Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc
(the “Company” or the “Fund”)
Full Year Results to 31 December 2021
Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc (LSE: GRID), the UK's largest utility-scale battery energy storage fund, is pleased to announce its third set of annual results since the IPO in November 2018. This covers the 12 months ended 31 December 2021
Performance highlights during the year
- Underlying Operational Portfolio revenues up 170% to £51.4mn (FY20: £19.0mn)
- Underlying Operational Portfolio EBITDA up 172% to £42.5mn (FY20: £15.6mn)
- Dividends of 7.0p per share paid for the year, with Operational Dividend Cover 1 at 1.32x
- Net Asset Value (NAV) up 42.6% to £511.7mn (FY20: £358.9mn)
- NAV per share up 13.5% to 116.86p (FY20:102.96p) and NAV total return of 20.3%
- Share price total return of 23.0% versus FTSE All-Share Index total return of 18.3%
- Share price total return since IPO of 51.5% versus FTSE All-Share Index total return of 21.4%
- Weighted average discount rate of 10.8% as of 31 December 2021 (FY20:10.8%)
Deployment and fundraising
- £49.0mn invested in 110MW of operational capacity, taking the total to 425MW (FY20:315MW)
- 8 projects, totalling a further 415MW, under construction as of 31 December 2021
- Additional 717MW due to enter construction as of 31 December 2021
- Total gross equity funds raised of £100mn (2020: £151.2mn)
- Debt facility secured of £180mn
- Cash position of £122mn at year end
Operational performance and construction
- GRID remains GB market leader with a market share of around 30%
- Revenue generation and EBITDA significantly above budget in 2021
- Degradation of batteries was modest in 2021 with the portfolio's State of Health (SOH) at 97.5%
- Targeting a longer average battery duration across the portfolio as Trading opportunities increase
- Four new members added to the Investment Manager's Operations team with further recruitment expected in preparation for a significantly larger portfolio
- Some delays to construction timelines due to COVID-related supply chain issues
2022 Outlook
Dividends:
- Year-to-date revenues per MW are at a similar level to 2021 with a greater share of revenues from Trading
- The Board reaffirms a target dividend of 7.0p for 2022 and expects full Operational Dividend Cover from underlying earnings in the portfolio
- GRID will aim to balance future dividend targets with increases in Operational Dividend Cover1