Holaluz: what happened to the 'rooftop revolution'?

BarcelonaThe Catalan energy company Holaluz has gone from being considered a success story to being one step away from losing its operating license. Last week, the Spanish government began the procedures to withdraw its consideration as an electricity marketer and a procedure to transfer their clients to other reference companies. However, what has happened since the applause in entrepreneurship forums and the headlines for Holaluz to have reached this point?

Where did Holaluz come from and what was it doing differently?

Holaluz was born in 2010 thanks to three young engineers who had met while studying for a master's degree. Carlota Pi, Oriol Vila and Ferran Nogué launched a 100% renewable electricity company. They wanted to propose an alternative model to that of large electricity companies, in a kind of David versus Goliath.

Holaluz's business is summarized in the advertising campaign The rooftop revolution and is based on two pillars: on the one hand, the installation of panels and, on the other, the commercialization of the resulting energy. The idea is that the company takes care of the installation on private rooftops and, in return, commercializes the generated electricity. Customers pay a fixed fee for the electricity they consume.

According to Holaluz's website, in its sixteen years of existence, it has installed solar panels on more than 14,000 rooftops and has closed more than 325,000 supply contracts. The electricity company had up to 750 employees between 2022 and 2023.

When did things start to go wrong?

Self-consumption reached its peak at the end of 2022, when installations grew by more than 2,000% compared to three years earlier. Consumers saw it as a way out due to the increase in electricity prices caused by the war in Ukraine – which made the investment profitable – and public subsidies.

However, when prices normalized, reaching historic lows, self-consumption lost appeal. In 2023, renewables fell by almost 50%. In that fiscal year, Holaluz registered losses of 26 million euros, meaning it multiplied by five the 5.1 million red figures from 2022.

Has Holaluz ever made a profit?

Although Holaluz's recent years have been marked by losses, the company had obtained profits for the first time in 2016, with a net result of half a million euros. On the other hand, it hit rock bottom in 2023, with more than 26 million in losses and a consolidated debt of 58.8 million. Holaluz has never given up and has always maintained that "the structural growth opportunity remains intact", because the Spanish renewable energy market is "largely unexplored".

The company's recent history has been marked by its stock market listing in 2019, the employment regulation file (ERO) to lay off around 200 people, the suspension of trading in 2024 for not having presented the audit of the accounts and the debt restructuring plan.

In the energy sector, Holaluz closed an agreement with Tesla to install batteries from the electric car manufacturer in self-consumption facilities and launched a product called fair tariff to simplify billing and reduce non-payments.

How has it performed on the stock market?

Holaluz began trading on the Alternative Stock Market (MAB) –the stock market for SMEs– in 2019 with a share price of 7.78 euros, which raised the company's valuation to 160 million. It reached a valuation of 257 million, while on Friday, when the Spanish government had already opened the investigation, but it was not yet known, the share value was 0.82 euros.

Before going public in 2019, the electricity company closed three funding rounds: an investment of 4 million euros from the fund Axon Partners Group in 2016, one of 10 million from Geroa EPSV and one of 30 million subscribed by institutional investors prior to the stock market launch.