Gore Street Energy Storage Fund H2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
July 17, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: The Fund delivered £35.0 m in revenue and £21.0 m in EBITDA in FY25 from a 753 MW operating portfolio, achieving an average of £83 k/MW hr—approximately 30% above peer performance.
  • Positive Sentiment: Full monetization of $84 m U.S. ITC tax credits from Big Rock and Dogfish projects has been agreed, with 50% already received and proceeds used to repay $30 m of debt, bolstering cash flow.
  • Positive Sentiment: After institutional engagement, the management fee was reset to 1% of average NAV and market cap and all performance fees removed, saving over £1.1 m annually.
  • Positive Sentiment: With a 20% CapEx reduction, the company will augment two UK sites (Stoney and Ferry) by adding one hour’s duration for £18–22 m, incurring just ~50 days of downtime to drive material revenue gains.
  • Neutral Sentiment: The FY26 dividend policy targets a minimum 2.25 p per share—fully covered by operational cash flow—with potential upside tied to realized merchant revenue, implying payout variability.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Gore Street Energy Storage Fund H2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

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Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Gore Street Energy Storage Fund PLC Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and they can be submitted at any time by the Q and A tab situated in the right hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received in the meeting itself.

Operator

However, company can review all the questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you up to CEO, Alex Good morning to you, sir.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Good morning, and thank you, and thank you, everybody, for joining here today for the Gore Street Energy Storage plc annual results presentation. You're very welcome. Today, four of us presenting myself, Alex Okaneda, CEO, joined by John, heads of our investment team, Pala, head of corporate development and IR, and Alan, who's head of our trading activities. And the four of us will take you through our presentation today and then have time for questions at the end. So in highlights, we think it's a strong year for the company.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Dividend, just under one zero three. We think this reflects very well against our peer group and reflects well against the dividends we paid during the year as well as the overall growth of our portfolio. Delivered over 35,000,000 in revenue and 21,000,000 in EBITDA. That was achieved off the base of 408 megawatts, average megawatts through the year. We had megawatts come on stream during the year, but obviously weren't available for the full amount of the recorded period.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

And we do now, as we sit here today, have 753 megawatts in operation, nearly a gigawatt hour across five different energy systems, a really considerable portfolio, a portfolio at scale, which allows us to focus on really strong improvements to the portfolio, which we'll go through in the later slides. Revenue is a very strong performance for us. Alan will take you through how we've achieved this 11% over the benchmark, really excellent performance, and I'll talk a little bit about how we drive that performance across the entire portfolio. We're now operating in five different energy systems. We have taken the opportunity through with board.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Board have gone to a large shareholder consultation. Powell will talk about the outcomes of that in a few slides. One of those outcomes is of a significantly reduced management fee. Manager and board are aligned upon making sure that the cost base, including our fees, are appropriate for the position that we are in. We've also made some decisions around capital allocation.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

It's an interesting point in the market in terms of buying new equipment with really significant CapEx reduction, and I'll talk a little bit about that, what that means for our portfolio in a few slides. This is the overall portfolio. Large incumbent position in the Irish and British markets, a large position now in the Californian market, large position in the Texas market, and a significant asset, though, smaller part of our portfolio operating in Germany. 1.25 gigawatts total portfolio. That includes 490 megawatts of ready to build assets, we'll and talk a little bit about our strategy with those going forward in a few slides.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

As we think about our conversation to our shareholders of twelve months ago, we laid out five critical goals for the portfolio then. First, we mean that we wanted to increase the contracted income of the portfolio. We've achieved this through the ORA contract for our big rock assets in in California. We also have capacity market contracts in GB and Ireland. And overall, this has moved our contracted revenue up to a very significant portion of our overall revenue portfolio.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

John will talk a little bit more detail about what that looks like in a few slides. We achieved this goal. Big rock. We needed to bring Big rock to energization. It's a very large asset.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

It's a critical part of the Southern Californian, energy system, and, we're very happy to have that asset become energized and now in operation. Same with Dogfish in the Texas market. We needed to bring that asset to energization into operation. That has been achieved. Same with Enderbeam here in the G B in the British market.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

And then finally, we needed to monetize the ITC credits that received as part of the Big Rock and Dogfish transactions. Obviously, a lot of political noise around the ITCs. We're very happy to see them come in and come in above guidance. As we think about then the coming five years, what are we looking to achieve? One of the goals is expand the asset base through augmentation.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

We have a really strong opportunity given the reduction in CapEx to augment. This is not to replace, but this is to augment several of our assets in the British market, drive revenue growth by bringing on board more of our assets to our own system, optimize cost efficiencies. We're on a scale now where we can really make moves within to our value chain supply chain to lower those those costs. And then finally, look at our portfolio and understand what's the correct balance of that portfolio, and is there opportunities to bring in external partners to help with the build out of some of our ready to build assets. Paulo?

