By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Britain’s biggest power station saw profits grow tenfold last year as households grappled with surging energy bills.
Drax, which once burned coal but now uses wood harvested in North American forests and shipped to the UK, known as biomass, said annual pre-tax profits jumped from £78m to £796m in 2023.
The North Yorkshire power plant revealed adjusted earnings before interest and other charges grew by 66pc to £1.2bn even as the energy crisis that has gripped Europe since the start of the Ukraine war eased.
The power supplier proposed increasing its final dividend by 10pc to 13.9p per share. The plant is vital to the UK’s energy security because it generates more than 4pc of the nation’s electricity.
It comes as British households dealt with a sharp rise in energy bills over the last two years, with the latest Ofgem price cap still leaving average annual bills hundreds of pounds higher than before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Drax Group chief executive Will Gardiner said: “Drax performed strongly in 2023 and we remained the single largest provider of renewable power by output in the UK.”
Strangely the Telegraph makes no mention of the fact that Drax raked in £842 million in ROC subsidies last year, without which it would have made a loss.
Savour the thought that you have paid for Drax’s bumper profits on your energy bills!
https://www.drax.com/investors/announcements-events-reports/full-and-half-year-reports/
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
February 29, 2024 at 06:03PM
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