Gore Street Energy Storage Fund PLC sees NAV rise 2.3% in final quarter of 2020

() saw its net asset value per share (NAV) rise by 2.3% in the final quarter of 2020.

Its unaudited NAV increased to 99.6p per share, representing an uplift of 2.3p per share over the previous quarter.

The shares currently trade at 105p, up 1.0% on the day.

During the quarter, the company also paid a dividend of 2p per share and today it announced it would pay out another 2p dividend in respect of the fourth quarter of 2020.

The energy storage fund said the uplift was attributable to the strong performance of the company’s assets on the British mainland and also the increasing participation of the company’s assets in the UK’s new Dynamic Containment service introduced by the in September 2020.

In 2021, the company said it has made further progress in the commissioning of its assets located in Northern Ireland. The two 50 megawatt (MW) 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 should start receiving attractive service revenue from the DS3 programme from April 1, Gore Street said.

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 the company’s NAV calculations. This represents £566,000 of additional contracted income from the original budget for the period from October 2021 and September 2022.

Gore Street says its investment adviser has plenty of other high-quality projects it is interested in buying so the board is considering issuing equity to raise fresh capital.

“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,” said Alex O’Cinneide, the chief executive of Gore Street Capital, the fund’s investment adviser.

“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.

“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,” O’Cinneide added.