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

I think it's me next, Alex. So so hey, everyone. I'm gonna take you through operational performance with the assets and then touch on a business area that we started through this reporting period, which is Gore Street Energy Trading. So if we start with the here we go. So if we look at the revenue drivers, I mean, largely, it's it's environment remains has been really.

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

So it's it's really energy security and de carbonization that are the key driving forces behind the requirements, and we're seeing that across all of our active in in various forms. So if I just pick out a few of the highlights here in Ireland, d s three, the phase out has now been pushed back to potentially September 27 or until the new service kicks in, which is good news because it means you won't have a gap in ancillary service in the interim period. In GB, we've seen a lot much higher volatility in the traded markets, and that's come also with increased ancillary service procurement from NISO. So that's led to year on year increase in revenue of around 22%. In Germany, we saw significant periods of high solar generation over this period, and that not only leads to low wholesale prices, which is obviously very good for batteries, but also increased ancillary service prices as the grid needs the backup.

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

So that has led to pretty significant increases in revenue year on year as well. In Texas, the ancillary service markets did saturate with value shifting towards trading towards the end of the period. We also saw very mild summer conditions, and combined with much better thermal asset performance over in Texas, this has led to very suppressed prices over the period, so we didn't see the the particularly high price spikes that we've seen in previous years. Now have a look at what impact that's had on revenue. And so if we take these in order, in Ireland, we're at £14.50.

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

So we have seen a reduction in the temporal scarcity scalars in Ireland, and also the lower wind generation has reduced the nonsynchronous scalars, system nonsynchronous scalars. And together, the these impact how much revenue you make for an uncapped d s three contract. So it has results in a 33% reduction for two of our assets, Ireland, but still still relatively good performance there. In Great Britain, we're at £7.40, and, honestly, there are lots of reasons to be positive here. The wholesale market and the BM are offering much more value than they have previously due largely to volatility and to reforms.

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

And as I said before, NISO have continued to increase the procurement of existing ancillary services and add new services such as quick reserve in December, and that's helped to alleviate the saturation markets. Indeed, we're we're starting to see good recovery, for batteries in in GP. In Germany, as we said, we had high ancillary service prices driven by, very, very good solar generation, and so we've averaged the year for the reporting period at 13 50. In Texas, as we said, much much reduced spike spiky prices over the reporting period has resulted in a revenue of around $5.60. We are expecting this trend to reverse in time.

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

It's difficult to say exactly when. But on the positive side, we have outperformed the motor benchmark by around 32%, which is good. And overall, this leads leads us to a portfolio weighted average of around 10 per megawatt per hour.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Yeah. I think this is a this is a very strong number. Overall, 83,000 per megawatt for every hour in operation. If you compare it to our peer group, that's nearly a third above what we see other players achieving. And, really, given our diversified portfolio, we're hopeful of low volatility in this number and increased revenues coming out of the British portfolios we see right now, increased volatility.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

So we're very happy with these numbers, and we see good upside in them going forward.

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

Indeed. So if we now look at the market developments in Ireland, I'll just I'll just kinda highlight a few here. And Ireland, the scheduling of this batch program has been pushed back to November 25. So this program will allow further participation of batteries in trading. So it gives us another option over in Ireland, which is good news.

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

In GB, zonal pricing is out. We do expect some form of locational benefits. We're not sure who this will apply to, so a bit unknown on that front. In Germany, we expect the capacity market to start in 2028, which is good. We're ready for that.

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

In Texas, we are expecting significant demand increases in the Western Hub, which is where our assets are located. And Texas being a nodal system, this is really positive for our assets and the prices that they can capture in wholesale trading. And then finally, down in California, we expect to see continued growth in, in solar, which has been very aggressive. We expect that to continue, and this will in time pass through to favorable spreads and significant trading opportunities for batteries. So now if we move on to gauss free energy trading or GCET.

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

So this is a new initiative that we started during this reporting period. So what is GCET? So it's our it's our in house optimization platform. So we we've we've purpose built this for battery storage optimization. It's been developed fully in house by myself and the team.

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

And the underlying ethos is to to trust the data and the mathematics. So we frequently bring in a lot of market data. We use that data to create very short term forecasts of key market metrics. We then take these forecasts and determine whether we are maximizing asset performance or whether there's opportunities in the market that that we're not we're not taking and we can take. And this all flows through directly from the data straight to to the assets.

