SSE adjusted operating profit from its renewables business jumped 91% in the first half of the financial year, boosted by new wind capacity and favourable weather conditions.
Earnings before interest and tax from clean power were £149.9m in the first six months of fiscal year, up from £78.4m in the same period of 2018.
Total generation from renewables in the first six months of the financial year was 4045 gigawatt-hours, up from 3278GWh last year.
Total installed clean power capacity at the company was just under 4GW, compared with just over 3.7GW at this stage in 2018.
The company said as of early November renewables output was slightly ahead of plan for the year.
It added that the EBIT figure was also boosted by £18m of GB capacity market payments covering the period from the date of its suspension to 30 September 2019. This compares with £3m of payments in the previous year’s 1H period.
SSE said it has changed the estimated useful life of its onshore wind farms from 20 to 25 years.
The financial impact of this extension is to increase adjusted and reported profit before tax by £14.5m.
Reported EBIT was down to £106.4m from £151.1m last year, but, the company said, the 2018 figure included exceptional gains of £88.4m and the 2019 figure includes a one-off financing cost charge of £5.9m.
Onshore wind capacity stands at 1955MW, with a further 1GW of potential new build projects of which 700MW has consent.
“With no current policy support mechanism in place in the UK, the aim is to attempt to deliver into operation new onshore wind farms without subsidy, where it is possible to do so,” SSE said.
Offshore the company owns 25%, 50% and 40% shares, respectively, in the 367MW Walney, 504MW Greater Gabbard and 588MW Beatrice projects.