Ørsted A/S (ORSTED) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to this Ørsted Q4 2020 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Today, I am pleased to present Mads Nipper, CEO; and Marianne Wiinholt, CFO. Please begin your meeting.

Thank you very much, and good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the earnings call. As you know, I'm now 5 weeks into my new job. And while I am, of course, still on a very steep learning curve, I must say that I'm really excited to be part of the Ørsted family, which so far has fully lived up to my high expectations. I already have the opportunity to visit many parts of the organization. And everywhere I come, the Ørsted people have impressed me with their professionalism, expertise, and not least, the deep passion for our vision of a world that wants entirely on green energy. I also look forward to working with all of you. Our investors and analysts are among our most important stakeholders, and I do look forward to hopefully soon being able to meet you in person. If you have not done so already, I would encourage you to watch my introductory video on our company web page, where I talked a little bit about who I am as a person and leader and answer some of the questions we have received from our analyst community. Now let's turn to our annual report. This is my first set of results for Ørsted, and I'm very satisfied with our strategic progress and operational and financial results in 2020. Due to COVID-19, 2020 was an extremely challenging year on many fronts, but we were nevertheless able to maintain our leading position in a global high-growth market. And we have continued to build a strong and financially sustainable pipeline of renewable capacity. I'm grateful for the support and professionalism of our customers and partners, as I'm keenly aware that only together, we can create great things and live up to our high expectations. In 2020, we delivered financial results exceeding our expectations, which proves the resiliency of our business model and is a real testimony to the hard work and ingenuity of our frontline employees. They have been able to keep our assets operationally and to make progress on our complex construction products with limited impact from the pandemic. None of these achievements would have been possible without our talented people who remain the most important assets of Ørsted and who have adapted very impressively to the challenges in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Our group EBITDA in 2020 came in at DKK 18.1 billion, an increase of 4% compared to 2019. Earnings from offshore and onshore wind farms in operation increased by 14% to DKK 16.9 billion, driven by ramp-up of our new offshore and onshore wind farms and higher wind speeds. These positive developments were partly offset by adverse COVID-19-related impacts and lower earnings from trading related to hedging of our power exposures. Our return on capital employed for 2020 was 10%, in line with our target of an average group ROCE of around 10% in the period 2019 to '25. On the back of our strong financials, we will propose a dividend of DKK 11.5 per share to the Annual General Meeting, corresponding to an increase in dividends of 9.5% and in line with our dividend policy of increasing the annual dividend by a high single-digit percentage compared to previous year's dividend up until 2025. In 2020, the Ørsted share yielded a total shareholder return of 82%. Let me take you through some of the key accomplishments in 2020. In our offshore business, we signed the world's largest renewable energy corporate power purchase agreement with Taiwan-based TSMC for the 920-megawatt Greater Changhua 2b and 4 offshore wind farm, where TSMC will offtake the full output from the project. We commissioned our first Dutch and the world's second largest offshore wind farm, the 752-megawatt Borssele 1 & 2 on time and budget. We've initiated a structured farm down process for Borssele 1 & 2 and expect to sign an agreement in the first half of 2021. We signed the agreement to farm down 50% of the Greater Changhua 1 offshore wind farm to CDPQ and Cathay PE. In Japan and Poland, we have made good progress with our market entry strategies and have entered partnerships with leading local energy companies. Within our renewable hydrogen activities, we have also made significant progress and are currently involved in 8 different projects across Europe. In onshore, we commissioned the Sage Draw, Plum Creek and Willow Creek onshore wind farms in 2020, and we further strengthened our construction pipeline by taking final investment decision on 2 onshore wind farms and 2 solar farms. We are well on our way of achieving 5 gigawatts of onshore renewables by 2025, of which 3.4 gigawatts are already commissioned or currently under construction. In Markets & Bioenergy, we divested our Danish power distribution, residential customer and city light businesses as well as our LNG activities, which supports our strategic focus on renewable energy. And lastly, we commissioned our Renescience plant in the U.K. We are still in a phase where we monitor the stability of operations and are working on the commercialization of the technology. Now moving on to Slide 4. In Q4 2020, we saw significant strategic progress across our business. We commissioned our Dutch wind farm, Borssele 1 & 2, which brings our total installed capacity in offshore to 7.6 gigawatts and shows we are well on track to meet our ambition of 15 gigawatt offshore capacity by 2025. We signed Europe's largest offshore wind corporate PPA with Amazon. For a 10-year period, Amazon will offtake 250 megawatts from our 900-megawatt Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm, which brings the total contracted share to 350 megawatts for the first year -- 10 years of operation. Borkum Riffgrund 3 is expected to reach final investment decision towards the end of 2021 and to be fully commissioned in 2025. With the CPPA agreement with Amazon, we have signed CPPAs for an accumulated capacity of 1.3 gigawatt over the past 12 months across our offshore wind portfolio. In early December, we entered into an agreement to divest 25% of our 1.1 gigawatt Ocean Wind project in New Jersey to Public Service Enterprise Group, PSEG, and we expect it to complete the divestment in the first half of 2021. And as already mentioned, just before the turn of the year, we signed an agreement to farm down 50% of our 605-megawatt Greater Changhua offshore wind farm in Taiwan to partner CDPQ and Cathay PE. It is encouraging to see, once again, see institutional investors playing an important role in the transition to renewable energy and low-emission economies and the transaction marks a milestone in successfully applying our partnership found our model in Asia Pacific for the first time. We continue to make headway into the renewable hydrogen market now with 8 projects and partnerships.We announced our Lingen Green Hydrogen project with bp for a 50-megawatt electrolyzer system in Northwest Germany to be operational in 2024, and the project will be powered by 1 of our North Sea offshore wind farms. We also have made progress with our green fuels for Denmark partnership to develop 100% hydrogen powered ferry. Finally, we announced our fuel cells and hydrogen joint undertaking with ITM Power, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy and Element