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

And so we went live with the first assets in October. That was Port Of Tilbury and nine megawatt behind the meter assets, and we currently have a 162 megawatts under management, which is around two thirds of the GB portfolio. In terms of the performance, as we said above, performance has been pretty strong. So over the reporting period here with comparable assets, we've achieved an 11% premium to Moto benchmark. I think one thing that we we don't capture in this chart is that we're also really looking after the assets now.

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

So we we now have direct control over the assets. And in conjunction with our in house asset management team, this enables us to make really well informed decisions on how we use the assets and the weighing up of technical and trade offs. So it's really positive news on that front. And and finally, I'll say that the the margin to to of outperformance has has only increased post period, so so good success there. So that was commercial and GCET, and I think next John is gonna talk about the valuations.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

Great. Thank you, Alan. So, yeah, if we move on to the the nav bridge for the periods of the 12 to March 2025, we moved from a 107p last year to a 102.8p as reported at March this year. 5.5p was paid in dividends over the period. If we move over to the the macro side, we're going to more detail on some subsequent slides, but just as an overview.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

Lower revenue curves coming in mainly across the GB market led to a 6.1p reduction over the twelve month period. Inflation assumptions impacted by circa 1p whilst derisking of assets coming through the construction phase coming through to being energized on operational phases through lowering discount rates associated with that derisking added around 3.2p to NAV over the period. On the active management side, we had cash generation of 4.3p per share, whilst fund operating expenses were 2.7p. The pricing achieved for the for the resource adequacy contracts has been separated out here as well compared to the initial assumption to show that this added around 3p per share on a on a NAV basis compared to what we'd assumed we would achieve last year to what we actually achieved, whilst other DCF adjustments added around half a penny overall. So in the following slides, we'll go through certain of these assumptions in some more detail.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

So on the revenue curves, as always, these are updated in this quarter, which is an audited quarter to reflect the most recent view from third party consultants, which we utilize across all the different markets. Just to kind of note here that the curve show which we show excludes the capacity market and the RA contracts, which we've secured separately through various productions or bilateral negotiations with off takers. So over the period, we saw decreases in kind of revenue curve forecasts. Mainly, this was across the GB market and also in Ireland where forecasts reduced by short term decrease in commodity prices mainly. Within the Irish market, as Alan alluded to, we also saw the impact in reduction of the SNSP scalers, but that was largely offset by the extension of the timing of the DS3 regime, has been pushed out by a number of quarters.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

In The U. S, generally, that the curves did decline a little bit in line with gas prices. And just a note on the GB curve shape going forwards, this reflects not only the recovery in the market, but also kind of a move to two hours for certain of our assets, which we're assuming in terms of the augmentations, but also for our Middleton asset as well, which is a preconstruction asset. So moving on to other assumptions. So on inflation, this remains largely consistent with those from the interim report for September.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

The short term 24, 25 figures were were viewed from third party, which have been reflected. And then the long term inflation rates have been maintained in conjunction with the the evaluation and all the partners that we've we've worked with. Discount rates were reduced in line with the usual approach of derisking through the construction process through to energization. So just to clarify that those are for those large TV assets which came online, namely Fermi or Enderby and also in The U. S.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

Through Dogfish and Big Rock projects, which were energized during the course of last financial year. On a weighted average basis, you'll notice this is largely unchanged from March 2024 as this kind of offset from the kind of derisking of assets was largely offset by an increase in discount rates for some preconstruction assets, which effectively offset this impact. And that this has brought these preconstruction assets largely in line with cost and and reflects some of the uncertainties on connection dates due to ongoing grid reform. I think one of the things to just, I guess, flag in terms of the the the various estimates, as we mentioned, these these have been fully worked through for the period end with with the third party consultants and advisers. On the capital structure and debt side, so during the period, we successfully upsized our two debt facilities.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

That is one of the kind of RCF topco level and one of Big Brok project level. So as you may have seen in previous RNSs, the Santander facility was increased to a 100,000,000 sterling from 50,000,000, and that was during q three last year. And that was being drawn further to build out some of the GBS assets which have been energized during the course of 2024 and 2025. In The U. S, the Big Rock facility was upsized to $90,000,000 shortly after the Santander facility upsize.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

And that was largely drawn to build out some of the the the remaining Big Rock CapEx building costs. As we indicated in the RNS, we released on Monday this week. We're we're in the process of reducing now paying paying down this debt drawn down to $60,000,000 from the first tranche of the ITC proceeds, which which is which is underway. So this this all leaves us in a position which for the March period we reported around 17.9% debt to gov ratio when you take into account what was being kind of drawn further since the March, but also the repayment of the CIT loan. We're effectively in a position very similar to March, so slightly lower than we were, just around 17% debt to GAAP ratio.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

