Hello, everybody, thank you for joining the Gore Street Energy Storage Fund PLC annual results presentation for the year ending 31st of March 2023. Well, I'm joined today here by my two colleagues, Sumi, our Chief Investment Officer, and Paula, Principal and Head of Corporate Development. Both Sumi and Paula and myself have been working in Gore Street since 2016. I'm Alex O'Cinneide. I'm the founder and CEO. As we look on slide three, I thought worth reminding all of our investors exactly how we set the fund up in terms of investment objective and policy summary. Overall, we have been operating as a listed vehicle since May 2018, where our goal of building a diversified portfolio of utility- scale storage projects able to deliver sustainable and attractive dividends, we feel that we've achieved today. Overall, the investment policy is one where that portfolio has a strong geographical diversification, has a strong diversification in different types of revenues, and a strong diversification at the asset level. We have a very low gearing policy and appropriate hedging arrangements. Slide four demonstrates some of the key financial highlights over the last year. NAV per share grew to GBP 115.6 compared to 2022 at GBP 109.1. Overall, our operational EBITDA, GBP 27.8 million, again, c omparison to 2022 of GBP 23.3 million. Dividend yield, very strong number of 6.9%, growing again from 6.2% in 2022. This is all supported by a portfolio of total capacity of just under 1.2 gigawatts. In 2022, same number would have been just under 630 megawatts. So, v ery strong growth in the overall portfolio capacity. As my colleagues will touch on later, a portfolio which is well diversified through different energy systems. Operational capacity, so projects actually in operation rather than in construction, just under 300 megawatts, and in 2022, just over 200 megawatts. All of those numbers support a very strong NAV total return of 12.3%. We underwrite assets 10%-12%. We have a goal of 10%-12% on levered return for our investors. And if you look through our last annuals going back till for about 4 years, you would have seen consistent overachievement against that 10%-12%, with numbers around 12, 13, and 14 in terms of NAV total return. Here, if we turn to slide five, several graphs which demonstrate a strong track record over total and operational portfolio growth, NAV per share growth and EBITDA. In all of these, you can see the trend multi-year is positive. Our portfolio growth obviously supports our EBITDA growth as well as NAV per share. Within those two graphs, you can see incremental growth quarter-on-quarter in NAV per share and then very strong growth as we add in more and more capacity in some key years in terms of EBITDA, and that followed by increasing incremental growth as EBITDA continues to increase. Slide six, a little bit more detail here around our delivery against strategy, breaking it down into three areas: growth, diversification, and portfolio performance. I've touched on the growth in the portfolio of our key aspect of delivery for our investors. Growth not only in total capacity size, but growth in diversification. Operational capacity increased 26%. We entered two new grids, ERCOT, which is the Texas grid, and CAISO, which is the Californian grid. We're fully funded against our projects, capacity up to December 2024. We've completed a very strong fundraise back in March last year of GBP 150 million, which was oversubscribed. We also put in place optionality around debt facilities, so increased our relationship with Santander to have a facility of GBP 50 million. As we sit here today, that is undrawn. Best in class, asset diversification. So, very totally uniquely, we are operational and construction in five different uncorrelated markets, those being California, Texas, the island of Ireland, Britain, and Germany. We have multiple duration systems in operation, again, uniquely against our peers, both one hour and two hours. Our system's designed and underwritten for the economic results that we see available in each of the grids. We're also working with multiple EPC and O&M providers. If I look across our present portfolio, we see assets which have been constructed for us from players such as Tesla, NEC, LG Chem, Samsung, BYD, and Nidec. Industry-leading performance. What does that mean? Energy storage is, when it comes down to it, a renewables asset class, two things are very important to the performance for our investors. Cost per megawatt and per megawatt are fully installed and revenue generated per megawatt -- per megawatt hour. Overall, average revenue of GBP 135,000 per megawatt, resulting in this portfolio revenue of just under GBP 40 million. Capacity markets, we secured some of the highest value capacity market contracts in GB, generating another GBP 45 million of revenue, incremental revenue, over the next 15 years. 19% increase year- on- year in operational EBITDA, overall, going back to the diversification theme, 64% of EBITDA secured outside GB. So, no reliance on a single market to continue to deliver a smooth revenue and EBITDA profile. 