Scottishpower unveil profits surge in Q1

Spanish-owned Scottishpower yesterday posted more than tripled earnings in its key retail supply business in the first quarter of this year, helped by the severe snowstorms in late February and early March.

Scottishpower, one of the UK’S Big Six energy providers, said first-quarter underlying earnings in its generation and supply arm business jumped by £93.7 million – or 247 per cent – to £131.7m as homes cranked up the heating in the freezing temperatures.

The group, part of Iberdrola, said the retail arm’s marked improvement compares with a particularly “poor” first quarter in 2017, and still falls below the Q1 2016 earnings of £146m.

Meanwhile, Scottishpower’s renewables arm saw latest earnings jump 29 per cent, or £28.7m, to £127.7m.

Keith Anderson, Scottishpower’s CEO, said: “Renewables has performed well, and we can see the benefits of our £650m investment in new onshore wind that was completed last year.

“Networks also continues to perform in-line with expectations based on the major investment plans running through in to the next decade.

“The improvement in Generation and Supply follows a very difficult 2017, which delivered one of the weakest performances for the business in the last decade. With the price cap pending this year, we still expect a challenging environment for the retail business in 2018.”

The group’s customer accounts fell by about another 100,000 to five million in Q1. Iberdrola’s Q1 profits edged up 1.2 per cent to €838m (£732m). 0 Keith Anderson, chief executive – ‘challenging’