And then if we just move on to the ITC again, we communicated this a few days ago, but just a reminder, these processes are both for Dogfish and Big Rock, which were both completed post period. So the Dogfish funds from ITC were fully received at the time of placed in service. So that was around eight weeks ago. And then the Big Rock proceeds we we we signed on Friday last week and they were structured to be received in in three tranches. So the initial 50% was received a couple days ago, shortly after closing, and the the two remaining tranches are due to be received in late q three and q four this year.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

So that will reflect kind of the fully monetized around $84,000,000 of ITC proceeds from two projects, which is ahead of the previous guidance of between 60,000,000 and $80,000,000 which we put out the corresponding time last year. I think oh, yeah. I'll pass on to Paula. Thank you.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

Thanks, John. On the ESG side and matters during this reported period, GSF has maintained a consistent and committed approach to ESG integration across its operations. It has also introduced a new methodology to more accurately quantify the carbon benefits of BaaS through energy training activities as well. It achieved a significant milestone of circa 40,000 megawatt hours of renewable electricity stored during this year, which is enough to power approximately 14,500 homes on a given year. It continued also with the emphasis on transparency through voluntary disclosures, and this includes TCFT and PRI as well, reinforcing our responsible investment strategy.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

And GSF also acknowledged the broader impact of our portfolio by addressing supply chain concerns with respect to cobalt mostly. We have strengthened our relationship and partnership with Fair Cobalt Alliance for now the third consecutive year. Lastly, as part of its of the FCA sustainability disclosure requirements, the SDR, GSF recently adopted the sustainable focus label as well as of the end of last year, aligning with the end time greenwashing commitments of FCA. But as per usual, further details on ESG and sustainability will be fully covered in the reports, the the stand alone sustainability report of which we expect to release by end of summer, by September. If we then go to the next slides, I will now be covering a message from the directors and the outcomes of their recent active engagement with institutional investors.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

Over the past two months for a period of circa four to six weeks, the board conducted a comprehensive roadshow that resulted in interactions with circa half of the shareholder base of the company. The first material point presented by shareholders was the previous structure of the management agreement, the agreement that sets the rules between the company and the manager. Consequently and on behalf of shareholders' interest, the board and the manager have agreed a substantial review of the terms of this agreement, which include, one, the change on the fee base itself, previously being a 100% based on NAV and currently now being an average of NAV and market cap. And two, they have also agreed the total removal of any performance fee and takeover fee that was preexistent on that management agreement. This is really a a clear demonstration of managers' full alignment with GSF's investors.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

And one change that we estimate to save the company over £1,100,000 per year in expenses if we assume if we use the figures of this current 2025 fiscal year as a reference. A second point on those discussions between the board and the shareholders was the use of the proceeds coming from the tax credits that John just went through there for Big Rock and Dogfish. Directors wanted to understand shareholders' priorities and views on the use of this receivable and then understand how to align those with the company's next steps. The company then have announced that those proceeds will be used in three ways. One, rebalancing the debt facility, really prioritizing the repayment of this $30,000,000 stake immediately.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

John did cover that as well. Two, distributing it back to shareholders. So they have announced the three piece special dividend to be confirming confirmed following the receipt of the second and the third tranche of the ITC. John went through it as well, and this will be taking place in the next five months. And the third point, use the proceeds for augmentation of two out of the three GBS that are selected as strategically eligible.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

The team will be discussing further details of the augmentation shortly when covering the twenty twenty six steps and strategy. If you go to the next slide then, beyond the roadshow, today, the board of directors also announced its dividend policy for the year ahead. For context, we start on this slide by reviewing the dividend declared for the 2025 fiscal year, this reported period, obviously, which was 4 p per share, including the 1p declared in June as part of the unaudited set of results. This is excluding the three piece special dividend that will be distributed after the reported period. But for completeness, what we're saying here is that this marks a total of 42p per share distributed to shareholders since IPO.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

In total, this company have paid back to shareholders over a £120,000,000. Next slide then. And as for the dividend policy for the year ahead then, the one ending in March 2026, the company maintained its position to align the profile and the quantum of the dividends with operational cash flow rather than NAV like it was done back in '23 and before. Based on one, a conservative set of assumptions for revenue, two, reflecting the down cycle that we have witnessed in 2025, meaning mirroring the revenues of that that the portfolio achieved in the last twelve months. And adjusting the portfolio to have an annualized capacity of 600 megawatts, the board has set a minimum dividend of 2.25 p to be distributed during this year.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

