Dividend/Portfolio Update/Equity Raise intention

RNS Number : 4024R

Gore Street Energy Storage Fund PLC

08 March 2021

 

8 March 2021

Gore Street Energy Storage Fund plc

(the "Company" or "Gore Street")

Strong quarterly Valuation Uplift of 2.36%

Dividend Confirmation, Portfolio Update and intention of Equity Raise

Gore Street, London's first energy storage fund supporting the transition to low carbon power, is pleased to announce that strong operational performance has led to further significant growth in the Company's Net Asset Value ("NAV").

December NAV Update

As at 31 December 2020, the estimated unaudited NAV increased to 99.6 pence per share, representing an uplift of 2.3 pence per share (+2.36%) over the previous quarter. During the quarter, the Company also paid a dividend of 2.0 pence per share.

The increase in the latest quarterly NAV in respect of the period from 30 September 2020 to 31 December 2020, is attributable to both the strong performance of the Company's GB assets and the increasing participation of the Company's assets in the UK's new Dynamic Containment service introduced by the National Grid in September 2020.

As previously disclosed on the 3 March, the Company expects to have over 90MW portfolio of operational assets benefiting from Dynamic Containment from April 2021. This new revenue stream is expected to lead to a strong uplift in anticipated revenue[1].

Dividend Declaration

The Board of Directors (the "Board") of Gore Street is today pleased to declare an interim dividend of 2.0 pence per share for the period 1 October 2020 to 31 December 2020. The dividend will be paid on or around 9 April 2021 to shareholders on the register on 18 March 2021.

Since the last audited NAV as at 31 March 2020, the Company's NAV appreciated from 94.6 pence per share to 99.6 pence per share, an increase of 5.0 pence per share or 5.29%. During the last twelve months of wider equity market uncertainty, the Company has announced 7 pence per share in dividends as targeted. Total NAV return, including the 7.0 pence paid in dividends, was 10.9%.  

Post-period Portfolio Update

Post period end, the Company has made further progress in the commissioning of the Company's assets located in Northern Ireland. The two 50MW assets, the largest on the Northern Irish grid, are in the final stages of construction and testing, which remains on schedule and on budget.  The assets expect to start receiving attractive DS3 service revenue from 1 April.

Additionally, after the fund's valuation date, Gore Street secured the grid connection rights necessary to increase the capacity of the Porterstown Republic of Ireland site from 30MW to 90MW. This increase in the size of the Company's portfolio is not included in the December NAV update announced today.

Lastly, the Company has secured a UK Capacity Market contract for three of the company's assets representing 59.5MW for the 12 months starting October 2021. The contract rate is £45,000/MW/year which is significantly higher than the £7,200/MW/year used in our NAV calculations. This represents £566,000 of additional contracted income from the original budget for the period from October 2021 and September 2022.

Intention of Equity Raise

Proceeds of the December 2020 placing have been fully allocated to high quality projects selected by the Investment Adviser. The Company and its Investment Adviser continues to have a significant pipeline of new attractive projects and is considering a potential equity raise as part of its existing placing programme, which it intends to use as and when appropriate.

Alex O'Cinneide, CEO of Gore Street Capital, the Company's investment adviser commented:

"In very difficult circumstances, we have generated significant NAV growth for shareholders over 2020 including this latest quarterly uplift. As investment in renewable energy infrastructure grows, so does the need for energy storage assets which play a major role in balancing intermittent generation from renewable technologies, performing an essential service to the grid.

Additionally, Gore Street Energy Storage Fund now has a lucrative new revenue stream, Dynamic Containment, contributing to our portfolio. This highlights the benefits of an attractive range of contracts available to the specialist energy storage asset operator where shareholders can benefit from an increasingly diverse set of revenue streams, reflecting the growing unmet need for our services.

We are also delighted to announce the forthcoming commissioning of the Company's assets in Northern Ireland, expected to provide DS3 services from 1 April. The construction of these assets is progressing towards 1 April commercial operation despite the challenges of Covid-19. The Company has also received a grid connection offer at Porterstown to increase capacity from 30MW to 90MW, a further example of the Company's efficient management of its development phase assets that can add further value creation.

Gore Street remains focused on growing and diversifying our portfolio of energy storage assets through active asset management. We continue to see a number of attractive near-term acquisition opportunities from our extensive pipeline. We look forward updating the market on the progress of these in due course."

The Legal Entity Identifier of the Company is 213800GPUNVGG81G4O21.

For further information:

Gore Street Capital Limited
Alex O'Cinneide / Paula Travesso	Tel: [phone]
Shore Capital (Joint Broker)
Anita Ghanekar / Hugo Masefield (Corporate Advisory) Henry Willcocks / Fiona Conroy (Corporate Broking)	Tel: [phone]

J. P. Morgan Cazenove (Joint Broker)
William Simmonds / Jérémie Birnbaum (Corporate Finance)	Tel: [phone]

Buchanan (Media enquiries)

Charles Ryland / Henry Wilson / George Beale	Tel: [phone]
	Email: [e-mail]

JTC (UK) Limited, Company Secretary Tel: [phone]

Notes to Editors

About Gore Street Energy Storage Fund plc

Gore Street is London's first listed energy storage fund and seeks to provide Shareholders with a significant opportunity to invest in a diversified portfolio of utility scale energy storage projects. In addition to growth through exploiting its considerable pipeline, the Company aims to deliver consistent and robust dividend yield as income distributions to its Shareholders. 

The Company targets an annual dividend of 7.0% of NAV per Ordinary Share in each financial year, subject to a minimum target of 7.0 pence per Ordinary Share. Dividends are paid quarterly.

Disclaimer

This announcement has been issued by, and is the sole responsibility of, Gore Street Energy Storage Fund plc (the "Company").

This announcement is for information purposes only and is not intended to and does not constitute or form part of any offer or invitation to purchase or subscribe for, or any solicitation to purchase or subscribe for shares in any jurisdiction in which such an offer or solicitation is unlawful.

The information and opinions contained in this announcement are provided as at the date of the announcement and are subject to change without notice and no representation or warranty, express or implied, is or will be made in relation to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained herein.

The information in this announcement may include forward-looking statements, which are based on the current expectations, intentions and projections about future events and trends or other matters that are not historical facts and in certain cases can be identified by the use of terms such as "may", "will", "should", "could", "expect", "anticipate", "project", "estimate", "intend", "continue", "target", "believe" (or the negatives thereof) or other variations thereof or comparable terminology. These forward-looking statements, as well as those included in any related materials, are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions about the Company and other factors, including, among other things, the development of its business, trends in its industry, and future capital expenditures and acquisitions. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the events in the forward-looking statements may not occur and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. Given these risks and uncertainties, prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

 

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[1]  There can be no guarantee that the current pricing trends will continue.

 

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