Energy to test a megawatt scale fully marinised electrolyzer to start in 2021 and run through 2024. We are well positioned within green hydrogen to capture our part of the ambitious government targets such as the EU's 40 gigawatt by 2030. We see our efforts and pilot projects forming the foundation for a new growth platform, tapping into the need of transforming hard to abate sectors like heavy transportation, steel production and fertilizer production backed by ambitious policy targets. Within onshore, we took final investment decision on Old 300, a 430-megawatt solar PV project located near Houston. Old 300 is expected to be commissioned in Q2 2022, and the project will contribute to technological diversity in our business mix. In November, we successfully secured nominal TWD 15 billion of debt financing through the issuance of unsecured green senior bonds in Taiwan. Our second green bond transaction in the Taiwanese market demonstrates Ørsted's deepened collaboration with local financial institutions in creating an active green bond market and commitment to the long-term development of offshore wind in Taiwan. In Q4, we received an administrative decision from the Danish Tax Agency, requiring Danish taxation of our British onshore wind farms, warranty extension and Hornsea 1 in 2015 and '16. We strongly disagree with the decision, which, in our view, is based on a misconception of the risks and value creation in our business model, and we have appealed the decision to the Danish National Tax Tribunal. Furthermore, we have taken steps to ensure that the Danish and U.K. tax authorities initiate negotiations to avoid Ørsted being subject to double taxation. And if necessary, by referring the case to an independent arbitration panel. We expect the process to take around 2 to 4 years, depending on the negotiations between the Danish and U.K. tax authorities. As for where we stand today, we were recently granted the deferral of the DKK 5.1 billion claim, and we continue to believe that we have a very strong case. For the second year in a row, Ørsted received the prestigious A score for tackling climate change and is, therefore, once again recognized on CDP's A list. We're, of course, very proud to be recognized for our significant reduction of our carbon emissions and our transparent disclosure of our climate impacts. We're also delighted that the Corporate Knights have named us the most sustainable energy company; and second, most sustainable company across all sectors in '21 index of the Global 100 most sustainable corporations in the world. The continued high-ranking reflects both our determination in driving a sustainable and profitable business and our commitment to be a catalyst for the global green energy transformation. It's very important for us to attract, develop and retain the best talent, and we strongly believe in the value of a diverse workforce, and we aspire to create an environment where everyone can thrive, perform and grow. Therefore, I'm pleased to see that our 2020 employee satisfaction survey showed a record high satisfaction and motivation score of 78 out of 100, placing us in the top 10% of external benchmarks in our main markets. Lastly, let me briefly add a few comments to our newly-announced organizational structure. The change will entail moving from a business unit structure to a more functional structure where the commercially focused functions from the current business units offshore and markets and bioenergy will be brought together under the leadership of Martin Neubert, who will become Chief Commercial Officer, Deputy CEO and member of the Executive Board. The operationally-focused function will be brought together under a new Chief Operating Officer, as Anders Lindberg has decided to take on the role of CEO for a Swedish company in the rail industry. The new COO will be reporting to me. And as we are well advanced in the recruitment process, we hope to be able to make an announcement soon. As a consequence of the new corporate structure, Morten Buchgreitz has decided to leave the company. Both Anders and Morten have done a tremendous job during their tenure in Ørsted, and we owe them great gratitude. Onshore will remain a separate business unit. The onshore business differs from the rest of Ørsted when it comes to technological maturity and business model. And we believe that onshore will be best positioned to realize its full potential as a separate business unit. We're making these changes in our organization to establish an even stronger customer and market focus to further strengthen the focus on EPC and operations and to support the scaling of our organization as we continue our strong growth trajectory in the years to come. Externally, we will continue to report offshore and onshore financials as we do today. This means that offshore will continue to include our hydrogen activities, while bioenergy, our legacy gas activities and renaissance will be reported in a separate segment called bioenergy and other. Turning to Slide 5, where I'll give a short update on some of our construction projects. At both our offshore wind construction projects, Hornsea 2 and Greater Changhua 1 and 2a, the construction work continues according to schedule. At Hornsea 2, onshore and offshore construction work is ongoing, and 38 out of 165 foundations are installed at sea. Once commissioned, Hornsea 2 will be the world's largest offshore wind farm. Similarly, the onshore and offshore construction work is ongoing at our Greater Changhua 1 and 2a project. We continue to see good progress on our construction projects in our onshore business. In the Permian Energy Center, we have produced first power, while at Muscle Shoals, the substation and piles are being installed. Finally, the turbine delivery at Western Trails has commenced. Let's move on to Slide 6 and an update on upcoming auctions and market developments. Last quarter, we shared our expectation that we could see global awards of offshore wind capacity up to 30 gigawatts over the coming 15 months with 21 auction awards reaching a new or time high. Starting out in the U.S., New York had its second RFP in Q4 2020 and awarded the winner in January. While we are disappointed that we were not selected, we are nevertheless pleased that New York has taken yet another critical step in meeting its ambitious clean energy goals and towards the promise of realizing a more sustainable future for all New Yorkers. We will continue to evaluate future opportunities and build on our existing commitments to the state and region, and we look forward to delivering on our promise of jobs, economic investment and cleaner air through our South Fork Wind and Sunrise Wind projects. In New Jersey, the bid window has closed for the 2.4 gigawatt auction, and we are now awaiting the award, which is expected to be announced in Q2 2021. New Jersey has become a key state in not just the U.S. market, but the global market as well. When raising the state's offshore wind target to 7.5 gigawatt by 2035, New Jersey Governor, Phil Murphy, reiterated the ambition of making New Jersey a global leader in offshore wind development and deployment. New Jersey is 1 of our strategic state partners, and we've continued to demonstrate significant progress there, keeping our commitments with recent announcements of the investment to enable a Paulsboro monopile manufacturing facility, the turbine