia Ortín Rios said: “Priority number one is to safely resume operations at our production sites.
“I would like to thank all our employees who are working hard to get through this difficult situation for all families in Texas.”
The extreme weather conditions also impacted power prices.
High electricity demand from residential heating in combination with lower production and power plant availability led to high electricity market prices.
As RWE had sold parts of its expected production from wind turbines in advance, the company had to purchase these volumes to fulfill its supply obligations.
The already high prices were further increased following an order from the Public Utility Commission directing ERCOT to make adjustments to the prices.
This resulted in costs to buy back power increasing further and up to $9,000 per MWh.
The US is experiencing extreme winter weather conditions all the way down to the Gulf region with extremely low temperatures and icy conditions.
This has led to a low availability of electricity generation assets in Texas.
ERCOT, the Texas grid operator, was forced to order rotating outages affecting millions of customers in Texas.
The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott issued Disaster Declaration in response to severe winter weather and President Joseph R. Biden approved Texas Emergency Declaration.