The Scottish Power owner said it will carry on “diversifying its business and boosting the process of internationalisation begun more than a decade ago”. As well as ploughing money into transmission and distribution infrastructure, it expects to bring online more than 1GW of offshore and 450MW of onshore wind projects in Britain.
Revenues from Scottish Power’s energy wholesale and retail division were down by 1.1 per cent year-on-year to €7.6bn. EBITDA fell by 7.9 per cent to €420m. The company also took a €230m write down on Scottish Power’s Longannet coal-fired power plant, due to its imminent closure. The impairment was partially offset by a €170m reduction in the amount of UK tax it paid.
Scottish Power Energy Networks had annual revenues of €1.5bn – an 11.1 per cent increase – whilst EBITDA rose by a similar percentage to €1.1bn.
Iberdrola’s overall pre-tax profits were up 4.1 per cent to €2.4 billion (2014: €2.3bn) and EBITDA was up 4.9 per cent to €7.3bn (2014: €7bn). Revenues rose by 4.6 per cent to reach €31.4bn (2014: €30bn).
The results were boosted by the success of the renewables business which saw its EBITDA rise by almost 19 per cent to roughly €1.6bn. Power output from renewable sources in the UK was up by around a fifth, driven by the strong performance of the West of Duddon Sands offshore windfarm.
Regulated areas which provide “stable, predictable and long-term earnings” will remain the group’s primary focus. Over the next four years it plans to invest €23.7bn worldwide, with 88 per cent of spending allocated to “regulated activities and long-term contracts”. More than nine tenths of its planned investments have already been committed to, and of those six tenths are already under construction.
Earnings per share rose from €0.36 in 2014 to €0.38 in 2015. Iberdrola said it expected to increase the annual dividend by 4 per cent to €0.28 per share. It predicted a 6 per cent annual rise in pre-tax profits and EBITDA between now and 2020.