supply agreement with GE, the completion of the 25% divestment of Ocean Wind to PSEG and our recent establishment of the Pro New Jersey Trust. We continue to invest in New Jersey and are hopeful for a positive outcome of the current solicitation. Maryland opened its second procurement window last year, and the results are expected to be announced in the second half of 2021. The remainder of the busy U.S. auction calendar continues into 2021 and we expect additional auctions in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and potentially also New York. Before moving on I want to address some of the broader regulatory updates we have seen in the U.S. We have seen that BOEM starting to roll again in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management with BOEM's publication of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, EIS, for our South Fork Wind farm and export cable projects. The Draft EIS was published in January, a few days earlier than BOEM's deadline and as required by law, it analyzes the impact of our proposed project as well as a range of alternatives. BOEM's published schedule for a final approval of South Fork's construction and operations plan COP is January 2022, which will allow us to maintain our expected commissioning date of late 2023. In another hopeful sign of moment, BOEM has recently given notice that they have started the internal federal interagency decision process for issuance of the notice of intent for our Ocean Wind project, the so-called initial action notice, IAN. The interval between initial action notice and the notice of intent is typically 2 to 3 months. The notice of intent is a critical milestone and helps provide a sense of timing as it pass the 2-year regulatory clock for BOEM's ultimate construction and operations approval. More generally, we are optimistic that the incoming Biden administration will support a timely, predictable and transparent permitting regime, and as discussed later, will prioritize the development of offshore wind as a cornerstone of the administration's climate strategy. However, until a new leadership at BOEM and the Department of Interior are firmly in place, we await further clarity on issuance of the NOIs for our remaining advanced stage development projects. While we applaud the progress made at South Fork and Ocean Wind, we continue to await resolution on whether BOEM will pursue the consensus developer turbine layout in the northeast of 1 x 1 nautical mile. While the Draft EIS for our South Fork project evaluates a range of alternative layout schemes, the identification of a preferred alternative, representing a consensus of the involved federal agencies, will likely await issuance of the South Fork final EIS in October of 2021. Moving on. The U.S. also saw a bipartisan push to extend and expand renewable tax benefits. At year-end, the Congress extended qualification deadlines for all technologies, extending the production tax credit for 1 year for wind, the investment tax credit for 2 years for large-scale PV and increasing the ITC for offshore wind back up to 30% for all projects starting construction 2017 to 2025. Furthermore, the IRS extended the continuity safe harbor, known as the built window for offshore wind from 4 years to 10 years. These changed tax benefits will further support the value creation for some of our already awarded offshore wind projects and reiterates the push for offshore wind as a political cornerstone in the continued renewable build-out in the U.S. For our Ocean Wind projects, the benefit from the increased ITC will go to the rate payers given the clawback mechanism in the offtake contract. We continue to view offshore wind as a bipartisan, given its numerous development at Seatown revitalization benefits. We also note that over the last 4 years, we saw tremendous steps forward as the U.S. offshore wind industry took form. As the Biden administration takes over, we only expect progress to accelerate, given the outbroken support to offshore wind by 2030. Forthcoming COVID stimulus plan might benefit the renewable industry as well as likely increases in resources at BOEM. Now more than ever, we continue to see a solid long-term growth and value creation potential in the U.S. offshore wind market. Looking towards Asia Pacific. Japan opened its first auction in November 2020 for the Choshi, Noshiro, Yurihonjo North and Yurihonjo South promotion areas. The deadline for bid submissions is at the end of May and awards are expected in Q4 2021. The auction comprises a capacity of 1.5 gigawatt and is an important first step for Japan to achieve its target of 10 gigawatt of offshore wind by 2030. In South Korea, we started developing 4 floating lidars off the coast of Incheon and have progressed well in collecting all relevant data for securing the potential 1.6 gigawatt offshore wind sites. We believe that our projects in Incheon will support a thriving offshore wind industry in South Korea and contribute to the realization of the government's target of 12 gigawatt offshore wind capacity by 2030. Finally, in Taiwan, we await further details for the next auction round as well as the announcement of the next auction framework and now expect the next auction in either second half of 2021 or first half of 2022. Our Greater Changhua 3 project is just under 3 -- 600-megawatt has already secured its environmental impact assessment, which is necessary to compete in future offshore wind routes. Furthermore, new sites are being investigated. Now moving on to the recent developments in Europe. At the end of 2020, our Hornsea 3 project was granted consent, demonstrating our ability to work closely with stakeholders when issues arise. In this case, we developed a robust, evidence-based Kittiwake compensation plan that focuses on the implementation of onshore artificial nesting structures. With a potential capacity of at least 2.4 gigawatt, Hornsea 3 is now eligible to participate in the U.K.'s fourth GFD (sic) [ CfD ] round, which is expected to open towards the end of 2021. In January, Poland Senate unanimously passed the Onshore -- Offshore Wind Act and subsequently, the Act was signed into law by President Duda. The act aims to award 10.9 gigawatt offshore wind by 2027 and in the first phase, Poland's Energy Regulatory Office will directly award CfDs to 5.9 gigawatt of the most advanced projects by the end of June 2021. These advanced projects include the 2 projects totaling up to 2.5 gigawatt covered by our nonbinding term sheet with PGE. We expect to finalize our binding agreement with PGE, regarding the Baltica 2 and Baltica 3 offshore wind farms very soon. Poland subsequent second phase will award 2.5 gigawatt of capacity in 2025 and 2027 through a competitive auction. Most recently, Denmark announced the terms for the tender of 4 wind farms, which is 1 of 3 large Danish offshore wind farms expected to be commissioned by 2030. The 800 to 1000 megawatt opportunity will be located in the North Sea, 20 kilometers from shore, and together with 5 other developers, Ørsted has prequalified for the tender. The deadline for the initial and final tender run by the Danish Energy Agency will be March and November of 2021 with a final decision in December 2021. And in addition to these, we do expect tenders in the Netherlands, Germany and France during 2021. And with this, I'll now hand over the word to Marianne.

