Good morning, and welcome to United Utilities Full Year Results Presentation. This is the 3rd set of results that we've delivered now virtually. Hopefully, we can present our next set of results in person. But in the meantime, I trust you'll continue to find our virtual presentations informative, engaging and I look forward to meeting as many of you as soon as possible when restrictions
are lifted.
I've been in role of Chairman since the beginning of 2020, Sensen will have appointed 2 new non exec directors together with Phil Aspin as CFO as part of a planned and orderly succession planning process. As you can imagine, the priority of the Board over the last year has been ensuring we keep the employees safe, Our customers supported and the communities in which we operate safe and satisfied. As you'll hear at the beginning of today's presentation, Steve and the management team have done a great job leading the company through the challenges of last year and ensuring we continue to improve services and support It's so critical to our customers here in the Northwest. Our achievements are a testament to the work of our highly engaged and motivated colleagues right across the organization. We're very proud of the resilience and the adaptability that they've demonstrated.
Our operational performance has once again been strong, building on the improvements we've delivered in the previous regulatory period and providing us with a great start to achieving our targets in AMP7. Recognizing this, the Board proposes an increase of 1.5% and the final dividend in line with our policy. This takes the dividend total for the year to 43.24p per share. Thank you. And now I'll hand over to Steve.
Thanks very much, David, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to United Utilities' full year results presentation for the financial year 2020 2021, the 1st year of the AMP7 regulatory period. I'm pleased to report that the United Utilities team has addressed the unprecedented challenges brought about the COVID pandemic and delivered its best ever operational performance, testimony to the business transformation achieved in recent years and our intense preparation for AMP7. Our customer facing teams have worked hard to help customers struggling financially as a consequence of COVID. And I'm proud of how our frontline key workers have shown courage and resilience in maintaining the provision of essential water on wastewater services throughout the year, at the same time as dealing with prolonged and intense weather conditions now characteristic of climate change.
So here are the highlights. We're delivering our vision of being a digital utility. Our systems thinking approach uses real time data supported by sector leading innovation and technology to take a holistic approach to the operation and optimization of our network. This is enabling significant performance improvement, efficiency and a better service for customers. ESG is at our heart and always has been.
We have a deep symbiotic relationship with the environment and the communities we serve. We've accelerated investment in the 1st year of this AMP to deliver customer and environmental benefit early and are investing an incremental £300,000,000 of Totex over AMP7 to underpin long term sustainable performance, all of which we expect to be fully remunerated and supports a green recovery as we emerge from the pandemic. We've again delivered a robust financial performance and raised finance sufficiently, underpinned by a strong balance sheet. And we're targeting around £150,000,000 of customer ODI rewards over AMP7, reflecting the successful start to the period in which we've earned over £20,000,000 in year 1. Our digital transformation is yielding excellent results, And here are just a few examples.
In water, supply interruptions to customers have been halved. We've delivered our lowest ever level of leakage. We've made substantial improvements in our water regulators' risk scores, CRI and ERI, reflecting the investment in the quality and reliability of our And in wastewater, we once again lead the sector with no serious pollution incidents for the 2nd consecutive year and all other pollution incidents have been cut by almost onethree. We achieved best in sector performance at our wastewater treatment works. And this, along with other improvements, means we expect to be awarded top 4 star status by the Environment Agency for the year, something we'll have achieved in 4 of the last 5 years.
This has been a year in which customer service has never been more important and one in which we've seen a demographic shift from the work to home environment along with a change in usage patterns. The pandemic has also led to increasing financial hardship for many customers, unwelcome in a region with high background socioeconomic deprivation. Despite this, cash collection has been good across the year because of the excellent job our team has done in adapting to this environment, helping more struggling families than ever before with over 200,000 customers benefiting from our Help to Pay schemes. We constantly seek new and innovative ways to help customers. And most recently, we've started to use Open Banking through which customers can share their data with us to help us find the most suitable payment scheme for them at times of difficulty.
And we continue to increase the number of customers with access to priority services in times of need, with over 103 33,000 now on our register. And digital transformation isn't contained just to water on wastewater operations. This year, the value of payments received by our mobile app has increased by 74%. And now 1,000,000 customers engage with us digitally, representing over onethree of our customer base. We have our own in house app development team, And this is paying dividends in creating digital capability for our field and customer facing teams with agility, flexibility and at low cost.
Our new voids app, which helps us to easily identify unbilled but occupied properties, has helped us earn maximum customer ODI reward on voids this year and underpins a further €24,000,000 reward across the M. I'm delighted to say that customer satisfaction has improved again this year with us earning a reward on both C MEX and D MEX ODIs, positioning us in the sector upper quartile for all around customer satisfaction. On this slide, we're showing our net regulated CapEx profile for AMP7. We're comparing our final determination profile, shown as the green line against our actual year 1 and forecast spend profile. Our investment strategy is clear and enduring.
