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 has presented the allegations against the file from the Ministry of Ecological Transition that opens the door to the disqualification of the company 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. She defends, however, that the company's debt "is not excessive, not by a long shot".

How did you wake up this morning?

— Very well, but it's no surprise. From day one, we said it was a one-off administrative procedure. We didn't want to exhaust the deadlines for submitting objections, but we took a little time to make them forceful 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 can take up to three months to decide, although we hope it will be closed as soon as possible. We have been in contact with the Ministry of Ecological Transition and the Ministry of 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 revolution of rooftops?

— Our competitors like to say we are a retailer, because that way they diminish us, but we are not: 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 — water jumps, wind farms, solar, biomass plants, etcetera — with consumers. Since 2020, we also help families become new producers for the system via the rooftop revolution. It's 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 that lives 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 function, it needs scale. With the 12,000 installations we currently have, we can only supply 10% of our total portfolio. Therefore, we must significantly increase the number of energy communities. Investment is required. All the difficult situations we have had —especially in 2024, when we truly suffered— were because we had a balance sheet with many shareholders that did not allow us to scale the business model. We solved it when we incorporated a new shareholder last year, Icosium, a long-term industrial.

Can we put numbers to this business model? Has Holaluz ever made a profit?

— 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 are a company listed on BME Growth since 2019.

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

— The energy management part of the technological 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 end of 2025, in the second half we have positive numbers in energy management.

And do the benefits on one side outweigh 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 to carry out 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 excessive debt, not at all. 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 our 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 huge demand, much more than we could supply. It was brutal. We couldn't find installers and we decided to invest in creating our own capacity to do the installations. We managed to materialize about 700 installations per month, which is what we did in March 2022, one month after the start of the Ukraine war. 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 most difficult thing I've had to do professionally, because at Holaluz we are a family.

It seems 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 patrimonial situation or with the company, but with the business model: the confrontation between the old, which controls people from scarcity and from expensive energy, and what we are executing, which is abundance, cheap energy and, therefore, freedom for people. They try to get rid of a competitor who has been with an honest and differential value proposition for 15 years.

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

— We are a company that proposes a change of model and, therefore, we are valued for the long term. If someone intends to value us as if we were an integrated electricity 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 must unblock the energy sector.