Thank you, Mads, and good afternoon from me, too. Let's start on Slide 7, where I will go through the EBITDA for Q4 2020. We realized an EBITDA of DKK 5 billion, an increase of DKK 0.4 billion compared to Q4 last year, which was mainly driven by ramp-ups from new offshore and onshore wind farms in operation and higher wind speeds. In addition, the divested LNG activities contributed positively year-over-year as the provision in Q4 2019 was not repeated. In offshore, the EBITDA for the quarter totaled DKK 4.1 billion, an increase of DKK 0.1 billion. The earnings from operating wind farms was 7% above last year, driven by the ramp-up of Hornsea 1 and Borssele 1 & 2. This was partly offset by the adverse COVID-19-related impacts and lower earnings from trading related to hedging of our U.K. power exposure, which had higher earnings in Q4 2019. Offshore power generation in Q4 increased 26% due to the ramp-up of generation from Hornsea 1 and Borssele 1 & 2. Availability was 94%, 1 percentage point above the availability in Q4 '19. Wind speeds amounted to a portfolio average of 10.4 meter per second, which were higher than Q4 '19, but slightly lower than normal wind speeds of 10.5 meters per second. We saw adverse COVID-19-related impacts of approximately DKK 120 million on our operational earnings, especially related to the U.K. power market due to lower demand for electricity. Earnings from partnership has amounted to negative DKK 0.1 billion and was mainly related to minor updates regarding finalized construction projects. In onshore, EBITDA almost doubled to DKK 0.3 billion, primarily due to the ramp-up from Sage Draw, Plum Creek and Willow Creek. Wind speeds across the portfolio amounted to 8 meters per second, which was higher than the same period last year and an almost fourth quarter of 7.7 meters per second. EBITDA in Markets & Bioenergy totaled DKK 0.6 billion, DKK 0.2 billion higher than Q4 '19. The underlying earnings decreased DKK 0.3 billion, driven by lower earnings in gas markets and infrastructure relating to our gas portfolio, where the negative -- the net negative -- sorry, the net positive effect from revaluation of our gas at storage and storage hedges was higher in Q4 '19 than Q4 2020. In Q4 '19, we had a provision of approximately DKK 0.8 billion, following the agreement to divest our LNG activities. Correspondingly, Q4 2020 EBITDA from LNG was 0. And finally, we had no earnings from distribution, B2C and city light in Q4 2020 as a result of the divestment in August 2020. If we then turn to Slide 8 and our financial performance and net interest-bearing debt. And net profit totaled DKK 2.2 billion. The increase was mainly due to higher EBITDA and impairment losses of DKK 0.6 billion in Q4 '19, primarily related to a write-down of our Renescience plant in the U.K. Free cash flow totaled a negative DKK 3.4 billion in the quarter. Cash flow from operating activities came in at DKK 6.8 billion and was driven by EBITDA and lower receivables. Our gross investments for the quarter totaled DKK 8.6 billion, primarily driven by investments related to Hornsea 2, Greater Changhua 1 & 2a, Permian Energy Center, Muscle Shoals, Western Trail and Haystack. And cash flow from divestments was a cash outflow of DKK 1.5 billion and related mainly to the divestment of the LNG activities. Our net debt at the end of 2020 amounted to DKK 12.3 billion. The increase in net debt during the quarter primarily reflected the negative free cash flow, as just described above, in addition to our lease obligations and hybrid coupons paid. If we then turn to Slide 9, which shows our financial and non-financial ratios. Our key credit metric, FFO to adjusted net debt stood at 48% for the 12-month period ending December 2020. The metric was positively impacted by the higher funds from operations as well as the proceeds from the divestment of our Danish power distribution residential customers and city light businesses. Return on capital flowed came in at 10%. And the slight decline was due to higher average capital employed, only partly offset by higher EBIT. Our greenhouse gas emission intensity continued to decline as a result of our continued build-out of offshore and onshore wind. And we remain well on track to meet our scope 1 and 2 targets of less than 10 grams CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour in 2025. Our target is to be carbon neutral in 2025 by neutralizing any remaining minor emissions with carbon offsets. Turning to safety. From 2019 to 2020, we saw a reduction of 27% in the number of injuries. And as a result, the total recordable injury rate over the last year decreased from 4.9 in '19 to 3.6 in 2020. And thereby well below our 2020 target of 4.2. In 2025, our target is a rate of 2.9 or low -- or lower. So this concludes the group's financials for Q4 2020. And let's turn to Slide 10 and the outlook for 2021. Our guidance for 2021 EBITDA, excluding new partnerships, is DKK 15 billion to DKK 16 billion. '21 will be a typical year as we will not commission any new wind farms. We are currently building the world's largest offshore wind farm Hornsea 2 in the U.K. and Changhua 1 and 2a in Taiwan. But these wind farms will not be completed until 2022. This means that 2021 will not include any production from these 2 wind farms, while we will have the cost of making them ready for operations. 