Huaneng Renewables, a clean-energy unit of China’s biggest electricity producer, reported net income that missed estimates as the growth of the nation’s wind-power installation slowed.
The unit of China Huaneng Group generated profit of 1.02 billion yuan in 2011, a 94 percent gain from a year earlier, Huaneng said yesterday in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange. That is less than the 1.2 billion yuan mean estimate of six analysts compiled by Bloomberg.
China’s wind-power development is slowing due to a tighter government approval process for projects on concern about power grids’ ability to handle capacity. The nation increased wind- installed capacity by 18 percent last year from a year earlier, compared with a 67 percent rise in 2010, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
“In 2011, 32 projects with a capacity of 1,653.0 MW were newly approved by relevant authorities,” the company said. Huaneng increased its installed wind-power capacity by 40 percent to 4.9 gigawatts from the previous year, missing a target of about 5.1 gigawatts the company set in May.
Karl Liu, an analyst from ICBC International Research, wrote in a March 5 report that he expected “comparably weak” 2011 earnings from wind-power operators. He expected Huaneng to report the highest earnings growth compared with China Datang Corp. Renewable Power and China Longyuan Power Group, the nation’s biggest wind-farm developer.
Datang yesterday posted a 60 percent gain in profit of 729.8 million yuan last year.
Huaneng Renewables’ stock fell 1.44 percent to HK$2.06 yesterday, before the announcement.