We invest for long term sustainable performance for customers and the environment. At the half year, we told you we'd extended our Totex plans since accepting the AMP7 final determination by £150,000,000 in relation to confirmed extensions to our environmental program at Bolton and burn we. We're now increasing this additional investment by a further £150,000,000 to a total of £300,000,000 investing in spend to save opportunities and the acceleration of our digital program. We expect all of this expenditure to be fully remunerated through regulatory mechanisms with much of it flowing through to our RCV. And on the next slide, I'll provide some more detail on one of the largest components of this investment.
In AMP6, we accelerated investment to deliver performance benefits earlier, And we're repeating this successful formula, this AMP, with around £500,000,000 brought forward for spend over years 1 to 3 in AMP7. This will derisk delivery of our capital program, deliver targeted operational improvements early and support customer ODI earnings targets. A further benefit is the stimulus this expenditure gives to the regional economy as we exit the worst effects of the pandemic, frequently referred to as green recovery. Our 1st year AMP7 CapEx program has gone extremely well. The early start and transition investment we made in the last year of AMP6 gave us a flying start, and we pressed on with our investment program throughout the pandemic, provided, of course, we could do so safely.
As a consequence, under our time, cost and quality metric, TCQI, We achieved one of our highest ever performance scores for the year, a great achievement by our team along with our design and construction partners. Those of you who attended our Capital Markets Day earlier this year will have heard us talk about dynamic network management, a new and exciting application of systems thinking not seen anywhere else in the world. Application of this new digital capability We'll shift us from reactive management of our wastewater network to a use of a web of sensors providing near real time performance information. Machine intelligence then uses that information to diagnose and predict performance of the wastewater network. This will deliver improved services to customers, fewer blockages, less sewer flooding, fewer pollution events And financially, it will result in reduced COTEX and improved customer ODI performance.
Investment in this capability is at around £100,000,000 and is therefore a significant component of the total £300,000,000 additional investment for the AMP. Proof of concept is complete, and we're currently rolling out the sensor web across our wastewater network. And the system backbone is in place so that we gain immediate benefit as each sensor is installed. It should be substantially complete by the end of year 3 of this AMP, and we expect this investment to be fully recovered through the regulatory mechanisms. Turning to the broad set of customer ODIs.
This slide shows contributing to our year on one reward. You can now see that our investment strategy and digital transformation is delivering value across the board of our activity. We've had a great start to the AMP, having met or exceeded over 80% of our performance commitments and therefore earning £21,000,000 in customer ODIs, some 10 times the performance we saw for the same period in AMP6. Progress against our plans give us the confidence to target cumulative ODI performance over AMP7 of around 150,000,000 The company's intimate relationship with the environment means that the climate change journey is one we've been on for many years. Having exceeded our climate change objectives for 2020, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 73%, we've made 6 carbon pledges, including a clear commitment to science based targets and that you can see in the TCFD disclosure in our 2020 annual report.
The slide shows how we're on track and delivering against all 6 pledges, most notably the 2 pledges we target delivery dates of 2021. From October of this year, 100% of our electricity will be sourced Renewable Technologies. And we have set ambitious Scope 3 emissions targets that have been submitted for endorsement by the SBTI, and which will be disclosed in our 2021 annual report. For us, climate change is so much more than carbon. It's fundamentally changing the weather pattern in our region, bringing hotter, drier periods more frequently and heavier, more sustained periods of rainfall, all of which test the resilience of our systems.
The investments we made in AMP6 have given us demonstrable improvements in resilience, and our plans for AMP7 take us further. We sold the vast majority of our non regulated portfolio over 10 years ago. And as we've previously announced, we completed the sale of our largest residual investment, our Talend joint venture, in March for a consideration of around €100,000,000 You'll be aware that in recent years, we've built a renewable energy portfolio, principally of solar installations across our estate, along with a small number of wind and hydro generators. The portfolio is operating satisfactorily, and our investment has delivered the returns that we targeted. Having maximized the opportunities to date and established long term contracts to secure a proportion of our renewable energy out to 2,045, We're now looking at how we can recycle our investment in order to achieve further strong returns and take the next steps in our plans to achieve net 0.
Strong employee engagement is critical to business performance. And over the past year, our survey score positioned us as above the norm for U. K. High performing companies, remarkable in a COVID year and testimony to the cohesiveness of the UU team. 92% of employees would recommend UU to friends as a great place to work.
And current and former employees score us 4.5 out of 5 on Glassdoor in terms of how they view UU as an employer, positioning us as a leading place to work in the utility sector. We're committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workforce. Our employee diversity networks have a growing membership and play a pivotal role in providing insight, raising awareness and giving support to colleagues. In October, we hosted the sector's 1st Social Mobility Summit, sharing leading edge thinking in promoting social mobility, including case studies from our own employees, reflecting the progress we've made. And we've signed up to the 10,000 Black Interns program, providing paid work experience to young black people over the next 5 years.
