Good wind speed and more acquisitions kept Greencoat UK Wind PLC (LON:UKW) on course for its dividend and capital growth targets.
The UK-focused fund has stakes in 29 off- and onshore wind farms, which generated 1,457GWh of electricity over the past year or enough for 620,000 homes.
READ: Greencoat UK Wind pays £98mln for 80% stake in five UK wind farms
The dividend for the year was 6.49p and Greencoat is already targeting 6.76p for 2018, a 4.1% increase to match December’s RPI inflation number.
Greencoat raised £340mln through a share issue in October and investments in ten more farms boosted net generating capacity to almost 700Mw from 420Mw.
Net asset value rose by 2.6p to 109.6p, with net cash generation £80.1mln compared to the dividend announced of £57.3mln.
Tim Ingram, chairman, said there were still many more opportunities to invest in wind power.
“Wind continues to remain the most mature and widely deployed renewable energy technology available in the UK, and the company is in a good position to benefit as electricity production from wind becomes an increasingly important part of the UK's generation mix.
“In 2017, approximately 15% of the UK's electricity demand was supplied by wind energy.
“Although only limited new onshore wind capacity is expected to be installed in the near term, there is a very large existing market of onshore and offshore wind farms that we expect to be available for investment going forwards.”