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Merchant generators in California saw mostly improved annual and quarterly earnings in the season’s reports, with the exception of AES. Both its annual and quarterly earnings fell. Some of the firms increased their renewable portfolios and touted their energy storage. Nearly all of the companies committed to reducing emissions.

AES: This Virginia-based generator with operations in California saw 2019 earnings of $303 million, or $0.45 per share. That is considerably below its 2018 earnings of $1.2 billion, or $1.48 a share.

For fourth quarter earnings, it reported a loss of $78 million, or a loss of $0.12 a share. That compares with $128 million in income, at $0.15 a share, in the fourth quarter in 2018.

AES did manage to halve the debt of its parent company and attain an investment grade rating for the first time in its history, Gustavo Pimento, AES executive vice president and chief financial officer, said.

AES announced it was accelerating its decarbonization goals, nearly tripling its international portfolio of renewables, to 22 gigawatts by the end of 2024 versus 2016. It also will reduce its coal-fired generation portfolio below 30% by the end of 2020, and bring it below 10% by 2030.

The company owns three aging seawater cooled plants on the South Coast: Redondo Beach, Huntington Beach and Alamitos. These three once-through cooled gas fired plants were slated for closure at the end of this year. Two of the three are expected to be kept online to the end of 2023 and are being repowered. The third, Redondo Beach, will likely continue operating until the end of 2021.

These large Southland gas facilities, with a combined 2,312 MW, are its “most significant generation business,” according to AES. They operate in the CAISO market, making up 8% of the state’s peak demand. AES also owns the Mountain View wind projects in Palm Springs.

The company agreed to sell the land held by its subsidiary AES Redondo Beach, with a projected closing on the deal by April.

The company also operates storage projects.

AltaGas: This Canadian energy company saw its profit rise 66 percent last year over 2018. Its net income for 2019 was reported at $324 million Canadian dollars, or $1.17 per share. In 2018, its net income was $195 million Canadian dollars.

Its fourth 2019 quarterly earnings were $186 million, or $0.67 per share, compared to $120 million, or $0.44 per share, the same quarter the year before.

Its California operations include the 50 MW Rippon facility and 507 MW Blythe generating station. AltaGas holds a two-and-a-half year tolling agreement with Southern California Edison for Blythe, approved by the California Public Utilities Commission in mid-January. Under the agreement, which runs from August of this year through the end of 2023, Edison has exclusive rights to all capacity, energy, ancillary services, and resource adequacy benefits produced by the Blythe station.

Altagas also has a 20 MW lithium ion battery storage project in Pomona, which is under a 10-year contract with Edison. It’s also in the initial permitting of a new 40 MW stand-alone storage project in Goleta, in Santa Barbara County.

The company completed $2.2 billion in non-core asset sales, and executed a $1.39 billion capital program, the largest in the company’s history, said Randy Crawford, company president and chief executive officer. It also slashed its net debt by approximately $3 billion last year, significantly decreasing interest expenses in the fourth quarter.

Operating revenue was $895 million for the full-year, and $332 million for the fourth quarter of last year.

Calpine: This Texas-based generator with substantial operations in California reported net income of $770 million for 2019 compared to $10 million in 2018. The company, which is owned by a consortium of investors, did not report per share earnings.

It reported that income from its facilities in the West, which are primarily in California, increased by $91 million in 2019 compared to the prior year. That was attributed to higher resource adequacy revenues and higher contribution from hedging activities. That was offset by lower revenue from reliability-must-run contracts and lower generation at The Geysers because of a PG&E transmission outage associated with a wildfire.

Calpine owns the 725 MW Geysers geothermal farm in Sonoma County, plus 19 gas fired plants and three cogeneration plants in the Golden State. A number of them operate under power purchase agreements with Pacific Gas & Electric.

NextEra Energy: This Florida-based company has substantial wind, solar, and battery energy storage facilities in California.

NextEra’s Energy Resources reported full year net income of $1.81 billion or $3.72 per share. That’s compared to $4.7 billion, or $9.82 per share the prior year.

Its fourth quarter 2019 earnings were $433 million or $0.88 per share, considerably higher than the last quarter 2018 earnings of $264 million, or $0.55 a share

The recent earnings growth was attributed partly to continued additions to its renewable portfolio additions, said to add $0.55 per share.

“Our confidence in renewables being the low-cost generation alternative in the middle of this decade remains stronger than ever,” said James Robo, chief executive officer. “We expect the disruptive nature of renewables to be terrific for customers, terrific for the environment, and terrific for shareholders by helping to drive tremendous growth for this company over the next decade.”

“We continue to be very optimistic longer term about batteries,” he added.

The company expects to reduce its emissions between 85% or 90% below the 2005 U.S. average CO2 emissions rate.

NRG: Earnings for this New Jersey-based generator in 2019 soared to $4.1 billion, or $16.81 per share. That contrasts with $268 million in earnings in 2018, at $0.88 per share.

Its 4th quarter earnings for last year were $3.46 billion compared to a loss of $92 million in the 4th quarter of 2018. Income from operations last year was $1.29 billion.

Much of the increase was due to release of a $3.5 billion tax valuation allowance.

“Our integrated platform delivered another year of stable financial and operational results,” said Mauricio Gutierrez, NRG president and chief executive officer.

Much of its market is outside the Golden State, primarily in the East.

NRG’s California facilities include the 252 MW Long Beach gas plant, the 226 MW Midway Sunset gas project, 586 MW Sunset and the 416 MW Watson gas-fired projects. It also owns a 54% interest in the 393 MW solar Ivanpah project, which is under contract with PG&E. The utility had threatened to try and get this, and other renewable projects nullified in the bankruptcy court but later agreed to uphold these agreements.

The earnings report noted lower average peak power prices in the California Independent System Operator market. Last year, it was $38.15 per MWh, down from the previous year's $47.33 MWh, which is a 19% decline.

NRG reaped $396 million from the sale of its 528 MW Carlsbad natural gas facility in San Diego County. The company also sold off a large chunk of its renewable portfolio in- and outside of California in 2018. NRG also divested GenOn, which emerged from bankruptcy in Dec. 2018.

It also executed a $250 billion repurchase of its common stock, which was completed at the end of last month.

Vistra: The Texas-based company had net income in 2019 of $926 million, compared to a loss of $56 million in 2018. Its fourth quarter earnings were $233 million, compared with a $186 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Of the net income, Vistra reaped $46 million from the CAISO’s market last year, with $13 million of that amount generated in the last quarter.

In California, Vistra operates the 1,020 MW Moss Landing power plant, where it is developing a 300MW/1,200 MWh battery energy storage facility. It also runs the 165 MW Oakland plant, which is slated to close down. The company went from being privately held to going public four years ago.