JEC reports ‘best ever financial performance’

Jersey Electricity achieved profit before tax of £13.5 million – 2.5% higher than in 2016. However, group revenue totalled £102.3m, 1% down from the £103.4m achieved last year.

The board is proposing a final dividend for the year of 8.4p per share, a 5% increase on the previous year. The States hold 62% of the shares.

Earlier this month chief executive Chris Ambler announced that tariffs for consumers would not be going up this winter. The charges have been kept at the current level since April 2014, when tariffs went up by 1.5%.

In the company’s stock exchange announcement last week chairman Geoffrey Grime said that the business had performed strongly across the group, including the Powerhouse retail shop, which grew turnover by 9%, to £13m. ‘Overall, this has led to the group’s best ever financial performance, an outcome that is good for all stakeholders, for our ongoing investment programme and for a sustainable electricity service,’ he said.

Mr Grime said that the group’s success had been driven by having three undersea supply cables now linked to France, improving both supply reliability and costs. ‘Our tariffs remain very competitive compared with other jurisdictions, including other islands and even the EU and UK, which benefit from significant economies of scale,’ he said.

The average 2017 UK tariff increase across the ‘big six’ providers was 14%.

In the 12 months to September 93% of the Island’s electricity requirements were imported from Electricité de France, 1% was generated from the La Collette power station and the remaining 6% came from the Energy From Waste plant.

Mr Grime added: ‘As the sole supplier of over a third of Jersey’s energy requirements, the company has a huge responsibility to our customers. I am therefore pleased that our customer satisfaction ratings have improved further across the four key service areas, leading to an overall rating independently assessed as ‘excellent’ when compared with other service providers.’

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