Quarterly NAV, Dividend and Factsheet publication

RNS Number : 7869W

Gresham House Energy Storage Fund

28 April 2021

 

28 April 2021

Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc

(the "GRID" or the "Fund")

Quarterly NAV, Dividend and Factsheet publication

Q1 2021 NAV

Gresham House Energy Storage Fund Plc (LSE: GRID) (the "Fund") announces its NAV as at 31 March 2021 was £371.8m or 106.66p per ordinary share.

Dividend Declaration

The Board is pleased to announce a dividend of 1.75p per Ordinary Share for the period from 1 January 2021 to 31 March 2021. The dividend will be paid on 4 June 2021 to Shareholders on the register as at the close of business on 14 May 2021. The ex-dividend date is 13 May 2021.

Any such dividend payment to Shareholders may take the form of either dividend income or "qualifying interest income" which may be designated as an interest distribution for UK tax purposes and therefore subject to the interest streaming regime applicable to investment trusts. Of this dividend declared of 1.75 pence per Ordinary Share, 0.75 pence is declared as dividend income with 1.00 pence treated as qualifying interest income.

Q1 2021 Factsheet

The factsheet for the period ended 31 March 2021 is available at:

http://newenergy.greshamhouse.com/esfplc/

Extracted text of the commentary is set out below:

Financial highlights

From IPO to the end of March 2021, the Fund has delivered a share price total return of 27.3%, compared with a 7.9% total return from the FTSE All Share. The attribution of returns since inception is 14.5% to capital and 12.8% to income.

For the quarter ended 31 March 2021, the Fund's NAV was £371.8m or 106.66p per share, an increase of 3.70p per share in the quarter.

There was a 4.36p uplift from the revaluation of projects recently acquired (previously held at cost) while income in excess of dividend distributions in the quarter accounted for a 0.72p benefit. Partially offsetting this by 1.22p were a more cautious set of assumptions which included taking into account the impact of the corporation tax rate rising to 25% from 2023, as announced in the recent Budget.

Dividend coverage in Q1 2021 was c.1.3x despite a significant cash balance and, as such, the Fund remains committed to its dividend policy of 7.0p per share paid in equal quarterly instalments.

Finally, the Fund is exploring a debt facility which is expected to drive down its cost of capital which, in turn, is expected to be significantly accretive to GRID's overall return on capital, once any debt facility is fully deployed. The Fund will provide a further update in due course.

Portfolio activity & market outlook

The Investment Manager has had an active quarter, completing the acquisition of 80MW across four projects (Glassenbury Extension (10MW), Port of Tyne (35MW), Tynemouth (25MW) and Nevendon (10MW)) and a further 30MW since the quarter end in the form of Byers Brae near Livingston in Scotland.

The Investment Manager is also preparing to commence construction, subject to final due diligence, on a further 275MW across five projects (one is 100MW, two are 50MW and the other two are 40MW and 35MW respectively). The construction of these projects will fully commit all the funds raised in the November 2020 equity issue.

The Fund has a significant additional exclusive pipeline of 527MW across eight projects which will be built subject further debt and/or equity fundraising.

The market environment remains favourable as evidenced by the Fund's dividend coverage over Q1 2021. National Grid continues to procure more in the way of frequency response than there are projects in the market, with the suggestion that this will continue for several more months. Over the next two years, the level of procurement is expected to increase steadily.

In addition and long anticipated, the volatility in power markets has increased significantly, as a result of several instances of insufficient power driving power prices very high this winter. This was caused by low wind generation (which has come out much lower year-over-year due to low wind resource) and various other factors, including forecasting errors (of supply and demand, and outages of either generation capacity or inter-connectors at different times).

Portflio & Pipeline

Current portfolio
Project	Location	MW	Status
1.  Staunch	Staffordshire	20	Operational - 2018
2.  Rufford	Nottinghamshire	7	Operational - 2018
3.  Lockleaze	Bristol	15	Operational - 2018
4.  Littlebrook	Kent	8	Operational - 2018
5.  Roundponds	Wiltshire	20	Operational - 2018
6.  Wolverhampton	West Midlands	5	Operational - Q3 2019
7.  Glassenbury	Kent	40	Operational - Q4 20191
8.  Cleator	Cumbria	10	Operational - Q4 20191
9.  Red Scar	Lancashire	49	Operational - Q4 20191
10.  Bloxwich	West Midlands	41	Operational - Q3 2020
11.  Wickham Market	Suffolk	502	Operational - Q4 2020
12.  Thurcroft	South Yorkshire	50	Operational - Q4 2020
13.  Tynemouth	North Tyneside	25	Operational - Q1 20211
14.  Port of Tyne	Tyneside	35	Operational - Q1 20211
15.  Nevendon	Essex	10	Operational - Q1 20211
16.  Glassenbury Extension	Kent	10	Operational - Q1 20211
17.  Byers Brae	West Lothian	30	Operational - Q2 20211
Total Portfolio		425
1. Operational assets acquired from the market, showing when the project was acquired by the Fund and not the date of commissioning. 2. Asymmetric projects with lower Import Capacity versus its Export, all other projects have a symmetrical Export/Import Capacity.
Project	Location	MW	Commissioning
Committed Pipeline
18.  Project M	Swindon	100	Q1 2022e
19.  Project E	Leicester	50	Q1 2022e
20.  Project D	Manchester	50	Q1 2022e
21.  Coupar Angus	Co. Perth	40	Q1 2022e
22.  Arbroath	Co. Angus	35	Q1 2022e
Subsequent Pipeline
23.  Project Emerald	Republic of Ireland	c.40	2022
24.  Monet's Garden	North Yorkshire	50	2022
25.  Lister Drive	Merseyside	50	2022
26.  Project G	Northampton	50	2022
27.  Project P	Preston	50	2022
28.  Project E2	West Yorkshire	100+50	2022
29.  Project B	West Yorkshire	87	2022
30.  Project Y	York, N. Yorks	50	2022
Total Pipeline		c.802

For further information, please contact:

Gresham House New Energy Ben Guest	[phone]
Jefferies International Limited Stuart Klein Gaudi Le Roux	[phone]
KL Communications Charles Gorman Camilla Esmund Saurav Karia	[phone]
JTC (UK) Limited as Company Secretary Christopher Gibbons	[phone]

About the Company and the Manager:

Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc owns a portfolio of utility-scale operational battery energy storage systems (known as BESS) located in Great Britain. The portfolio has a total capacity of 425MW. The Company is managed by Gresham House Asset Management Limited under the leadership of Ben Guest. The Company was admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange (Specialist Fund Segment) on 13 November 2018 having raised £100 million of gross proceeds from investors. Including issuance under the Placing Programme, it has now raised a total of approximately £358 million of gross proceeds from investors.

The Gresham House New Energy team has a proven track record in developing and operating energy storage and other renewable assets having developed 264MW of Energy Storage Systems and approximately 290MW of predominantly ground-mounted solar projects. Gresham House Asset Management currently manages approximately 232MW of solar and wind energy projects.

Gresham House Asset Management is the FCA authorised operating business of Gresham House plc, a London Stock Exchange quoted specialist alternative asset manager. Gresham House is committed to operating responsibly and sustainably, taking the long view in delivering sustainable investment solutions.

www.greshamhouse.com

Definition of utility-scale battery energy storage systems

Utility-scale battery energy storage systems are the enabling infrastructure that will support the continued growth of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, essential to the UK's stated target to reduce carbon emissions. They store excess energy generated by renewable energy sources and then release that stored energy back into the grid during peak hours when there is increased demand for it.

 

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