2020 was also a very strong win year, which increased our 2020 production, and we do not assume this to be repeated in 2021. As in previous years, our EBITDA guidance does not include earnings from new partnership agreements. As it is difficult to predict the exact timing of potential farm downs as well as the distribution of income between years if the partnership includes a construction agreement. In terms of new partnerships in 2021, we expect to close the 50% farm down of Greater Changhua 1 following the agreement announced in December 2020. Furthermore, we plan to farm down a 50% share of Borssele 1 & 2 around the summer. And finally, we will explore the possibility of a farm down of our solar PV portfolio, following the commissioning of Muscle Shoals in Q3. While we have not included any gains from the farm downs in our guidance, we have assumed a derived reduction in site earnings. We had no earnings from new partnerships in 2020, while EBITDA from existing partnerships amounted to DKK 1.6 billion. In 2021, EBITDA from existing partnerships is expected to be close to 0. In 2020, we divested our Danish power distribution, B2C and city light businesses. And these contributed with DKK 0.9 billion in our EBITDA for 2020. These effects bring the comparable 2020 EBITDA for the group to approximately DKK 15.5 billion, meaning our 2021 operational EBITDA guidance is in line with 2020. We expect that earnings will be lower in 2021 compared to 2020 for both offshore, end Markets & Bioenergy, while we expect earnings to be higher for onshore. And finally, we point out that 2021 guidance includes a DKK 1.1 billion IFRS 9 onetime positive impact as we cease to report on business performance principle from 2021 and onwards. It is important for me to reiterate that we are well on track to achieve our overall EBITDA CAGR of around 20% between 2017 to 2023, targeting an EBITDA of DKK 25 billion to DKK 26 billion of operational earnings in offshore and onshore by '23. We do expect to see an EBITDA pickup in 2022 with a full year effect in 2023 from these 2 projects coming online. The 2 projects are, of course, Hornsea 2, Great Changhua 1 and 2a, and then we will also see contribution from the contingent readout within onshore. Finally, gross investments for 2021 are expected to amount to DKK 32 billion to DKK 34 billion. This outlook reflects a high level of activity in offshore related to Hornsea 2, Greater Changhua 1 and 2a, and our U.S. activities in offshore and our onshore activities covering Western Trail, Haystack, Permian Energy Center and Old 300. In addition to gross investments, significant funds are temporarily tied up in the construction of the transmission assets for offshore wind funds in the U.K. and offshore wind funds for our partners. These funds are part of our operating cash flow. At the end of 2020, these funds tied up were amounting to DKK 9.8 billion. During first half of 2021, we expect to divest the Hornsea 1 offshore transmission assets, but we still expect to see higher level of funds tied up in work in progress in 2021, as a result of the continued construction of the transmission assets at Hornsea 2. We expect to divest the Hornsea 2 transmission assets in 2023. If we then turn to Page 11, covering a more detailed outlook for our business units. Earnings in offshore, excluding new partnerships agreements, are expected to be lower than in 2020. Earnings are also expected to be lower than 2020 adjusted for the net effect of the nonrepetition of earnings from existing partnerships in 2020 of DKK 1.6 billion and the positive effect of DKK 1.1 billion related to ceasing the report according to the business performance principle in 2021. We do not expect any further adverse COVID-19-related impact on earnings relative to 2020. The positive impact on operational earnings, driven by the last 400-megawatt of Hornsea 1 receiving CfDs from April, and full year effects from Borssele 1 & 2, net of the reduction in side earnings from the assumed farm down, will be more benefit by a number of adverse effects. In 2020, earnings on sites were positively affected by the high wind speeds, as I mentioned. Where the year ended at 9.7 meters per second, above a normal level of 9.3 meters per second and above our expectations for 2021 of also 9.3 meters per second. The tenuous tariffs are expected to increase following the divestments of the offshore transmission assets at Walney Extension in mid-2020, and Hornsea 1 expectedly in H1 2021. Earnings from Hornsea 2 will decrease as the subsidy period ended in October 2020. And we are in the construction phase of the 2 large wind farms, Hornsea 2 and Greater Changhua, both of which are expected to be commissioned in 2022, as I mentioned. But we will in 2021, incur OpEx, while we are preparing for the operations, and we do not expect any ramp up generation for these wind farms. Expense project development costs amounted to DKK 1.7 billion in 2020. For 2021, we expect expense project development cost to amount to approximately DKK 2 billion as a natural consequence of our continued expansion of our footprint. Earnings from onshore wind and solar farms in operation are expected to increase from the ramp-up of generation at Sage Draw, Plum Creek and Willow Creek, which was commissioned during 2020 and due to expected commissioning of the new wind farms Western Trail and Haystack, and solar wind farms Permian Energy Center and Muscle Shoals in 2021. The latter being net of the assumed reduction in side earnings from the possible farm downs of our solar PV portfolio. The increased operational earnings will be partly offset by higher costs related to the strategic expansion of the business and an adverse year-on-year impact from recognition of derivatives. Finally, our directional guidance for Markets & Bioenergy for 2021 is without the divested Danish power distribution, B2C and city light businesses, which contributed the DKK 0.9 billion to our EBITDA in 2020. Earnings in gas markets and infrastructure are expected to be lower than 2020, mainly because of positive effects from revaluation of gas at storage caused by increasing gas prices, especially during Q4 2020, is expected to partly reverse in 2021. Earnings from our CHP plants are expected to be in line with 2020. Then to Slide 12, where we recap our 2021 EBITDA and gross investment guidance as well as our long-term financial estimates and policies. We are well on track on our capital investment program, and we remain very comfortable with our long-term financial targets. And on a final note, we will be hosting our Capital Markets Day, the 2nd of June 2021. And depending on the circumstances, we are looking forward to seeing you at our office in Gentofte or virtually. We will share detailed information for the day at a later point in time. Until then, please save the date. And with that, we will open up for questions. Operator, please.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Peter Bisztyga from Bank of America Securities.