6.9% dividend yields with a 0.9x operational dividend cover, which we believe it points to best in class across the industry. I'm gonna hand over to my colleague, Sumi, who will take you through more detailed financial highlights and valuation. Thank you, Alex. This slide summarizes the change in NAV per share for the year. As Alex explained, I'm pleased to report that the NAV increased from GBP 1.09 and GBP 1.15. firstly, we had expenses of GBP 0.036 related to PLC and holding companies, and dividend payments of GBP 0.064, which in total reduced the NAV by GBP 0.10. On the other hand, we generated cash from our operating portfolio and interest income from deposit. These two sources of cash roughly matched the amount of dividend we made. Operating portfolio represents currently only a 30% of our NAV and make up 1/4 of our total portfolio in sizing megawatt. We expect this grow significantly, which Paula will discuss in more detail in later slide. The DCF valuation of our portfolio accounted for GBP 0.097 increase in total. We broke them down into several components here. Firstly, we updated the revenue projection that resulted in GBP 0.047 increase. Changes in discount rates and inflation rates in total had a slightly positive impact overall. I can explain these in details in the next slide. The current NAV reflects a value of awarded capacity markets contracts early this year, which is GBP 0.029 increase. Next one is, as we are operating the asset with a limited use life, our NAV was negatively affected by a depreciation of assets by the passage of time and use of the assets, which resulted in DCF change of roughly negative GBP 0.047, including other minor items. Lastly, we saw a GBP 0.06 increase in NAV from the contribution from our newly acquired assets, totaling 544 MW. That's a result of fair market value -- valuations compared to our purchase price. Next slide, please. This slide summarizing revenue assumptions. As shown here, we generally assume declining revenue for the next 5 years. This decline is driven by increasing competition from new entrants in the market. We anticipate these new entrants will benefit from decreasing battery costs, and that leads to a downward pressure on revenue prices. However, after the initial five-year period, we expect the revenue to stabilize as the market matures. Similar to previous period, we have utilized revenue forecast from independent third-party. We believe this approach ensures objectivity and provide us with a reliable basis for our revenue projections. Updating our revenue curve with the latest third-party forecast resulted in a GBP 0.047 increase for the year. This increase is predominantly driven by updated projections for the U.S. and Irish markets. But there are slightly, relatively small change in that from GB market revenue assumptions. This is because the prudent assumptions we made over a year ago, in March 2022, still align with current conditions observed in the GB market. In addition to the GBP 0.047 increase, we have a further GBP 0.029 increase from our capacity market award. This is mainly driven by 63,000 per megawatt per year of record high price for a 15-year contract awarded to Middleton project. It is important to note that there is a significant level of uncertainty surrounding the revenue forecast in energy storage investments overall. So, in this slide, we have provided a summary of the NAV sensitivities of the revenue assumptions. Our published NAV is based on the mid-case scenario of a third-party forecast without any in-house changes, except for minor downward adjustments on Irish capacity market revenues. If we were to adopt their high-case scenario, the GB portfolio NAV would increase from GBP 180 million to GBP 234 million by 30%. For the purpose of an apple- to- apple peer comparison, if we were to use their revenue assumptions, we estimate portfolio NAV, GB portfolio NAV, would increase to GBP 255 million from GBP 180 million by over 40%. Moving on to discount rates, the average discount rate increased from 8.3% to 10.1% in this period. As illustrated on the right-hand side, our discount rate matrix considers the construction or operational status of the projects, as well as the nature of revenue stream. So, 10.1% is the weighted average rate of these discount rates. Furthermore, we have revised our CPI assumptions this year to align with third-party forecasts. Currently, our long-term CPI assumption is 2.5%. In total, changes in discount rates and inflation rates have had a slightly positive impact in NAV overall. This is because certain assets within our portfolio have benefited from lower discount rates, reflecting the progress made in their construction. From this slide, let me start discussing the current state of our cash-generating operating portfolio. Our operational portfolio stands at 292 MW. It is roughly 1/4 of total portfolio size and 30% of our total NAV. In total, we have 16 operational sites, and they are diversified across 4 grids: GB, Ireland, Germany, and Texas in the U.S. This geographical diversification is crucial in safeguarding our Company's stability and resilience, especially considering the recent decline in revenue in GB, which currently accounts for 38% of our first operating assets. Next one, please. One of the key advantages of our diversified portfolio is that it allows us to have revenue streams that are spread across different locations. Currently, we are providing a total of 19 services globally, each with its own set of contract types, lengths, prices, and technical requirements. I would like to highlight our upcoming California project. Once operational, it will enable us to participate in resource adequacy contract, which offers long-term fixed price payments, and it is expected to contribute roughly 40% of the asset revenue, which is significantly larger than capacity market revenue in GB. On the left-hand side, we are categorizing our revenues into 3 major groups: grid balancing, peak shifting, and trading. Currently, 93% of our revenue comes from grid balancing services. This market segment has served us well, but we are also seeing a growing contribution from trading revenue. The grid balancing market is relatively smaller, and it is experiencing market saturation in certain regions due to new entrants. However, the trading market presents broader scope, as it covers entire wholesale capacity market. We expect a continued growth in trading revenue, as saturation is less likely to occur in this market. Next one, please. In previous fiscal year, our overall annual revenue was GBP 