Helius Energy, the listed renewables specialist, says its biomass plant at Rothes in the Highlands is on track to start commercial operations within the next month.
The company, whose backers include Stagecoach co-founder Ann Gloag, says it hopes to finalise financing of its second project at Avonmouth later in the year.
Helius was reporting a pre-tax loss of £699,000 in the year to March 31, against £644,000 the previous year, while administrative costs were cut by 28% to £652,000, and cash grew from £4.3 million to £4.7m following a placing to raise a net £5.6m of working capital.
It said the Rothes plant, which will convert distillery by-products into energy for 9000 homes, "remains on time with the reliability tests having been finished and performance trials in progress". The plant generated its first electricity in January and was formally accredited under the Renewables Obligation scheme two months ago.
Helius said contracts were being finalised for the construction, fuel supply and electricity offtake for the Avonmouth project. The planning process for the group's third plant at Southampton is also in progress.
Chief executive Dr Adrian Bowles said the generation of revenues from Rothes "demonstrates the ability of the company to develop, finance and deliver its projects". The shares, which listed at 24p three years ago and began the year at 15.75p, were unchanged at 9.5p, valuing the firm at £17.4m.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article