Yes. So this one is directed at Mads. Your very helpful introductory video mentions that you see competition as one of the biggest challenges Ørsted faces. So I'd be interested to hear what the reaction of your team was to the auction results in New York where Equinor walked away with all of the capacity. I was wondering, were they surprised? Do you have any insight at this stage and why Equinor so successful? And is there any reason to believe that the dynamics in New Jersey could be different to the New York auction?

Thanks a lot, Peter, a highly relevant question. And I mean, obviously the initial reaction from an ambitious team is always to be disappointed, which, I guess, we all share. But I think -- overall, I think it's too early to say anything about the details of why we were not successful and why Equinor managed to walk away with everything. We will course be analyzing that as we always do, both the wins and the losses we have in our auctions. But at this stage, we -- it will be another few months before we will have the insights to the prices and any other things that were sort of determining why they won, and we didn't. We will -- we are, of course, very eager to lean into, as we've already done to the New Jersey auction. And I think we are confident because we believe that, that our local content offer in that auction is very attractive. But again, I cannot say specifics about the dynamics, what would be different because every auction is -- actually has sort of their own dynamic. But it is something that we will be following up on as we get more insight into the offer that meant that Equinor won this.

Our next question comes from the line of Sam Arie from UBS.

Welcome, Mads. Let me just wish you every success in the new role. Obviously, you've got an amazing team around you. And we're delighted to have the first Q&A with you today. I think the question I was going to ask is actually very similar to Peter's. But perhaps if you don't mind, I could just build on it a little further. I think I'm right in saying that the company has not been able to win a new offshore project now since end of '19. And the oil majors have been a big part of that reason. And when I listen to what they're saying about returns, I hear some of them talking about equity IRRs in the range sort of 6% to 12%. And at the low end of that range that's implying project returns in the low single digits. And my sort of general question is, what's the Ørsted view of an equity return of 6%? And does that compensate the risk in an offshore project in your view or not? And I think sort of a kind of related topic here, which perhaps you could comment on as well, is you've got an amazing infrastructure asset to develop offshore wind farms. If you have a slowdown in the pipeline at some point, I suppose there's a risk that you're going to have capacity and teams with -- you can't keep busy. Is that -- does there come a point when it's worth your will to sort of bid projects at breakeven? Just to keep everybody busy, keep the supply chain moving forward and sort of still be in the game, maybe in a later phase in the market when returns might be more attractive? I'd love to hear your comments on that theme.

Yes. Thanks a lot, Sam, also for your congratulations. I can certainly confirm that the team is super strong. I'll refrain from talking specifically about the returns. But I think it is -- I'll just reiterate that for us, it really is important to continue to be financially disciplined while still being very ambitious in terms of pursuing the auctions. So we are not going to go into to a situation where we will go into win auctions at no returns. Because we believe it is a slippery road, and it is also 1 that is not right for the global leader to go into. We are not concerned with the market that over the next decade will grow to 6 -- to an estimated 6 to 7x the current size. We are not concerned that we are going to sit with an idle organization on EPC operations on the contrary. We do, despite, like you say, despite that, there will be auctions, we will lose, and we have not seen the last lost auction in the next many years still. But we remain confident that we can be competitive while staying financially disciplined. And if I take the optimistic glasses on, I still believe that looking into the future, we are going to have potentially more challenges ramping up rather than ramping down or keeping our organization busy. So let that be my comments to the question at this stage.

