Foresight Solar Fund (FSFL)

Foresight Solar’s directors recently visited Bournemouth solar farm. On a sunny day on the Dorset coast, Ann Markey and Lynn Cleary were alongside Conor Cowden and Toby Virno for a “guided tour” from Brighter Green Engineering’s operations director, Roy Gordon. The team’s appearance overlapped with some of the site’s other visitors, who were enjoying a local snack. As part of our sustainability initiatives, Foresight Solar opens projects’ doors to farmers and allows sheep to graze among the panels. The Bournemouth plant is a 37MW solar farm that has been producing clean energy for almost a decade. It takes its name from the nearby resort town and, in 2023, produced enough electricity to power more than 13,000 UK homes. #InvestmentTrusts #SiteVisit #SolarEnergy

Research shows that solar farms can improve health outcomes when they displace coal power stations. A recent report showed that hospital admissions due to respiratory diseases fell by 16% in Chile when the government switched to solar from coal in the north of the country. The impact was especially pronounced in cities downwind from fossil fuel plants. Positive outcomes were measured in places as far away as 100km. According to calculations by researchers from the University of Chile, the London School of Economics, and the non-profit Resources for the Future, new solar installations led to 28% and 18% decreases in hospital admissions related to upper- and lower-respiratory causes, respectively. The impacts are measurable in different age groups as well. “A 1GWh increase in displaced coal generation reduces hospital admissions of infants and seniors by 9.8% and 9.9%, respectively, in downwind cities within 10km,” the scientists found. For adults, switching to solar electricity production implied a 21% reduction in hospital admissions for respiratory diseases. Although the indications are positive, the researchers caution against extrapolating the data because of the region's particularities. The geography’s high levels of irradiation and a rapid expansion of solar put it in a unique position, they said. You can read the full paper here: https://lnkd.in/dEnHC6jV #SolarEnergy #Sustainability

Renewables Resurgence?   Shore Capital hosted our latest Investment Funds conference at the Royal Society of Chemistry yesterday with speakers from across the renewable energy sector.   External guest speakers included: Ross Driver from Foresight Solar Fund (FSFL) David Bird from Octopus Investments, manager of Octopus Renewable Infrastructure Trust Shore Capital client guest speakers included: John-Michael Cheshire and Dr Alex O'Cinneide from Gore Street Capital, manager of Gore Street Energy Storage Fund Anders Hauch and Kwame Parker from Frontier Energy | Africa.   Ca.100 attendees took the opportunity to hear from our speakers and network with fellow investment professionals against the backdrop of Burlington House in central London.   Thank you to our speakers and everyone who attended a great event.

A recent study in Scotland showed that there was no economic impact to house prices near power lines after these key infrastructure projects are built. In a recent article in The Guardian, Jillian Ambrose explains that property prices along the route of the Beauly-Denny “overhead line mirrored those of the wider local authorities and appeared to be influenced by wider macroeconomic factors rather than the appearance of new power lines”. Since 2015, when electrons started running through the cables, house prices in the area near the pylons increased by 28%, compared with 30% and 29% in the local authority area and in Scotland, respectively. Data showing there is no financial downside to residents should hopefully hasten progress to build the infrastructure to enable renewable projects to power more homes and businesses across the country. The UK needs to accelerate the construction of transmission and distribution lines if it is to meet its Net Zero targets. The National Grid estimates that five times as many high-voltage cables will need to be installed by 2030 as were built in the past 30 years combined to meet. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/es2ByBZa #RenewableEnergy #ElectricityInfrastructure #NetZero

In this edition of "Meet the team", we catch up with Sarah Cowan, a Senior Marketing Manager in the Foresight Solar team. She tells us that no day in the office is the same as she analyses trends and helps the fund engage its key audiences—and a bit about her interest in tennis. The "Meet the team" series goes behind the scenes to introduce you to the individuals that make FSFL possible. We talk to the experts who make the investment decisions, manage the assets, calculate the portfolio's valuation, drive financial success, work on our long-term sustainability, and more.

