Renewable energy firm Gaelectric enjoys rise in turnover

Dublin-headquartered renewable energy specialist Gaelectric saw losses widen last year despite turnover rising sharply as more wind farms came on stream.

The company, which last month announced the sale of 14 Irish wind farms to China General Nuclear Power’s European energy arm (CGNEE) in a deal valued at €400 million, recorded revenues of €31.6 million for the year ending March 2016, up from €12.7 million a year earlier.

Recently filed accounts show pretax losses rose from €15.5 million to €18.5 million with administrative expenses jumping from €17.9 million to €29.6 million and finance costs up from 43.38 million to €11 million.

The latest accounts do not include the impact of the wind farm sale portfolio.

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Total liabilities jumped from €224 million to €395 million last year for the group, which was founded in 2004. The group had net assets of €24.02 million, up from €14.03 million a year earlier.

The accounts include a series of IFRS adjustments and non-cash movements, including an income-tax expense of €6.3 million and a €5.8 million loss in fair value on derivatives linked to hedging facilities.

Gaelectric is a developer and operator of renewable energy projects in wind, bioenergy and solar across Ireland and Britain. It is also developing energy storage projects in the UK and European mainland.

The company currently has 174 mega watts (MW) of wind generation connected to the grid, a figure that is forecast to grow to over 400 MW of wind energy this year and up to 1,000MW of renewable generation across wind, solar, bioenergy and generation using compressed air energy storage by 2020.

Employee numbers rose to 97 from 78, with staff costs rising to €11.3 million from €9.5 million in the previous year.

A breakdown of revenues shows the company received €31.2 million from the sale and supply of electricity last year, up from €9.9 million for the year ending March 2015. It also earned €68,000 in fee income and a further €265,000 from ‘other income.’