This is a conservative approach, and it's in keeping with board's focus on sustainable distribution and long term growth. But a couple of key clarification points on this dividend policy here. The 600 megawatts adjustment is a reflection of having larger assets such as Big Rock and Entropy, 200 megawatts, 75 megawatts, only generating revenue from July onwards. Obviously, moving forward, those assets will expect to be contributing in revenue for the full twelve months, not nine. But for twenty twenty six years specifically in its dividend policy, the board decided that this was a necessary adjustment.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

The minimum dividend for the year will be paid at 0.75 p per share starting in q q two of twenty twenty six. So this is September. And in q four, the March quarter would be would have any upward adjustments if applicable. If we can now focus on this table on this slide, which is very important, it's an illustrative table that shows four different scenarios when the the portfolio captures different levels of revenue throughout the year. You can see here that the free cash flow available for distribution goes from 1.95 p on the first scenario to 8.76 p on the last scenario.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

This is this blue line here. The more conservative revenue figure reflected is £8 per megawatt. But just as a comparison, the current fiscal and Alan just went through the revenues here. The portfolio secured a £10 per megawatt hour. This will be the second column.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

While it's the higher revenue figure, the one that you can see here on the right hand side, reflects the revenue secured in 2024 and actually 2023 fiscal year as well, £15 per megawatt per hour. What we're trying to achieve by sharing this table is to make the point that distributions may and will vary materially in accordance with the merchant revenue secured in a given period. Those numbers of which you see in the blue line are what the dividends would look like if the board chooses to distribute a 100% of available funds when meeting those specific revenues on the very first line. This means that this dividend would then the dividend cover would then be one point x one point zero x. Another key message on those scenarios are this incremental cash flow from augmentation strategy, the yellow line.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

In certain scenarios, the augmentation on the two assets of which we expect to complete shortly is expected to increase the free cash flow available to distributions in up to 25%. So there's a material increase here as well. Minor note, obviously, this table includes a number of assumptions, which are all clarified within our materials published today. And the free cash flow illustrated does include the pay the payment to all debt service as well. So we're talking about cash flow that is fully available for distribution.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Yeah. Thank you, Pala. Just a a note here. I think this is this is key. So this company, this portfolio has achieved £15 across the portfolio three years ago, £15 two years ago, and then as Paulo just went through on the lower end then last year between nine and ten.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

So here in this table, you can see if the merchant portfolio, which now does have about 30% contracted but still 70% merchant, ranges between these numbers, that will be the ability that will give the board the ability to pay out these numbers. So, hopefully, this clarifies for the investors how we look at the portfolio, both historically and going forward, and gives an understanding then of how much dividends we'll be able to pay going forward. Thank you. So a word then on the next twelve months. There's four four goals that we set ourselves that we that the company will look at and is looking at right now, expand asset base, drive revenue growth, optimize cost efficiencies, and then look at mobilizing external capital.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

First, expand the asset base. There's been a lot of debate in the market for many years about the correct, duration an asset should have. If we look across our portfolio, California, have four hour duration. Texas, two hours. Germany, ninety minutes.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

In, in Ireland, we range from twenty three minutes to to one hour. And in GB, we have just over one hour now. For us, the expansion of duration It's what's the CapEx going in and what's the incremental revenue and EBITDA that can be made. We have designed all our assets, though, that they have the ability to be augmented.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

And augmented is not getting rid of cells. It is augmenting. It's putting new cells in place, so preserving the original asset value. The market has shifted dramatically both on on two areas. One, CapEx.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

CapEx continues to fall. We've seen a 20% reduction in CapEx over the last year, and we're hopeful it will continue to fall given large supplies coming out of China. Those supplies not focused on The US market right now, focused on the European market given the policy environment. And that gives us a very strong opportunity to augment two of our assets initially. So Stoney and Ferry, which have land, planning, and grit, bring putting in place another hour of duration, with a estimated CapEx between eighteen and twenty two.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Now the maths works for that in terms of incremental revenue, EBITDA, and cash yields. It'll be a twelve month process, but in that twelve month process, we're forecasting only fifty days revenue loss from downtime. So a very efficient process, and we'll be using compatible cells with the existing installation. So an interesting point in the market that we have been tracking for many years now to understand when to spend shareholder cash at the most efficient level, and we see that opportunity now initially for Stoney and Ferry. Second thing that we're very focused on, you've heard Alan talk about overall performance in the portfolio, which we're very proud of.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

