Renewable electricity supplier Good Energy has seen its profit margins cut as its rising prices were unable to keep pace with “rapidly increasing” wholesale costs.
The Wiltshire-headquartered company reported a 70% rise in revenue to £248.7m for last year - up from £146m in 2021. Bosses at the AIM-listed firm said the “knock on effects” of the war in Ukraine had meant it had been forced to pass on costs to customers, in what they said had been an “enormously challenging year” for the energy sector.
While its gross profits rose to £29.9m - up 10% from a year earlier - Good Energy said underlying margins had dropped from 18.5% to 12% over its last financial year.
In an update to investors the board said that government energy bill support for consumers had “mitigated the impact” of “very high” commodity driven price points across the industry in the final quarter of 2022.
Overall, the Chippenham-based business recorded profit after tax of £9.2m, up from £1.6m in 2021. It comes as Good Energy looks to broaden its offering to provide more green energy services, including its Bristol-based electric vehicle (EV) charging company Zap-Map.
The company completed the sale of its 47.5MW portfolio of generation assets - including six solar farms and two wind farms - at the start of last year for a total consideration of £21.2m.
In December, the firm acquired heat pump installation and services business Igloo Works for an initial £1.75m, less than a month after agreeing with energy regulator Ofgem to pay out hundreds of thousands of pounds in refunds to customers who were overcharged on their tariffs.
Chief executive Nigel Pocklington said "We have made significant strides in delivering on our strategy to become a leader in green energy services, and this momentum has continued with strategic milestones already achieved in the first quarter of 2023.
"As the UK's second biggest solar power payments company with more generator customers than supply, and which paid out a record amount to renewable generators in 2022, we are already the go-to energy company for solar generators.
"There is a potential £5bn to £10bn growth market in clean energy technology installations among climate conscious customers. We are ideally positioned for this, and are kitting homes out homes with solar panels and batteries now and plan to install 12,000 heat pumps by 2026.”
Good Energy said its Zap-Map platform, which secured £9m in a Series A funding round last year, had attracted a two thirds increase in registered users to 550,000.
It added that it had installed 13,000 smart meters during 2022, increasing its total of more than 40,000 - making up almost half of its customer's meter points.
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