Our next question comes from the line of Kristian Johansen from Danske Bank.

Welcome to you Mads as well. So my question is on-farm downs. And whether you can elaborate a bit on your considerations on a few of your projects? First of all, why are you considering to farm down your PV portfolio? Secondly, on the Ocean Wind project, you have now divested 25%, are you considering to divest more? And in terms of the Changhua project, are you in negotiations to farm down the 2a project as well? And lastly, just on Hornsea 2, whether you would consider a farm down here as well?

Yes, I will answer that one, Kristian. Thanks for the question. Yes. We are, in a way, considering to continue to farm down. And the ones you are mentioning are exactly the ones we are considering. You can say that we look at farm downs as a flexibility we have in our capital structure. So if, in a way, we win more, we would probably, in a way, to more farm downs. If we see that we will have a period where we don't need to do it, we have the chance to hold back. But with the growth we are looking into and what Mads alluded to before, in a way, we foresee that we will probably also farm down Hornsea 2 and probably also the 25 last percentages of Ocean Wind. But it is too early to say. We have not launched the processes. On the Changhua, we will not farm down 2a as a separate project. The regulatory setup in Taiwan means that, in a way, we'll probably need to do a farm down, when we also have built 2b. So that's how we look at that. And then you also asked a question around the solar portfolio. We think actually it is a good thing that we go out and get an external market test of the valuation of our assets. And this -- we take the opportunity. We see there is a great demand for these solar assets, and we think it's a good and healthy thing for us to go out there and get a market taste.

So just to follow-up, so the potential divestment of the solar PV portfolio is more reflecting of you seeing an opportunity to value creation than it is sort of risk mitigation?

Yes, that's how we look at it. And then, of course, also with all the opportunities we see within onshore, in a way, to have a recycling model also for onshore is something that we could also see us using more into the future.

Our next question comes from the line of Deepa Venkateswaran from Bernstein.

Mads, welcome from my side as well. Although I think my question today is going to be for Marianne. So Marianne, on the accounting change, could you just help understand whether this creates any volatility in the income statement? So looking back the last few years, there's been a swing of DKK 1.5 billion for the last 2 years, either directions. And -- so do you foresee something like that in the future? And how do you take that into account for your guidance? Because you clearly will not necessarily know where the commodities will land at the end of the year. So how do you factor that? And for '21, what are your assumptions on the mark-to-market volatility?

Good question, Deepa. We do not foresee more volatility than we today have in our business performance results. You can say that it's -- perhaps we have been a bit lazy in documentation of our hedging because it requires lots of work under the old IFRS 39 to see these transactions as hedging. And therefore, we in a way to simplify our internal processes, we established these business performance principle. Now with IFRS 9, it is not as cumbersome as it was before. So therefore, we will do proper hedge accounting, and therefore, we will not have volatility in the IFRS numbers. So it will be exactly as of today with the business performance numbers.

Just a follow-up on that. Also, the DKK 1.1 billion benefit in '21, I see that there should be an impact in '22 and '23. Can you quantify what those numbers are?

You can actually see it in our annual report. Just a second, I'll find the page. So we can perhaps just proceed with the question and then I will give you the answer. No, I have it already here. It is on Page 91 in our annual report. There, you can see exactly '21, '22, '23.

Our next question comes from the line of Alberto Gandolfi from Goldman Sachs.

Welcome, Mads. The question is for you, actually. I'm sure you have been reviewing internal processes and protocols. It was pretty clear that you're very structuring where you think from the video you sent out. And I was wondering, have you noticed, in your quest, let's say, so far what tweaks -- what adjustments could you do to your approach to bidding into the auctions in offshore to maximize your market share whilst keeping a good return? And I guess that if you can answer as part of that, specifically maybe looking at the 25 gigawatts that are yet to be auctioned in 2021, what would you think is maybe an average outcome for Ørsted or a good outcome or maybe a bad outcome, meaning, should we think of you as being 10%, 15% of the global offshore market from here to 2030? Or should we think of you as being maybe more like 5%, 6%? Can you help us a little bit navigate the way you're thinking about the global industry and how you fit in it?

Yes. Thank you very much, Alberto. I would -- I mean, I think it's too early for me to say exactly what would be the -- what would be the tweaks that we would need to do again here because the dynamics of every auction are typically different with the different criteria being weighed in. So I think it simply has to be from auction to auction that we need to just be as competitive as we possibly can. I would say that we are not very specific there saying what does success or failure look like with a record high auction in being coming to market in 2020 -- '21 here. But surely, I mean, we are -- we will be bidding in most, and we will lose some of them, no doubt. But it is obvious that we do want to win. But we are -- I can't be very specific in saying this is the number of gigawatts that we will only be content with as we go forward. And if I look forward towards 2030, Alberto, then I think, for us, we are -- with the incredible growth and also the realistically very intensified competition, we don't have a very specific market share that needs to -- that we absolutely need to hold on to. But it is important for us in this time frame to stay the global leader, not just in size but also in capability throughout the decade because we do have a clear global leadership position now. And that is important for us, to stay in that position even though realistically, probably the share of market will go down. But I have no doubt that, I'm sure you've all picked that up as well, that local content, local job creation will continue to be more and more important. And we do believe that this is an area where we have a deep capability. We have a strong partnership structure that can make us leverage that even stronger in the upcoming auction. So that will be a few perspectives on it. And sorry for not being super tangible or specific on your specific request.