The Daily Mail's This Is Money explained the tailwinds driving renewable energy in a recent article. In the piece, Ian Lyall highlights the positive factors for the sector: ·        Lower interest rates, ·        Government support for the expansion of green energy, ·        Political stability with a strong parliamentary majority, and ·        Rising power prices, With share price discounts to net asset value as steep as 40% in some cases, the outlet notes that “as capital returns to equity markets, you would expect this gap to narrow, with share prices benefiting from an uplift”. Foresight Solar’s Ross Driver participated in the discussion, saying: “The transition to a lower carbon economy is one of the biggest investment opportunities of our generation. The window of opportunity is reopening. I don’t think it’ll be all plain sailing from here, there’ll likely be a few bumps along the road, but the general direction of travel is now more positive.” Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/dtiUS4UQ #InvestmentTrusts #RenewableEnergy #SmallCapIdea

Foresight Solar’s interim results demonstrate the resilience of solar power generation and the direct contribution of our active power price hedging strategy. Despite poor weather across markets, revenue for the first six months of 2024 was only 6.6% below budget. This solid operational performance allowed the fund to continue executing on its capital allocation strategy based on returning capital to shareholders, paying down debt and looking ahead to future growth opportunities. 💷 The Board allocated another £10 million to FSFL’s buyback programme, taking the total to up to £50 million. In the first half of this year, the fund distributed £38.6 million to shareholders between buybacks and dividends. We’re also well on track to pay our full-year target dividend of 8p per share. 📉 We started the second phase of the divestment programme targeting a sale of the 170MW of operational solar and the 122MWp of development-stage BESS in the Australian portfolio. Closing is expected in H1 2025, and proceeds will be used to pay down debt further. Overall gearing should fall by several percentage points in relation to GAV once the projects’ long-term debt is no longer on the fund’s balance sheet. ⌛ Our proprietary development pipeline grew to almost 1GWp after the deal to access 400MWp of development-stage BESS in Spain. Partnerships like the one we unveiled in May require limited upfront investment and provide optionality and upside potential as solar and battery assets go from development to construction to operation. Watch the video with Ross Driver and Toby Virno for more detail. You can also read the full report on our website: https://lnkd.in/eRZR8_bm #InvestmentTrusts #SolarEnergy #InterimResults

“The market difficulties juxtapose with the growing investment needs in renewables”, writes Alex Blackburne for S&P Global in a recent article looking at the outlook for listed funds.   Ross Driver contributed to the piece, pointing out that, in the face of capital constraints in equity markets, funds have instead opted to return cash to investors by buying back shares.   Ross also discussed how Foresight Solar is adapting to the new higher interest rate environment: "After the era of solely relying on being a yieldco, I think we need to do a bit more than that. We need capital growth".   Foresight Solar has roughly 1GW of development assets in its proprietary pipeline, with plans to build it to up to 3GW in the medium term and minimal upfront costs.   "You're taking a risk but obviously what you're paying for those project rights is significantly lower [than buying operating or ready-to-build assets]," Ross said. "We'd only need one of those projects to come through and it pays us back."   Building Foresight Solar’s proprietary development pipeline is an integral part of our shift to a total return strategy. We aim to deliver sustainable income while also generating capital growth—all while contributing to the energy transition.   Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/daZ6MXUy   #RenewableEnergyFunds #EnergyTransition #IncomeAndGrowth

As students go back to school in the UK this week, we kick off another year of initiatives to help them learn about physics and biology with workshops and visits to solar farms. It’s a great opportunity for them to see and learn how the plants work and how they can contribute to a lower-carbon future, as well as to local communities. During the 2023/2024 school year, our partnership with Earth Energy Education resulted in more than 1,000 children from 16 different schools attending 12 site visits and participating in 21 in-school workshops. We can’t wait for school to be back! #SolarEnergy #InvestmentTrusts #SiteVisits

The new government has a goal of trebling solar energy capacity by 2030. More friendly planning and more aggressive CfD auctions will help the roll-out. The administration will, however, face opposition from politicians who claim rooftop installations are a better solution than utility-scale plants. The reality is more nuanced; it’s not an either/or proposition. In this newsletter, we outline the benefits of rooftop arrays and ground-mounted solar farms, explaining how the “retail” alternative and the “wholesale” option are complementary and will, together, play a key role in the transition to a lower carbon economy.