Reflecting the progress we've made, we're delighted to be one of the top 1% of 15,000 companies across Europe in the Financial Times Stasista survey for diversity and inclusion leadership and to achieve inclusion in the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index. But we're not stopping here, and the link on the slide takes you to a video that gives you more detail on how we're driving diversity and inclusion further. Our approach is clear. We need fantastic people to enable us to deliver a great public service. And we're striving to reach and recruit from every part of our community we serve and to support employees to achieve their full potential, making them feel valued and included regardless of their gender, age, race, disability, sexual orientation or social background.
I'll now hand you over to Phil to take you through the financials.
Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone. I'm delighted to be presenting my 1st full year set of results this morning and having this opportunity to build on the relationship that I've established with many of you over the course of the last year. I also hope you find the changes we've made to the definition of net debt, The streamlining of our APMs, the inclusion of forward guidance and the discussion of Rory helpful in providing greater transparency and comparability of our performance. So turning to our results. In today's presentation, I will highlight our strong financial performance through what has been a challenging environment for the business and our customers.
I will then look at how our sector leading ESG credentials supported the issuance of our debut sustainable bond before reminding you of our robust balance sheet. Here I will highlight our customer receivables position RCV gearing and finally pensions. To wrap up I will focus on Adore and finish with some high level guidance the year to March 2022. So these are the key financial highlights for the year. Revenue of £1,800,000,000 is down from the prior year largely reflecting the known price reduction in this the 1st year of the new regulatory period.
Household bad debt is 2.2% of regulated revenue, representing a marginal increase of £5,000,000 on the underlying bad debt cost in the prior year. Underlying operating profit of £602,000,000 largely reflects the fall in revenue and the planned higher infrastructure renewals expenditure. As a result, underlying EPS over the year is 56.2p per share, supporting a dividend per share of 43.24p We continue to raise finance efficiently and in January issued our debut sustainable bond, leveraging on our strong ESG credentials and resulting in one of our best ever financing transactions. Our balance sheet remains one of the strongest in the sector with low customer debt of risk, RCV gearing of 62% and a pension scheme which is fully funded on a low dependency basis, all of which supports a stable A3 credit rating from Moody's. And finally, for our performance in the year So here we provide a bridge of revenue from last year to this year.
In summary, revenue of £1,800,000,000 is £51,000,000 lower than last year, largely reflecting the known price reduction in this, the 1st year of the new regulatory period. Now turning to each of the components in the bridge. Revenue in 20 nineteentwenty twenty was reduced by £13,000,000 due to the impact of the wholesale revenue forecasting incentive mechanism, which does not apply in the current year. This year we had a known reduction in our revenue cap of £80,000,000 representing a 5.5% real reduction in typical household bills offset by a 1.5% increase in CPIH. Across our total customer base, we've seen changes in consumption through the COVID pandemic broadly offset.
Lower consumption from businesses as a result of the restrictions in place over the year has reduced revenue by £47,000,000 While the warm weather in the early part of the year together with many of us continuing to work from home for longer has increased consumption from households by 47,000,000 This net position improved from the first half as consumption has remained high from households in the second half, but more businesses have been able to operate in moving up to Christmas and also in some capacity during the post Christmas lockdown period. Revenue this year includes £6,000,000 in relation to the Innovation Fund. This is a new scheme introduced by OffWorks in AMP7 and is intended to fund industry wide projects. In the current year, we have provided the £6,000,000 of offsetting costs with a balance of revenue and costs in future years dependent on how successful companies are in bidding for funds. In the first round of results announced recently, we were pleased to have been involved in 5 of 11 successful projects, leading on 2 of them and representing half of the available funding.
Other revenue increases of £9,000,000 includes benefit of our strong focus on identifying void properties. I will now talk through our household cash collection and bad debt performance for the year.
The
chart on the left hand side of this slide shows our household bad debt charge for the
year at
2.2%. This is a marginal increase on the underlying charge of last year reflecting the ongoing uncertainty associated with the 3rd lockdown And taking into account expected cash collections into the future as government support schemes unwind and furlough comes to an end in September. Our underlying cash collection performance remains robust as a result of our continued focus on improved data quality, business processes and systems to ensure we are able to accurately pursue payments in an efficient and timely manner. This has enabled us to manage the impact of COVID such that this year's higher bad debt charge is a relatively modest increase of £5,000,000 in the absolute charge. The last year has been incredibly challenging for many in our region And we are helping those customers with clear affordability issues with the sector's widest range of support schemes.
These have been extended this year with the addition of a further social IF providing £15,000,000 per annum of support to customers struggling as a consequence of COVID. Where customers have the ability to pay but attempt to avoid doing so. We have a comprehensive approach to collections activity including showing data with multiple credit reference agencies extending our footprint and improving collections activity. We have over 80% of household customers on direct debit or alternative payment plans, one of the highest proportions in the sector and providing a high degree of collection certainty for a significant proportion of our household customer base. All of these factors give us confidence that our cash collection performance will remain robust.