135,000 per megawatt. This translates into approximately GBP 15 per megawatt per hour. Roughly, GB and Ireland contributes 40% of revenue each, and approximately 10% comes from Germany and ERCOT in Texas. In GB, a significant portion of our revenue is from grid balancing frequency services. This includes services like FFR and Dynamic Containment. Recently, we have expanded into new services like Dynamic [Moderation] and Dynamic Regulation. As I explained in the previous slide, during the January to March quarter, we observed market saturation in the grid balancing services, resulting in a significant drop in prices. We also generate trading revenue when we see significant fluctuations in wholesale electricity prices. For our asset in Ireland, almost all of our revenue comes from DS3 contracts -- services. DS3 has a fixed tariff, but the actual payment or payment amount is calculated based on the half-hourly share of wind generations in the Irish market. We have seen a strong wind generation in the Irish market in Q1 2023, particularly in January 2023, which has led to a higher DS3 revenue in that period. In Germany, the almost all of our revenue is generated through grid balancing, FCR services, in the previous year. Our average revenue in Germany was the highest among the four markets we operate in, supported by higher grid balancing services -- prices. Post year-end, we have changed our monetization strategies and w e are seeing increasing revenue from trading activities in German market. Moving on to ERCOT market in Texas, we provide a grid balancing service called RRS. The RRS market is highly volatile and s ometimes a few days of revenue can account for a couple of months of revenue, regular times. While our revenue during this usual times may be relatively small, we ensure that our projects are fully available to capture these extreme prices when they arises. Next one, please. As mentioned earlier, the GB market has experienced a significant decrease in revenue recently. The quarterly revenue chart on the left-hand side illustrates the volatility we have observed. You can see that it has gone down to similar levels as at the end of 2019 and early 2018. As we discussed in the previous section, as an assumption for NAV, we have used a gradual decline in revenue in average. However, in reality, revenue can fluctuate sharply on a quarterly basis. The impact of a diversification is shown in the right-hand side of this slide, which illustrates the quarterly revenue contributions from each market by different colors of the pie chart -- bar charts. While the revenue in the GB market decreased by over 50% from September to the end of March, in Ireland, for example, we saw their revenue almost double in the same period. Although there are some market-specific seasonalities, the overall increase or decrease in the revenue in each market tends to offset each other. Total average revenue, which is shown in the gray line here, is less affected by a drop in single market revenue. Next slide, please. This is operational portfolio revenue and EBITDA trajectory since the IPO. The fund achieved an operational EBITDA of GBP 27.8 million, which is 20% increase from the previous year. 50% of operational EBITDA came from Ireland, and 36% from GB, showing a higher EBITDA margin in Ireland. A total fund EBITDA, after holdco expense, was GBP 16.8 billion. The operational portfolio, it generated a strong cash flow, which is the GBP 0.06 per share, resulting in a cash yield per NAV of 4.8%. Based on share price as of March end, we are paying 6.9% of dividend compared to share price. Using this dividend amount, operational dividend cover was 0.9x for this period, and 0.54x if we consider holding company expenses. As our portfolio size has been growing fast, these dividend cover is currently from only 30% of NAV, or 1/4 of NAV, a 1/4 of megawatt being operational. As i t is indicated in a dotted line, we expect a significant growth in our operational portfolio size in coming years, which Paula will explain in the next slides. Thank you. Thank you, Sumi. Where do we go from here, and how do we expect to grow GSF in the coming quarters? Sumi has just covered the milestones of the operational capacity of the Company, the circa 292 megawatts, that is up and running and generating cash flow as we speak. We're now at this turning point, of which we expect this operational capacity to increase 2.8x by end of 2024. And this is an additional 522 megawatts, bringing the operational capacity to now circa 852 megawatts in the next 18 months. Focusing on the assets that will drive the GSF growth through 2023 and 2024, there are six projects, of which actually four are in construction as we speak. As a matter of fact, the 80-megawatt Stony project is now waiting for energization. It is already scheduled and it is to commence in two weeks' time. And energization means that the asset will be ready to start operations. The six projects expected to be energized in the near term are located in Great Britain, in Ireland, Texas, and in California as well. This is transformative to the Company, not only because it represents a material increase in cash generation due to the increase in operational capacity coming from this today's 25% of capacity and operation increasing to 70% by end of 2024. It is transformative because it consolidates our position in key markets such as Texas in Ireland, and it also marks our operational commencement in new grids, such as California. In the end of 2024, 35% of our portfolio will be located in Great Britain, but have 65% of capacity that is located in those additional four grids, bringing the Company's exposure to this diversified revenue stream. Now, if we look at this split for duration, and this is the bottom graph here, historically, we've made decisions on system durations consistently