The EDP Group reported a 5% increase in total electricity production for the first quarter of 2025, reaching 18.3 TWh (terawatt hours), with renewable energies accounting for 91% of this output, according to operational forecast data released by the Portuguese Securities Market Commission (CMVM).
EDP disclosed that hydropower generation in the Iberian market hit 4.2 TWh in the first quarter, exceeding expectations by 0.5 TWh.
The company highlighted that strong hydrological resources marked the quarter, being 42% above the historical average compared to 38% for the same period last year.
By December 31, 2024, reservoir levels were at 59%, a decline from 78% at the end of 2023. However, due to heavy rainfall in early 2025, reservoir levels rebounded to 88% by the end of March 2025, up from 94% at the end of March 2024.
As a result, hydropower production from pumping grew by 5% year-on-year, reaching 0.6 TWh, driven by the “volatility of hourly prices in the electricity market,” the company explained.
The average electricity prices in the Iberian market almost doubled, climbing from 45 euros/MWh (megawatt hour) in the same period last year to 85 euros/MWh in the first quarter of this year.
The output from gas-fired plants increased by 1 TWh compared to the same period last year, representing 8% of EDP’s total electricity production for the first quarter, up from 2% previously. This provided flexible and complementary energy to the increased penetration of renewables.
In the past 12 months, EDP Group added 3.5 GW (gigawatts) of wind and solar capacity.
The company noted that the expansion of installed capacity was affected by asset rotation transactions in Europe (0.5 GW), particularly in Italy (0.2 GW) in June and Poland (0.2 GW) in September. Regarding the asset rotation strategy, EDP currently has two signed transactions in Spain and the USA, with the majority of the 2025 asset rotation plan execution expected in the second half of the year.
Wind and solar production rose by 11% to 11.1 TWh, bolstered by significant growth in installed solar capacity, chiefly in North America.
EDP reported a slowdown in the decline in the number of electricity clients in Portugal’s liberalized market, decreasing from a loss of 71,000 clients in the first quarter of last year to 47,000 in the same period this year. This improvement followed a 5% rise in new customer acquisitions and a substantial 10% reduction in customer departures.
In Brazil, distributed electricity grew by 7% year-on-year due to high temperatures and a 2% increase in customers connected to the grid compared to the same period last year.
In the Iberian Peninsula, distributed electricity rose by 3% year-on-year, with a 1% increase in connected customers year-on-year.
Specifically in Portugal, there is a continued strong growth in connection requests associated with the energy transition, especially for new renewable energy connections, with an increase of 16% compared to the same period last year and new electric mobility points rising by 30% year-on-year.