And as the country emerges from the effects of COVID, but our bad debt charge will revert to a similar level to that which we were achieving pre pandemic. On this slide, we provide a bridge of underlying operating profit from last year to this year. Underlying operating profit of £602,000,000 is down 130 £1,000,000 This principally reflects £51,000,000 reduction in revenue and £22,000,000 increase in infrastructure renewals expenditure as a result of ongoing work to optimize the network performance. Depreciation is £22,000,000 higher principally reflecting the higher CapEx program in AMP VI with a high number of assets commissioned towards the end of the AMP. In the near term, we would expect depreciation to flatten out reflecting the lower AMP 7 CapEx program.
Property rates are higher, largely reflecting an £8,000,000 rates refund received last year. And as I mentioned earlier £6,000,000 of additional costs were recognized in the year in relation to the Innovation Lastly, we've incurred £13,000,000 of extra COVID related costs including the higher bad debt charge which would have been absorbed within our cost base and has not been treated as an adjusted item when calculating our underlying operating profit. Focusing next on the remaining key lines of the income statement. Our underlying net finance expense is £133,000,000 This reflects the changes we've made to alternative performance measures as highlighted in our March trading update and is £58,000,000 lower than last year on a like for like basis predominantly reflecting the lower inflation applied to our index linked debt. A full reconciliation of changes that have been made to the APMs can be found in the appendix to this presentation.
Our share of losses of joint ventures is £9,000,000 including £5,000,000 of profit from our Talend JV. Following the sale of our stake in Talend, going forward profits and losses of joint ventures will relate solely to WaterPlus. Although it's been a challenging operating environment for WaterPlus and other business retailers through the pandemic, we've seen an improvement in the underlying operating performance. In our March trading statement, we highlighted the intention to convert £32,500,000 of working capital loans to WaterPlus into loss absorbing equity. This, together with the improved underlying performance, provides WaterPlus with a robust platform from which to make a strong recovery as business customers emerge from the pandemic.
As a result of the recapitalization, the share of losses recognized this year comprises £5,000,000 of unrecognized losses from the prior year and £9,000,000 of losses in relation to the current year. Our underlying tax charge for the year is £77,000,000 representing 17% of underlying profits and excludes the impact of deferred tax, all of which results in an underlying profit after tax of £383,000,000 and an underlying EPS of £0.56.2 per share. So now looking more closely at financing performance. Over AMP 7, we have around £2,400,000,000 of financing to raise. And in the 1st year, we made a great start raising around £900,000,000 taking advantage of attractive rates and extending our liquidity position out to August 23.
Our effective interest rate for the year is 2.5% nominal. This together with the projected debt balances at the locked in rates shown in the chart on the left hand side of the slide compare favorably to price review assumptions for AMP7. You can also see from the chart that we've made good progress in transitioning the mix of our index linked debt away from RPI linked, the dark green segment to CPI or CPIH linked, The Light Green segment including last summer executing the first ever CPI H Linked swap. And finally, having launched our Sustainable Financial Framework in November, we were delighted to issue our debut sustainable bond in January raising £300,000,000 based on our strong ESG credentials. This is one of our best ever financing transactions.
So let me give you some more insight. This slide shows some of the details of our £300,000,000 The transaction is a superb illustration of our agile approach and how demand for our financing is enhanced by being a company delivering a strong public purpose. Recognizing our excellent ESG credentials, there was a huge amount of appetite for our debut sustainable bond. And it was great to engage with so many investors with such a keen interest in our sustainability agenda. The order book was more than 3 times oversubscribed, allowing this to tighten pricing and ultimately issue flat to our secondaries which were trading tight to historic lows.
This delivered a coupon of 0.875 percent which is not only our lowest ever coupon of this part of the curve locking in financing outperformance, but also the lowest ever corporate coupon in the sterling market at this maturity. Recognizing there was a further opportunity with the CPI wage having been reduced to its tightest ever level, we subsequently swapped the bond to a CPI basis with a yield of CPI minus 1.78 percent delivering even more value. So in summary, a great showcase of how our agile and market focused approach and our strong ESG credentials have delivered significant value. So let's have a look at how Israelis' financing transaction stacks up. As you can see from the bottom right of this chart, The £300,000,000 sustainable bond issued in January outperformed the index used for the regulatory assumptions for AMP7 new cost of debt by around 150 basis points.
You can also see from the chart our other debt issuance shown by Green Diamonds where we have consistently outperformed the index typically by around 50 to 100 basis points and also outperformed peers in the sector whose issuance shown by the blue triangles is broadly in line with the regulatory index. This illustrates how well our long standing and robust approach to treasury and financial risk management It's consistently delivering value. So now an update on our customer receivables position. We anticipate the recoverability of Debtors will continue to be a key area of focus for investors and analysts as we emerge from lockdown and government support is gradually withdrawn. That's because the balance sheet position provides important context of our debt charge.
