LONDON (dpa-AFX) - British water utility company Pennon Group PLC (PNN.L) Friday said its first-half trading has been in line with expectations amid the volatile macro-economic environment.
In its trading update for the period ended September 30, the company said it is maintaining momentum of performance on outcome delivery incentives or ODIs.
With the focus on water efficiency, the company continues to target year on year leakage reductions in line with the delivery of 15% business plan commitment to 2025.
The company's underlying performance across all Environmental Performance Assessment or EPA metrics is improving, including a continuation of the trend of overall pollution reductions.
For 2022/23, the company continues to anticipate a cumulative doubling of base returns on regulated equity.
As a result of the Government's recently announced reversal on the planned corporation tax increase from 19% to 25%, Pennon expects a deferred tax credit of around 120 million pounds that will be recognised during the second half.
The company further said its around 1.4 billion pounds environmental investment programme, its largest for over 15 years, is now well underway.
In the first half of the year, the company invested significantly to support the delivery of its suite of 2020-25 business plan environmental commitments
In order to significantly accelerate the company's pathway to around 50% self-generation by 2030, and its environmental Net Zero 2030 commitment, the company said it is now planning to invest around 160 million pounds in renewable energy generation projects. This is the remaining amount from the company's up to around 400 million pounds originally set out for Pennon's share buy-back.
These projects would supply power to UK water businesses, reducing reliance on wholesale power markets.
Regarding Sustainable Financing Framework, Pennon said it has raised around 250 million pounds of new and renewed funding since March 2022, and continues to target raising all new financing through the framework.
Pennon is scheduled to announced half year results on November 30.
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