Gore Street on track for further growth – Gore Street Energy Storage has announced results for the year ended 31 March 2020. The NAV total return for the period was 10.6% and the NAV finished the year at 94.6p. Shareholders saw a total return of 15.2% as the share price rose further than the NAV to 97.3p.
The full year dividend was 7p, in line with forecasts. The chairman says “with the Port of Tilbury and Lower Road assets now operational and the Cenin and Boulby assets continuing to perform, the company aims to maintain its target delivery of an annual dividend of 7.0 pence in respective of the financial year ending 31 March 2021.”
This is a decent result. The £23.7m raised in July took the assets to £73.3m meaning that the trust is starting to be a respectable size. The managers have plenty of potential opportunities in the pipeline and, potentially, the company could expand quite rapidly from here, markets permitting.
The statement says that
- Assets under construction are all running to schedule:
- 160 MW across four assets in NI and RoI expected to be commissioned in 2021
- 50 MW project in Scotland recently acquired and expected to be commissioned in 2022
- Pipeline of projects meeting the investment criteria and returns profile stands at c.900MW, of which 151MW is under exclusivity and actively in due diligence – including an operational portfolio of 81MW located in GB.
“The Board remains optimistic about the market for energy storage.
The falling cost of lithium-ion has reduced capital expenditure for battery storage over the past ten years by 87 percent, which is encouraging further use of battery storage. In the United Kingdom alone, in excess of 900MW of lithium-ion storage has been deployed to date.
The reinstatement of the GB capacity market following a ruling of the European Commission, has meant the Company has retrospectively received 12 months of capacity market revenues from prior periods, a welcome development anticipated by the Investment Manager. The UK markets await the impact of a potential transition period away from European legislation in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
The Board is pleased to contribute to the market arrangements for the All-Island Single Electricity Market in Ireland, by participating in its DS3 Programme implemented to enable greater system flexibility as the use of renewables grows. The Company considers its successful tender of 60MW of its portfolio in the first DS3 volume capped auction an important first step. It will also plan to contribute an additional 100MW over the short-term by participating in DS3’s uncapped grid balancing services auctions over the coming years.”