The chart here shows our household net debtor position since the beginning of AMP 6. The position has been robustly managed over that period and our strong performance manifests itself in the balance reducing from £115,000,000 in 2016 its lowest ever level of £78,000,000 in 2021. Not only has the absolute level reduced over this period, but the aged debt profile has improved with the balance sheet exposure to debt more than 1 year old of just £12,000,000 and no exposure to household debt more than 2 years old as at March 21. The intense focus we've had in this area over the last decade has ensured we came into the COVID pandemic in a strong position and we have maintained that position through the last 12 months. It represents one of the best managed customer receivables positions in the sector and gives us added confidence as we emerge from the effects of the pandemic.
This slide bridges the net debt from March 20 to March 21. Net debt of £7,300,000,000 has reduced by £55,000,000 since March 20. This incorporates a change to our definition that we highlighted at the half year to exclude the impact of derivatives that are not hedging specific debt instruments and therefore gives a better reflection of debt balances we are contractually obliged to repay. The definition reduces net debt by €92,000,000 at March 2021 compared to €135,000,000 at March 2020. A full description of the adjustments are included in the appendices to this presentation.
The usual underlying movements in net debt are shown in the bridge along with the impact of the £85,000,000 sales proceeds from the disposal of our Tallinn JV. The net debt position results in RCV gearing of 62% and therefore within our target range of 55% to 65% and supporting a stable A3 credit rating with Moody's. The credit rating agencies also make an adjustment for any IFRS pension deficit, Which is not relevant for United Utilities given our IFRS pension surplus position. So now let's look at pensions in more detail. As of March 21, we had an IFRS pension surplus of £689,000,000 And perhaps more importantly, we are fully funded on a low dependency basis, a position we do not expect to change given our approach to hedging market risk.
Since being appointed CFO last year, this is an area I've discussed with many investors and analysts. And it is clear there is a strong desire to understand relative value from an equity perspective, particularly given many focus on return on regulated equity or RORI for ease of comparison. While I understand the simplicity of focusing on Rory, it's important to recognize the elements of value not included in the Rory measure. Even today as CFO, the Treasury Inn constantly reinforces the importance of cash as a value driver. Ultimately, future cash contributions paid into a pension Scheme is value that is not available to be paid to shareholders as dividends.
This is a very live issue given the introduction of the Pension Schemes Act 2021 And the ongoing consultation around scheme funding of a direction of travel will result in companies having to achieve full funding on a low dependency basis by the time their schemes are significantly mature. As we are already fully funded on a low dependency basis, we have an underlying advantage versus most other companies in the sector and indeed the FTSE more broadly where other companies are continuing to be required to make significant cash contributions into their pension schemes. In the year to March 2020, the average deficit repair contributions made by other water and sewage companies represented around 0.8% of their regulated equity. Although not included in Rory, this is a drag on shareholder returns as ultimately cash is diverted to support pension funding to the detriment of future dividends. So let's now have a look at return on regulated equity.
The chart here shows our reported ROI for the year of 4.3% on a real basis. This principally comprises the base return of 3.9 percent including our 11 basis point Fast Track reward that we will receive in each of the 5 years of the AMP Financing outperformance of 1.2 percent and customer ODI outperformance of 0.3% as a result of our year 1 net reward of £21,000,000 Our TOEKs performance of minus 0.3 percent represents the year 1 impact of the €300,000,000 additional TOEKs Steve has already mentioned and which provides benefits that are not all reflected in Rory. Retail performance reflects a small overspend this year in adapting to the effects of COVID And tax performance reflects the reversal of the planned reduction in the rate of corporation tax from 19% to 17% and the tax impact of our strong financing outperformance. Our underlying ROA is higher at 4.8% is adjusted for the tax impact that will be recovered through the tax sharing mechanism and the additional TOEKs that drives better outcomes against future customer ODIs. As discussed on the previous slide, as a result of our robust pension position, we can retain all of our ROE performance for the benefit of shareholders without having to use it to make further contributions into our pension scheme.
So this slide sets out our outlook for the year to March 2022. We would expect revenue to be marginally lower reflecting the November 2020 CPIH of 0.6% offset by regulatory revenue reduction of 2%. Underlying operating costs are expected to be marginally higher year on year reflecting inflationary increases net of efficiencies coming through core costs. And IRE is expected to be higher reflecting the additional investment in dynamic network management. Having ended AMP6 at the required Totex run rate for AMP7.
We remain confident that we can deliver our AMP7 scope within our final determination to 10X allowance. Underlying finance expense is expected to be higher year on year as higher inflation impacts our index linked debt. CapEx for the year is expected to be in the range of £625,000,000 to £6 £75,000,000 reflecting the ongoing acceleration of our AMP7 capital program and around £50,000,000 of additional CapEx that Steve highlighted earlier. Finally, we're targeting a net customer ODI reward of around £20,000,000 for next year, which is consistent with the updated investment plans and guidance on ODIs, which Steve summarized earlier. And so to conclude, we've delivered another robust financial performance in the year.
