Carlota Pi (Holaluz): "We do not have an excessive debt, not by a long shot"

BarcelonaThe co-founder and executive president of Holaluz, Carlota Pi, receives ARA a few hours after the company presented its allegations against the file from the Ministry for Ecological Transition that opens the door to the company's disqualification as a marketer. First thing the next day, at the company's offices, Pi defends that Holaluz's business model is "one hundred percent viable" and that what it needs is "scale". She cannot confirm or deny that an alleged non-payment to large electricity companies is the reason for the possible disqualification. However, she defends that the company's debt "is not exorbitant, not at all".

How did you wake up this morning?

— Very good, but it's no surprise. From day one, we say it's a one-off administrative procedure. We didn't want to exhaust the deadlines for submitting allegations, but we took our time to make them strong and unappealable. In other words, today I would say we are doing very well, but just like yesterday.

Now you have already done your homework and the ball is in the Ministry's court, right?

— It may take a maximum of three months to decide, although we hope it will be closed as soon as possible. We have been in contact with the Ministry of Energy Transition and with Industry from the beginning: they are very calm, just like us, because we are sure that this will be closed favorably.

What exactly is Holaluz's business model, beyond the slogan of the roof revolution?

— Our competitors like to say we are a retailer, because that way they diminish us, but no: we act as such because we need to have that legal status to offer green and cheap electricity to our customers. Holaluz is a technology company: specifically, we develop technology for the energy transition.

— We have invested 15 years and 80 million euros in connecting independent producers of green electricity — hydropower, wind farms, solar, biomass plants, etcetera — with consumers. Since 2020, we also help families become a new producer for the system via the rooftop revolution. It is not self-consumption, everyone does that, we do distributed generation: we turn every rooftop into a new production plant that not only serves the family living there, but also feeds the system. In legal terms, they are called energy communities.

Is this business model viable?

— It is viable, one thousand percent. However, to work, it needs scale. With the 12,000 installations we currently have, we can only supply 10% of our total portfolio. Therefore, we need to significantly increase the number of energy communities. Investment is required. All the difficult situations we have faced — especially in 2024, when we truly struggled — were because we had a balance sheet with many shareholders that did not allow us to scale the business model. We solved this when we brought in a new shareholder last year, Icosium, a long-term industrial investor.

Can we put numbers to this business model? Has Holaluz managed to make profits?

— We have had profits for many years, but I don't know the numbers by heart. All these numbers are published, the audits are public. We have been a company listed on the BME Globe since 2019.

I was referring to before. Anyway, since 2019 Holaluz has been in the red.

— The energy management part of the technology platform, which is our core, has yielded profits for many, many years. On the other hand, the execution and infrastructure creation part, which is the solar part, is where we have had difficulties. But in energy management we have made money. In fact, the numbers we presented at the close of 2025, in the second half we have positive numbers in energy management.

And do the benefits on one side compensate for the losses on the other?

— I am an engineer, not the financial director. It depends on how you look at it. If you look at it from the net profit, there is a part of solar that is considered an investment because they are assets for distributed production. It is true that in the net result after taxes we are not yet making money, but we will. What we need is scale.

Holaluz has undergone a debt restructuring process and an Employment Regulation File (ERO).

— We do not have an exorbitant debt, not by a long shot. We invoice 200 million euros a year and have 20 million in debt, the other 20 million are working capital financing instruments and credit lines. Therefore, the debt is equivalent to 10% of turnover. We had to restructure it because we could not meet the payment schedule due to the crisis in 2024.

Why was the year 2024 so bad?

— In 2022, we had a lot of demand, much more than we could supply. It was brutal. We couldn't find installers and decided to invest in creating our own capacity to carry out installations. We managed to materialize around 700 installations per month, which is what we did in March 2022, one month after the start of the war in Ukraine. But in 2023, interest rates rose and sales suddenly dropped. We held on for a while, thinking that demand would recover, until we saw that we had to adjust our size. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do professionally, because at Holaluz we are a family.

It seems that the Ministry's file is linked to non-payments to large electricity companies.

— The content still has reserved character, because it needs to be resolved by the administration. But when we have it closed, we will explain everything that has happened and it will be clearly seen that it has nothing to do with the financial situation or the company, but with the business model: the confrontation between the old way, which controls people through scarcity and expensive energy, and what we are implementing, which is abundance, cheap energy and, therefore, freedom for people. They are trying to get rid of a competitor who has had an honest and differential value proposition for 15 years.

When do you think they will be able to reach profits?

— We are a company that proposes a change in model and, therefore, we are valued for the long term. If someone intends to value us as if we were an integrated electric company from the Ibex-35, they are mistaken. We are measured by the long term, which is why we have a long-term industrial shareholder.

Are changes needed in the regulation of the energy system for the Holaluz model to move forward?

— Liberalization in Spain began 30 years ago. We, with 1% market share, which is very little, are the ones who scare this establishment the most. If you really want your country to be competitive and generate well-being, you have to unblock the energy sector.