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France's Engie takes $774 mln hit on US wind turbines, rate drop

France's Engie said on Thursday it booked a 714 million euro ($ 774 million). impairment charge last year as a result of concerns with onshore. wind turbines in the United States and a fall in some U.S. longterm energy costs.

Engie stated in its yearly outcomes that the functional problem. worried wind turbines produced by Germany's Nordex,. while the price drop remained in the U.S. Southwest Power Swimming Pool (SPP),. which runs from Montana in the north to New Mexico in the south.

It's a really regional concern, it's company-related, the bulk of. it is one market and one portfolio of properties ... The project. started a few years back, we needed to fix it and now it's effectively. done, Engie CFO Pierre-François Riolacci informed analysts.

We have one wind farm on which the Nordex turbines do not. work, so we have a rate of availability of about 30%, which is. very low compared to what we must have, so it renders the. operation uneconomic ... We have actually evaluated the loss of worth. connected to this asset, offered it is not at a regular level of. functioning, Riolacci included on a separate media call.

Nordex has a policy of not talking about consumers'. business details ... As is basic in the market,. project-related topics are gone over independently with consumers,. a Nordex spokesperson stated in an emailed reaction to .

Nordex has set up several wind farms for Engie in the. United States and Europe and is dealing with additional new. tasks with the French energy company, the spokesperson added.

Engie was not the only one struck by cost presumptions that did. not materialise in the SPP market, its CFO Riolacci stated.

The fall in long-lasting power rates had a positive overall. influence on the fair value of associated virtual Power Purchase. Contract (PPA) contracts totalling about 300 million euros,. Engie's results statement showed.

We have reorganized all our PPAs in this portfolio, so we. are now in control of operations, and so we decided to take this. hit, Riolacci stated.

Shares in Engie were up 2.4% at 1347 GMT.

(source: Reuters)