Our household cash collection and bad debt position have remained resilient. We've delivered some great financing transactions throughout the year, locking in debt at row 8 compared with the price review assumptions and leveraging our strong ESG credentials. And finally, we benefit from having one of the strongest balance sheets in the sector a leading pensions position and a low level of customer debt at risk. So thank you, and I'll now hand back to Steve.
Okay. Thanks very much, Bill. So in summary, in a year characterized by many as unprecedented, the highly motivated and engaged UU team Have shown agility, courage and resilience in stepping up to and delivering excellent performance in a region hard hit by the pandemic, leveraging our extensive preparations for the 1st year of this AMP. Customers and the environment benefited from our best ever operational performance. More customers in financial difficulty than ever received help from us to pay.
Customer satisfaction has again improved. Our environmental performance is reflected in top 4 star rating and shareholders share in our success with £21,000,000 of customer ODI rewards, almost 10 times the reward earned in the same period of AMP6. And the confidence we have in the delivery of our investment program, together with momentum that we built in year 1, means we're targeting £20,000,000 in customer ODI rewards in year 2 and a total of £150,000,000 across AMP7. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the EU team and its partners for everything they've done to deliver a great set of results for all our stakeholders over such a challenging period. So thank you very much for listening.
And we can now take questions. Okay. So first question we've got up on the screen is Mark Fresnillo Credit Suisse. Mark, over to you.
Hello. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. My first question is regarding input costs. You're a big user of chemicals.
And for some of the construction schemes, There's a lot of concrete metals, etcetera, that go into them. So what are you seeing there? Because it's normal at this point The cycle to see higher cost pressures there. And just secondly, on the Totec sharing mechanism. I mean, it's interesting that you found you've decided that it's better to go through Totec sharing rather than Green recovery as one of your competitors did.
Can you talk about the pros and cons of choosing to spend Most of the extra 300,000,000 Towtec sharing and just lay out where the benefit through ODIs, etcetera, will be. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Mark. Just I think when we look at input costs, I mean clearly, I think post recovery, we're seeing right across Market issues associated with resource availability, materials availability. And I think the team, right through the pandemic and since has done very well in sustaining the pace of our investment program. We are currently going through tendering of the next tranche of our activity on the capital program.
And what we are finding is, notwithstanding those input pressures, We are achieving the efficiency targets that we've been looking for. So I think at this stage, we're confident, as Phil said, that we can deliver our scope within the Totex numbers and particularly within the levels of efficiency that we had believed we could secure with our construction partners. So I think at this point in time, no real concerns around input costs. But certainly, resource and materials availability is something think everybody is having to work very hard on at the moment. I think in the sort of TOTEX and green recovery picture, We're very aware that the government has been keen to stimulate economic recovery.
And here in the North West, that's been particularly important because it's been a region that you'll know from all of the data, it's been very hard hit by the pandemic. And what we've managed to do is effectively put together a package of something like £900,000,000 of investment overall as a stimulus to the economy over the next year or 2. When we look at that, you'll know that we accelerated our investment program over years 1 to 3 to the tune of about £500,000,000 We told you that we'd essentially converted a number of provisional schemes for AMP7 into hard schemes. That's the £150,000,000 for Bolton and Burnley. And then we looked at it.
And the view we took was that rather than Air Flight leveraged the balance sheet by dragging forward programs from Ampey that we knew we'd be doing in Ampey anyway. What we really look for were programs which would improve underlying operational performance, accelerate the digital strategy And so that as a consequence of that, what we get during AMP7 and then rolling into AMP8 and beyond, We get underlying operational performance, environmental performance and also through that additional investment get the opportunity to improve ODI earnings both in AMP7 and AMP8. And in doing that, and as you say, by using the Totex sharing mechanism and the benefits we get, Phil and I are both satisfied that we'll earn adequate return from that investment through the regulatory mechanism the benefits To deliver. We did make a relatively small submission on green recovery, as you know. And we've had approval of at least in draft of around just short of £70,000,000 And that's for a scheme which is in Bury.
And that's all part of our integrated catchment management approach around Manchester, looking at the performance of the Manchester Drainage System. So I think our view was respond very much to the request for economic stimulus, but do it in a way which would deliver sustainable long term performance and didn't leverage the balance sheet doing things that we were going to do in AMP anyway. So that was the thinking that has gone behind our whole Strategy for AMP7 and that £300,000,000 Okay. Thanks. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mark. So next, we've got Pavan from JPMorgan.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for the presentation. I have three questions, please. So firstly, in the presentation, you talk about Further potential tax benefits from enhanced capital allowances. Can you elaborate a bit more on this?