based on expected financial return. Again, Sumi, covering the operational performance, demonstrated that we have correctly allocated CapEx to reflect the maximized revenue available in each grid. We have adopted the same approach for the sites that are currently in construction, always focused on minimizing the CapEx based on what is expected to be available for that given asset when it becomes operational. Because we have no obligation or mandate to fix this in duration, assets are actually designed based on where they're located and based on what can they do and how profitable they can be. So, as a conclusion, half of our portfolio is expected to have an hour, 10% less than an hour. This is all my portfolio located in North Ireland and 40% expected to have over 90 minutes. Those are located in Germany and Texas and in California as well. This is not a rigid strategy. This is a decision that is based on each one of the grids of which our assets are located. If we move on to slide 19, now an illustration of GSF's expected deployment for the next 18 months. For March end, now the reported fiscal year, GSF has reported cash balance of circa GBP 123 million. Historically, if we look back, we've raised GBP 150 million in April of last year and have also increased a debt facility from GBP 15 million to GBP 50 million plus accordion. This was all in preparation of funding the acquisitions that were completed during the reported period, but also in preparation of financing ourselves and getting ready to build the assets that are in construction. If I look forward, the required CapEx for the next 18 months after the reported period, including anything that is contractual obligation today, is estimated to be circa GBP 190 million. Between equity and debt, the manager expects to be fully funded to meet not only its contractual commitments, but also the estimated CapEx of the assets in construction today. So, it is important to raise that. It took us -- it took GSF five years to increase its capacity from that original 6 MW first site acquired in an operation back in 2018 to this now 292 MW today, right? During those years, the manager was not only focused on this operational capacity, but really focused on building a portfolio that is diversified, it is resilient, and it is optimal in terms of system, in terms of design. We built GSF. We've built a presence in 5 different locations. The manager has built expertise in all of those grids, we plan to deceive now to go through this transformative increase of the capacity in the next 18 months. We will now cover sustainability. Slide 21. Over the past 12 months, we kept our commitment to make significant progress in reporting the Company's ESG impact. GSF published its first ESG sustainability report last year in August and i t covered disclosures for our Great Britain and our Irish assets as well. Now, for 2023, the report has expanded to include Germany and Texas, where we now have operational presence. Now, looking at the annual results specifically, this report covered emissions, social metrics, and efforts to assess human rights exposure in the GSF supply chain in general. Specifically, looking at greenhouse gas emissions, there's a noticeable increase on an apples-to-apples basis in net avoided emissions compared to 2021- 2022 metrics that was reported last year on our first Sustainability Report. Actually, several factors contributed to this increase, but mainly it was due to two factors. One, there was an increase in operational assets on GSF's portfolio, 26% increase, and also there was a great decarbonization effort in the U.K. in general. What this really demonstrates is, GSF's commitment to transparency and accountability for what we're doing with our portfolio today. As a conclusion then, GSF has really broadened its scope of our reporting, and we have increased our commitment to the environmental sustainability and transparency. We also continued our efforts to reduce emissions and increase the deployment of renewable energy assets in general. The sustainability and ESG reports will be published in the coming months. Besides, the details of which we have included in the annual results around sustainable financial disclosure regulations, the SFDR, we will also be voluntarily including further frameworks such as TCFD for climate change, UN SDGs, and greater insights into the Company's approach to sustainability. Additionally, the company will be voluntarily submitting a PRI report this year ahead of the expected mandatory reporting of 2024. Again, a demonstration of our continuous effort to be transparent and to be able to track the improvements we're doing with our current portfolio. Thank you, Paula. If we turn our attention here to slide 23, in conclusion, what are the key messages that we want to leave you with here today over the performance of Gore Street Energy Storage Fund throughout the last year? We have a construction portfolio which will deliver significant assets to the operational portfolio between now and the end of 2024, with assets and construction in Britain, Ireland, ERCOT, and California. The operational portfolio has been built, and we believe the best-in-class cost per megawatt or megawatt hour fully installed. Overall, our portfolio is delivering very strong, best-in-class revenue generation, multiple revenue streams in multiple grids, delivering a smooth EBITDA performance. Since our IPO in May 2018, Gore Street Energy Storage Fund has consistently delivered against the targets it set for itself for the investors to judge our performance. As we sit here today, energy storage in the macro environment is regarded as the critical asset for our transition to a low-carbon economy and should be an asset within every investor's portfolio. Thank you very much.
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