Inside AES Corporation’s Focus on Fuel Mix and Sales Mix

As discussed previously in this series, AES Corporation (AES) has 35,876 MW (megawatts) spanning 17 countries. Of that amount, nearly 27,000 MW of capacity is operational. Notably, AES is primarily dependent upon coal for power generation.

Among its 17 operational countries, AES operates primarily in the United States, with more than 12,000 MW of total capacity in that region. Utilities like American Electric Power (AEP), Duke Energy (DUK), and DTE Energy (DTE) also generate the majority of their power using coal.

The chart above shows AES’s percentage of revenue contributions from various regions in 1Q16. In 2015, more than 70% of the company’s earnings came from outside the US. This brought its earnings severely under pressure due to the risks of currency fluctuations.

What, then, is the outlook for AES’s earnings going forward? Continue to the next part to find out.