£83,000 per megawatt for our operation puts us a good 30% over our peer. Our own trading system puts us 11% over the benchmark. And so that system, we are we are pushing to have more and more assets into that system to enable us to deliver for shareholders that strong overperformance. And so as we look forward, Texas will be coming on stream in the near term, and we'll look for other markets over the next twelve months. It is a really interesting time in development of data, of software to drive efficiencies in trading, and we're really able to utilize a very good cost numbers, some of the efficiency driven by the large expanse that we see in the technology companies' availability of new solutions for us to use matched with our own human capital and algorithmic knowledge.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Third one then, optimizing cost efficiency and availability improvements. We are now of scale. So we have one of the largest portfolios globally and one that we can then drive through cost improvements both immediate in terms of working with our suppliers, given our scale, to be able to get better and better deals, being able to replace components with different components, which immediate cost improvement, as well as look to use our system to be able to drive further and further availability improvements. Every improveability in every improvement in availability, 1% approval in availability, leads to a 1% improvement in revenue. So critical and key wins for us through the use of this system.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Also, the system being integrated with our trading system to be able to increase revenue there. So, we see immediate cost improvement, and we're working on that right now. We see availability improvement, and we also see improvement in revenue through integration. A very large initiative by us, which we'll be talking more and more about quarter on quarter. And then final, it is clear that the listed infrastructure space is under pressure in terms of discounts to share price.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

That means that equity is not available across the sector. And we do have 494 megawatts excellent projects which are ready to build. So as we look at our portfolio, we're looking at how we rebalance portfolio to be able to recycle capital for, say, one market into another, to continue strong diversification, to have lower volatility in revenue, as well as to bring on strategic partners who can work with us on some of the build out of these projects. These are conversations which have been ongoing from the manager. So that is our final area of big focus here for the year as we look at our portfolio to understand the correct situation of that portfolio and the great partnerships to bring on on board for that portfolio.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Finally, then what would I say? A strong year delivery against the five targets we've set, a strong year in terms of revenue, in terms of revenue per megawatt, sustained growth and strong returns. The use of technology is becoming more and more important for our portfolio both on trading and asset management. We see enhanced returns as well as cost savings across our portfolio now that we are at set at scale, giving strong efficiency gains, lowering costs. And then the continuation of diversification and scaling augmentation now makes sense, and we're engaged in that to build those assets at the cheapest possible CapEx and gaining that incremental revenue. Thank you.

Executive

Thank you. We will now move on to the q and a section of of this presentation with questions that have been submitted through the q and a function of the chat. Starting off, we have seen the requisition of a general meeting announced this morning, and the board acknowledged this. Would the manager like to comment?

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

So this is a board matter. The board put out an r and s this morning acknowledging it. There will, I'm sure, be lots of communication around this going forward, so we will leave it to board to communicate. I would say as a private investor, though, we're always very wary of individual activists and shareholders looking to profit from the long term value that's been created by the shareholder base, but board will be engaging around this.

Executive

Thank you. What is the likely total receipt from the sale of the tax credit? And when will the final transaction be completed?

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

Yes. So as I mentioned earlier, so the the the two projects, Dogfish secured it all of its it monetized all of the proceeds shortly after we we kind of signed the project when when the asset was placed in service. And then we also received the first 50% of the Big Rock proceeds a couple of days ago, having signed on Friday. So the remaining two tranches of the Big Rock payments will be in kind of late q three and q four this year per the per the agreement. And that will be $84,000,000 in total, which I think per the the guidance we previously put out as above the top end of of that range.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

And effectively, transaction is already completed as it were. It's just the kind of structuring of the payments, which is to be kind of satisfied in the next five months.

Executive

Thank you. Next question. Could you give guidance on what dividend cover would look like over '26 and '27?

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

We cover that when we were looking at the dividend policy for 2026. Like I mentioned, the board would like to now keep the dividends fully covered by operational cash flow of the portfolio. It has then set the minimum of 2.25 p thinking that the cover would be at the one point x. We have also illustrated that the last quarter of the year will adjust this dividends upwards if applicable. Meaning, if we see revenue levels going back to what we've seen in 2024, for instance, £15 on the megawatt hour, we could see a dividend going all the way up to 9.7 like that illustration table showed.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

But in terms of dividend cover, the expectation is that this will be one point zero x or higher. Thank you.

Executive

Thank you. Next, on to revenue. Is it not better to bite the bullet on fixed income contracts now rather than trying to beat the market?

