The firm, which operates eight nuclear stations in the UK and meets around 20% of the country’s energy needs, recorded operating profits of GBP135 million for H1, with revenues edging just over the GBP1 billion mark.
The company acknowledged that the rising wholesale power price had been good for business, and expected that around 95% of its output for the 2005/6 financial year would be covered by fixed contracts at an average GBP32.5/megawatt hour.
However, British Energy acknowledged that full year output levels would be hit as a result of outages at its Hartlepool and Heysham power stations.
Commenting on the results, chief executive Bill Coley said: We continued to deliver good financial performance through the half year benefiting from higher electricity prices.
We are disappointed with the recent outages at Hartlepool and Heysham 1 which have impacted our projection of output for the year, but see continuing improvements in operating metrics as a result of our performance improvement program.