Because my read on this is you are saying The tax changes will be NPV positive and not NPV neutral as we thought previously. And if that's correct, would you be able to quantify the impact? Secondly, a quick question on Rory. Could you elaborate a bit more on the bridge between your reported Rory and the adjusted Rory? And my third question, while on the subject of Rory, is a bit more detail on financing outperformance.
I understand that the 1.2% level would have Negatively affected by lower inflation this year. So could you maybe elaborate a bit more on what that figure would Looks like safe inflation were in line with long run averages instead. That's all for me. Thank you.
Okay. Pavan, those all sound like 3 perfect questions It's for Phil. So I'm going to pass you over and let Phil deal with those.
Okay. Thanks, Steve. So the first question on tax benefits. You're right, Pavan, there's a Clearly, it's part of a regulatory process. There's a mechanism for the true up of tax in the next AMP.
The way that works It trues up tax in the context of the FD final scope and final allowance that we've got given as part of the PR19 determination. And what we're doing today is announcing additional expenditure, the £300,000,000 over our allowance that we're spending and the D and M activity. And that will drive further sort of tax benefits. And those tax benefits, the company will get to keep because it's incremental set of tax benefits coming from the decisions we've taken. So in terms of the quantum of that, that's one of the reasons we're accelerating And as Steve said, we're looking to implement the D and M activity through the next 2 years and maximize the availability of the super deductibility of capital allowances.
And that's worth a few tens of 1,000,000. So as Steve was talking about before, the business case for D and M is really a compelling one because not only are we earning improved performance in the current AMP in terms of ODIs, we're earning ODIs into next AMP and we're getting the benefit of the tax allowances. In the context of Rory, your second question, and the bridge from underlying to reported Rory, that bridge comprises 2 things. Firstly, in the tax line, there's 2 components to tax. 1 is an adjustment in relation to The capital allowance sorry, the corporation tax rate falling from 19% so rising from 17% to 19%.
And that adjustment will come back through the tax mechanism as part of the PR24 determination. So that's why we stripped that out. The other components of tax relates to extra tax we're paying on our financing outperformance because that's shown gross in the Rory table. So that is a cost that we will suffer. So that's the component on tax.
On the TOEKs, the 30 basis points of TOEKs is added back because effectively we're driving further ODI benefits that will be realized through this AMP and into next AMP and that isn't in the Rory calculation. So the key aim of the underlying number is to give people a better feel for the underlying performance of our business in terms of how Steve and I are looking at the investment case and the business proposition. And And then I think your final question on financing outperformance looking forward in terms of the sort of inflation outlook. You're right. Financing outperformance is more muted this year because of the low It's a relatively straightforward calc.
I think on the sort of financing pages, I've shown our locked in rates of sort of debt. So you can forecast forward your inflation assumptions and determine yourself what that means in terms of financing outperformance going forward. But yes, you should expect it to be higher next year and beyond.
Thanks very much, Phil. I've got one question coming in online, which is from Ahmed Farman. So I'll read it out so we all hear the question. Could you please provide some more granularity on the year on year changes you're expecting in IRE And underlying finance costs. Phil?
Yes. So year on year IRE, I mean, we've said that It will tick up a little bit next year because of the extra spend on D and M activity. I've just sort of said we're accelerating spend within a few years to drive that investment program. And so you should expect a modest increase there. The sort of €100,000,000 on D and M has a sort of reasonable component of IRE to it.
So there's a sort of a modest sort of number to increase next year. In terms of inflation, interest costs So on inflation will result in a sort of higher interest cost next year. And you can probably look at the slides at the back of the appendix at the back of the presentation, Which show year on year comparison with last year to get a feel for what a more normalized inflation environment would look like for inflation costs Interest costs.
Okay. Thanks very much. All right. The next question we've got coming in is from Martin Young, Investec. So Martin, good morning.
Yes. Good morning to everybody. I've got a Couple of questions if I can, please. The first is on sort of the debt performance and thinking about this Over the longer term, fantastic performance, outperforming the debt index. But as I think And forward to Ampage and beyond, if you and your peers in the sector Deliver outperformance against the index.
Should we be thinking about a bigger adjustment to that index from Ofwat in future regulatory periods, making it a little bit harder for you to continue to deliver this level of outperformance in future periods. So just some thoughts from Phil on that would be very helpful. And then secondly, getting back to the €300,000,000 Totex issue. If I That has already been pushed through as an adjustment to your PR 2019 allowances, leaving £200,000,000 a pair. Are you basically saying that half of that comes back through the fifty-fifty sharing mechanism and that you are confident that you will get at least the remaining Yes, part through ODI Rewards in this regulatory period or is that ODI Rewards in this regulatory period And future regulatory periods.
Thanks.
Okay. Thanks, Marty. I'll just touch on perhaps the second question first and then let Phil pick up the debt issue. When you look at the additional £300,000,000 there's a mixture effectively of how the Returns come through. But essentially, when you look at the 1 100 and 50 additional, then yes, You're right.