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

So I'll I'll kinda go and then Alan and maybe John. But what I would say is through our history, we have achieved in ex far in excess of the fixed contracts that are available. Of course, we're consistently discussing with the market to seeing what those contracts are, but we have very few periods, and I'm talking months, where we would have achieved below what those fixed contracts can deliver. So, again, if we look at £83,000 per megawatt is what we delivered across the portfolio, a significantly higher number than any fixed contract and, in fact, any of our peers. Alan?

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

Yeah. I I I think I'd just add to that. You know, we we are, as you say, constantly looking at the market and what's on offer. We are fundamentally, absolutely not against signing a a fixed revenue contract. And if there was one at the right price, I would absolutely be happy to sign it. Have we seen that price today? No. Not yet.

Executive

Thank you. Next, on to augmentation. So you mentioned that you want to augment two of the sites in the portfolio. How much will this cost and how it will be financed?

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Yeah. So it's I think we've went through this in the presentation. Present guidance is eighteen to twenty two million for that augmentation. CapEx is moving pretty heavily. It's absolutely in our favor.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

We operate, and our colleagues in the procurement team operate a large supply chain. We're constantly in touch with with key suppliers around that pricing. Cell pricing continues to climb very heavily. Augmentation is the addition of new cells. Right?

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

So we don't have to think about inverters and transformers and the like in the initial civil works. So it's all about set that sell price, and that sell price is absolutely declining. We aim to aim to capture it now.

Executive

Thank you. Next, what is the current debt of the company in monetary value, and what is interest being paid on debt?

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

Yes. So I I as I kind of tried to set out earlier, the the current debt level is if you take into account the kind of CIT repayment down to $60,000,000, will be more or less in line with kind of what the reported figure was for for March. So around I think it was around a So on a on a kind of debt to gov basis, you know, that that was around 17.8%. So with with with Aero slightly below that kind of upon repayment of of of that debt.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

In terms of the interest paid, I think, you know, there's a kind of on the two different facilities, obviously, there's there's there's different rates, but we are kind of in around probably between kind of Sonya plus and sofa plus kind of 300 to $3.50 and that's a kind of there may be some ratchets involved in terms of in terms of the margin on top, but that brings us to currently around kind of seven seven to 7.5% all in interest cost.

Executive

Thank you. Next, you said a fin fee change. You said lots of words like nav market part market cap and jargon. Could you please talk to what this is in money saved?

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

Yeah. Sure. So as an illustration, what it means is that share price will now affect on how that the base that 1% will be applicable. In terms of money saved, if you look at the 2024 figure, so the NAV and the market cap for '20, sorry, for 2025 March, we would have GSF would have saved in expenses 1,100,000.0 on that given year. Obviously, that base is based on the market cap and the NAV moving forward, so it's a reference point.

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

But in terms of looking as an an illustrative example of the current fiscal year, savings will be over a million.

Executive

Thank you. Next question. With private market transactions in the energy storage sector now having a close to NAV, do you think the trust is suspect susceptible to a takeover?

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

So this is an excellent portfolio. It's an excellent portfolio which has been built some of the lowest CapEx, is achieving the highest revenue. We have a lit we have an appropriate but not high level of debt, and we're continuing to drive really good efficiencies in both revenue and cost as well as augmentation. So we believe that is a strong portfolio. Whether that is that is susceptible to to a takeover or not, I don't know.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Our job is to build a sustainable long term excellent portfolio for shareholders, which is what we have.

Executive

Thank you very much. Next question. Are you hedging the ITC payments or taking FX risk, currency risk?

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

Yeah, we put in obviously the first tranche was we're paying down a kind of U. S. Dollar denominated facility so that I think we for the initial Dogfish transaction, we announced that kind of initial kind of hedge at 1.3. We've also kind of hedged the subsequent kind of transfer payments as well beyond the one which was received, which was used to pay down the U. S.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

Dollar facility. Yes, they were hedged at the same time around two to three months ago.

Executive

Thank you. Next, we have a few questions on so what protection do the assets have to avoid thermal events that have been reported as happening at the best locations? Are the GS locations covered by relevant insurance?

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Yeah. It's an interesting question. It goes to what our asset management team are doing, the use of data to understand how individual cells are reacting to individual's trading strategies, for instance, or individual environmental conditions. That's part of what we have built and what we are continuing to build. The that team have put in place really interesting technologies which manage and monitor, for instance, the changes in air composition in the in the containers to be able to give us advanced warning of, for instance, difficulties around risk of fire.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

All of those things have led to a really significant drop in insurance premiums. Insurance premiums are a material item of cost in this portfolio, And we believe we have the leading cost on insurance given all the strong work that our asset management team have put in place around the use of technology for monitoring, the round of use of technology for data, as well as, I would say, the, of course, the appropriate safety procedures in terms of the maintenance of these assets.

