Group net profit from January to June was €1.8 billion, an increase of just 0.1 percent over a year earlier.
Revenue fell by 9.3 percent, to €34.15 billion, reflecting in part lower income from electricity sales in rich markets, it said in a statement.
In this light, the firm said it was hiking its financial targets for 2016, boosting group profit forecast from 3.1 billion to €3.2 billion.
“We have delivered a strong set of results in the first half of the year, with the Italian and Latin American markets showing particularly pleasing progress, in spite of a challenging set of macro-economic conditions,” Enel CEO Francesco Starace said.
He also pointed to the success of a programme of asset disposals.
“We have now finalised over four billion euros of disposals, which is around 70 percent of the five-year target,” he said.
Starace, appointed Enel's chief in 2014, has vowed to give renewables a strategic thrust.
Its subsidiary Enel Green Power, which markets wind, solar and hydro in Europe and North and South America, was folded into the parent company earlier this year.
To simplify organisation, Enel said it was selling the Spanish unit of Enel Green Power to Spanish energy company Endesa, also controlled by Enel.
The sale is for the 60 percent of the unit that Endesa did not already have, at a price of 1.2 billion euros.
This does not affect the group's balance sheets as it is a transfer of assets between two components of the same corporation, Enel said.
Group net debt at the end of June was €38.1 billion, against €37.5 billion at the end of 2015.
ENERGY
Italy energy giant boosts 2016 profit forecast
Italian energy giant Enel on Thursday revised upwards its profit forecast for 2016 after first-half net profit remained stable despite a sharp fall in revenue.
BUSINESS
France’s EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge
French energy giant EDF has unveiled net profit of €10billion and cut its massive debt by increasing nuclear production after problems forced some plants offline.
EDF hailed an “exceptional” year after its loss of €17.9billion in 2022.
Sales slipped 2.6 percent to €139.7billion , but the group managed to slice debt by €10billion euros to €54.4billion.
EDF said however that it had booked a €12.9 billion depreciation linked to difficulties at its Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Britain.
The charge includes €11.2 billion for Hinkley Point assets and €1.7billion at its British subsidiary, EDF Energy, the group explained.
EDF announced last month a fresh delay and additional costs for the giant project hit by repeated cost overruns.
“The year was marked by many events, in particular by the recovery of production and the company’s mobilisation around production recovery,” CEO Luc Remont told reporters.
EDF put its strong showing down to a strong operational performance, notably a significant increase in nuclear generation in France at a time of historically high prices.
That followed a drop in nuclear output in France in 2022. The group had to deal with stress corrosion problems at some reactors while also facing government orders to limit price rises.
The French reactors last year produced around 320.4 TWh, in the upper range of expectations.
Nuclear production had slid back in 2022 to 279 TWh, its lowest level in three decades, because of the corrosion problems and maintenance changes after
the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hinkley Point C is one of a small number of European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) worldwide, an EDF-led design that has been plagued by cost overruns
running into billions of euros and years of construction delays.
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