Bluefield Solar sees NAV and income growth run parallel with inflation

Bluefield Solar Income Fund has seen a growth in its net asset value (NAV) to £858 million alongside its income growth which is expected to grow into 2023 running parallel with inflation.

The rising NAV value of Bluefield’s renewable assets, consisting of solar, wind and battery storage, highlights the growing demand for renewable technologies and their need to be scaled to mitigate the impact of the energy crisis.

The income fund recently revealed that high power prices and inflation had been the primary instigators that pushed Bluefield Solar Income Fund’s NAV up by 10% providing further growth for its shareholders.

One of the primary reasons for an increase in NAV is due to the dramatically higher electricity prices that have risen due to the wholesale gas crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Bluefield’s annual report detailed that UK day-ahead power prices had been surging from c.£78/MWh to highs of c.£593/MWh in August 2022. This has led to the highest earnings and dividends since IPO.

“We've laid the foundations for very strong growth and earnings model because we've been really striking contracts,” James Armstrong, founder of Bluefield, exclusively told Solar Power Portal.

“In the next few years, we've projected what we expect our earnings to be, which are significantly higher, and will be record earnings going forward. But also, we have a very large proprietary pipeline, largely mainly of solar, some battery, which we have control of and are looking to build out over the coming year.”

This rise has highlighted the need to expand renewable development, something that Bluefield has committed to. The company confirmed it is currently developing 800MW of solar and 300MW of battery energy storage.

The expansion of renewable energy generation could prove lucrative for Bluefield not only from a decarbonisation perspective, but due to surging popularity for clean energy with gas prices soaring. Bluefield detailed it had made investment figures of around £320 million to develop solar, wind and battery projects.

“We remain incredibly optimistic about the prospects of renewables and solar. The results today have demonstrated what a good model it is and we, with our pipeline that we've announced today, we're very, very ambitious,” said Armstrong.

"We've got circa 800MW of solar coming through development. That's a big figure and would double our current capacity. We remain very committed and very positive about the UK market.”

Bluefield’s positive financial results coincide with the income fund having been promoted to the London Stock Exchange’s FTSE 250 index last week.

With this, Bluefield Solar stated it owns and operates one of the UK's largest, diversified portfolios of solar and wind assets with a combined installed power capacity in excess of 766MWp.

“We are proud to announce Bluefield Solar’s promotion to the FTSE 250, which marks a further significant milestone in the growth of the company. The increasing asset base of the portfolio has enabled shareholders to access one of the largest portfolios of UK renewable assets available to the public investor,” said John Rennocks, chairman of Bluefield Solar on being promoted to the FTSE 250 index.