Executive

Thank you. Next question. What are the near term actions that will be taken to reduce the share price discount? What are other initiatives above the management fee change which will be taken to reduce costs?

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

So I think what we went through there in this presentation is we are now off a scale with a well diversified, upscale, nearly a gigawatt hour of operation, where we will look to push through cost savings in the portfolio in terms of the use of technology, the use of our scale to get better deals from our suppliers, incremental increase in augmentation to bring up to two hour duration, firstly, in GB and, firstly, in Stoney and Ferry. All of these things, I believe, will feed through to an improved share price performance given it is a strong, diversified, high revenue, low debt portfolio, which is continuing to produce to spec. We would hope that will feed through to an improved share price performance.

Executive

Thank you. In addition to the debt, are there any preferred shares in the ish in issue? And is there any shareholder dilution considered in the next twelve months?

Paula Travesso
MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital

No. Current shares outstanding are all ordinary shares. Therefore, there's no preferred share as a cost.

Executive

Thank you. You are saying you will now target two hour systems in the GB market. Would it not have made more sense just to have built two hour systems from the funds launch?

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

No. So the well, let me let me qualify that question. It depends on which market you are in. So you should build the the lowest cost system which generates the maximum revenue for that cost in the market that you are building. So, for instance, to give you an example, our Northern Ireland Ireland assets are twenty three minutes duration.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

So they're for a very, very low CapEx. Why were they twenty three minutes duration? Because that is all the duration you needed to generate the maximum revenue in that marketplace. Up to, I would say, the last six to nine months in the GB market, building more than one hour duration did not give you an incrementally positive return given the cost of CapEx. What we see now is a really strong driver down in CapEx, and therefore, the math makes sense.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

We have four hour duration in California, two hours in Texas because you get paid for that duration in those markets. In GB, we now have an opportunity to build at the lowest cost for our incremental duration, therefore, get the best return on invested capital. Alan, do have anything to to add to that?

Alan Smallwood
Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital

No. Completely agree with that. We've seen some rule changes this year from NISO, which which do advantage larger durations. So as Alex said, the CapEx being where it is now, now the time to to make that decision.

Executive

Okay. Thank you. And next, are strategic partnerships planned in all markets? Where do you see the greatest opportunities currently?

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Yeah. I think an interesting one. We're we're we're engaged if we think about obviously, there's difference between the markets. There is of course, we think we look across The US, there's there's a highly volatile policy environment, I would say. Counterintuitively, we're happy being the incumbent.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

I we're happy their assets got built at at the right time. They're happy we got our ITC. It's unclear to us how much more solar storage and wind will get built over the next few years given this policy uncertainty. So that's a complicated market. We see Ireland as a very strong market for us.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

The extension of the d s three is really very beneficial to our portfolio. In GB, obviously, we're doing very well. We continue to see upside in that market, same in Germany. So each of the markets are different. In terms of us looking for a strategic partner and us looking to rebalance the portfolio, we are looking to talk to some, you know, some of the kind of material strategics who could look to us as a good partner to help build out the rest of the portfolio regardless of where it is. So we're we're we're having those type of conversations.

Executive

Thank you. And coming to sort of the end of the questions now. Did I see a note on one of the slides which said the big, beautiful bill didn't adversely affect the benefits previously available through the inflation reduction act?

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

That is true. Yep.

John-Michael Cheshire
MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital

That's yep. That's right.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

The big view I I find it hard to say the name. The big beautiful bill is forward looking, not retroactive.

Executive

Thank you very much. And, Alex, if I can hand over to you for closing remarks.

Alex O'Cinneide
Alex O'Cinneide
Founder & CEO at Gore Street Energy Storage Fund

Yeah. So thank you, everybody, thank you for being shareholders. We think it is now a point where we have the right portfolio, the right level of scale, generating a high level of revenue with low cost and low amount of debt. We're looking forward to really drive revenue improvements and cost efficiencies as well as work with the market to bring the right partners on board to help us complete the rest of the 500 megawatts that we have ready to build. And thank you all.

Operator

That's great. Well, thank you very much for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session as you now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback and all the management team can better understand your views and expectations. On behalf of the management team of Coral Street Energy Storage Fund plc, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.

Executives
    • Alex O'Cinneide
      Alex O'Cinneide
      Founder & CEO
Analysts
    • Alan Smallwood
      Principal - Optimisation & Trading at Gore Street Capital
    • John-Michael Cheshire
      MD - Investment at Gore Street Capital
    • Paula Travesso
      MD - Corporate Development at Gore Street Capital
    • Executive
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