Next question comes from the line of Diana Lucaci from Morgan Stanley.

I was wondering if you could please elaborate a little bit more on the recent restructuring. Why did you think -- deem it to be necessary? And in what way are the new business units better positioned for tapping into future growth versus the previous setup, which so far has worked very well. And additionally, can you confirm that what changes, if any, that'll be to financial reporting?

Absolutely. Yes. Thank you very much. Highly, highly relevant question because it's very, very important not to change organizations because your Board, I think that, that now a change is necessary. I fully agree that current structure has served us incredibly well, and the focus on the individual businesses has really -- has driven a high degree of focus. What we do see is that the customer landscape, not least in terms of CPPA is changing quite rapidly, and we expect that, that will probably continue to accelerate. And we do believe that with -- by leveraging and pooling the resources that are market customer and commercially focused from the markets and bioenergy and the offshore businesses that we will create even stronger focus on delivering sort of more holistic offerings to our customers. And we do believe that we will also have the opportunity to leverage the cross-functional resources that were previously split in 3 different business units, much stronger now, so that we essentially have greater synergies internally in how we collaborate. And then I will mention that the gathering of the operationally-focused areas, both in terms of operations and maintenance EPC, but also the Danish CHPs combined, so heat and power plants. By pooling those resources, we will also get synergies that we believe firmly will accelerate our ability and our reliability of how we operate and construct our assets. So it is essential where we believe that, that the pooling of resources and the combined customer focus will simply mean that we can scale our organization globally faster. And there we believe it's better than to stay in the 3 distinct business units.

And, and...

And on -- if you can comment on the accounting.

Yes. On the segment reporting, we will actually not see any changes because since 2019, we have reported the trading -- power trading results and the power optimization results in onshore and offshore, respectively. So those will continue unchanged, and then we will no longer call it markets and bioenergy, we will call it bioenergy and others. And there we will include our biomass CHP portfolio and also our gas activities. So no changes to external reporting.

Next question comes from the line of John Musk from RBC.

Yes. Welcome, Mads, from me as well. A bit of a big picture question from me, I guess. The focus, obviously, Ørsted, certainly, from an investor perspective, always seems to be around future growth and the opportunities that you have between now and 2030 or 2050 or whatever time frame we want to put on it. But in your role, how do you balance looking at the opportunities that you have in the future, whilst also not taking your eye off the ball in terms of day-to-day operations? Is that a challenge that you've found difficult since you started? And maybe the new corporate structure we've just been talking about has been introduced in some way to help with that.

Yes. Thanks a lot, John. It's a highly, highly relevant question. Because I think it is for a company that is looking into at such an exponentially growing market with new opportunities, new markets, new technologies coming along, it is really important to stay long-term focused in our strategic outlook and how we proactively prepare for what is it that needs to be true, what are the core capabilities that are going to be vital for us in the future. But at the same time, and I mean, 2020 was probably the best possible year to exemplify that, we just need to be incredibly focused on the day-to-day execution. So we really staying sharp in the auctions, staying incredibly disciplined in how we stay on schedule, on cost in our major projects is something we simply cannot take our eye off the board. So it is a classic sort of leadership, both -- and situation, where we need to uphold a very long-term strategic outlook and systematically build capabilities ahead of the curve because this helps. And I can say that because I'm not -- I can't take any credit for it. The way that Ørsted has had the courage and capabilities to shape not least the offshore market is something where we need to simply uphold the same courage and foresight in what it takes to shape the future markets on renewable energy as well. But really, it has to be balanced with very strong day-to-day management. And to your point, the focus of Martin's new team on commercial to stay razer sharp on winning our customers and our auctions. And at the same time, have an organization who is incredibly disciplined in also executing is something that we believe will enable that to an even greater extent. That's a few perspectives on it, John.

Our next question comes from the line of Casper Blom from ABG Sundal Collier.

Nice to meet you Mads, if you can see that on the phone. I just want to follow-up a little bit on some of the previous questions regarding increased competition and oil majors, et cetera. You touched a little bit upon it on your question -- sorry, your answer to 1 question where you mentioned local content. But if you look 5 years into the future and some of these oil majors have won more projects and then they have gained some experience. What is sort of the key to maintaining the leadership of Ørsted? And how do you plan to remain the best in the world to build these offshore wind parks? Because I guess, the other ones will catch on as well. So can you talk more about sort of the plan on how to maintain the leadership?

Yes. I can. Unfortunately, I cannot be super specific 5 weeks into my job, obviously. But I think you're pointing to an absolute key point because if we stand still and just keep up the good work that we've done until now, we are going to be like a sitting duck that everybody would just catch in on. So for us, it is vital to ensure -- to continue to innovate, to continue to move the bar on how we both win the auctions, but also effectuate the auctions or build the projects and continue to also lower the LCOE and create other benefits that are vital to win. We are going to have a structured process towards our Capital Markets Day, where we will also -- where we'll also sort of firm that up and can share more perspectives on that, not the full thing because some of that would be classified, obviously. But we will be working on that because your pointing is something absolutely vital, and we need to stay innovative and curates in order to be the one to shape the market. Otherwise, we will be caught up with. And then the worst case, the market will essentially be commoditized.

Our next question comes from the line of Ahmed Farman from Jefferies.