We would expect to see that coming back through what essentially is the menu arrangement where roughly fifty-fifty It comes back through PR24 adjustment and the balance we see coming through both in terms of savings in operating costs because the whole way that the wastewater sector conventionally manages is through reaction to issues. And what this is allowing us to do is get ahead of the curve and therefore be more efficient in the way that we deal with Problems developing in the wastewater network. So there's a contribution there, but there's also a contribution coming through on ODIs. And this is an area which for us has been a long running conversation with the regulators about our wastewater particularly in the context of sewer flooding. And we've made a number of representations around the fact that we have one of the most Integrated surface and wastewater networks in the country.
So about 40% of our network is integrated. The average is about a third. So and it rains significantly more. So if you look at the amount of water that we're dealing with, We have a major issue in the way that our networks are configured. And I think the issue for us has been that We've been given quite stiff targets for wastewater flooding performance over AMP7, which essentially takes the 10 year plan that we put forward and requires us to deliver it in 5.
We're actually doing better than our 10 year plan this year, But we saw something like 40% of our wastewater flooding performance in 6 days this year where we had very intense rainfall. So the whole thing for us is about this has got to be transformed. We've got to actually look at a very, very different way of managing the network, and that's what this GBP 100,000,000 investment is about. So we feel that it's going to accelerate performance in this area. There are a range of associated benefits.
So there's an element in the half, if you like, that we don't get through the regulatory mechanism that is operational efficiency. And the balance is ODI returns in AMP7 and in fact sustainably thereafter because we expect to see ourselves with very good operational performance compared to the sector over time. So yes, it's very clear The sharing mechanism and the way we're investing here is preferable for us as a basis of giving a sound return for the investment. Phil?
Okay. Good morning, Martin. I guess your question on the sort of financing outperformance and how that might roll forward. I guess if you go back to the chart that I was showing in terms of how we stack up against the index. Yes, we've typically outperformed that index by 50 to 100 basis points and that superb transaction in January 150 basis points.
But I think the important thing is the peer group across the sector It's typically averaging around about the index that the regulator is using for assessment. So That would say to me that it is a sustainable position what we can maintain because effectively the sector average is in line with the index or broadly in line with the index effectively.
Okay. Thanks, Martin. James, we've got James Brann of Deutsche Bank next with questions. James, good morning.
Hi, Jamie. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can,
yes. Okay. So I've got 3, hopefully quick questions for Phil. So the first is whether you could comment on the cash tax charge you're expecting over the next year or 2 given that one would expect you to Obviously, we'd be benefiting from the capital allowances. Secondly, On the ESG debt that you raised where you outperformed more materially than the debt you raised in the past, What do you think has driven that?
Is that an ESG premium you think you're seeing? Or it just happens that the characteristics So the debt maybe it was a shorter tenure or something than the debt you'd issued in the past? Because you do hear about some ESG premiums on companies raising debt, but Normally, they tend to be cited as being relatively small, not 50 basis points plus. And then the third question on the financing side. In the past, you've shown this kind of declining balance profile of hedging Where you've kind of hedged out over the next few years, but it kind of gradually declines over time.
Could you just remind us for this regulatory period, Is there any declining balance left? So there's some debt where the hedges will come off perhaps towards the end of the period? Or are you Fully hedged on your nominal issued debt for this regulatory period now. Thanks.
Thanks, James, and good morning. So three questions. First one on the cash tax rate. You're right. I mean the cash tax rate we would expect to see Probably next year and the year after because of the super deductibility of capital allowances is going to be low.
And I would probably put that around about 3% to 5%, So a very low effective tax rate over the next 2 years. That will obviously then pick up as we come out of the tax rate deductibility at the back end of the AMP. In the context of the ESG debt that we raised, it was a great transaction. I think sort of probably important to call out that A large amount of the value that was driven from that transaction came from the agile approach of the team to sort of issuance and the issuance timetable. We issued flat to our secondaries in terms of the debt issuance, which is normally you'd expect to pay up perhaps about 10 basis points or so to issue a new piece of debt.
So that's probably the premium that we've managed to benefit from, from an ESG perspective. But really for me probably the key sort of aspect of that transaction that I really thought was a huge positive was 30% of the transaction came from Investment outside the U. K, so new investors into the sterling market attracted by our ESG credentials. So that was a huge positive in terms of that transaction. And then in terms of the sort of hedging profile of our debt going forward, you're right.
Our sort of hedging policy remains the same as it has been in recent years, and it's a 10 year reducing balance basis of hedging. So as we roll forward through this AMP, there will be sort of floating rate debt benefits to come from that.
Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, James. All right. Next, we've got Chris Laybutt from Morgan Stanley. So good morning, Chris.
Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I just really had one question just on the Totex increase that you've announced. It sounds like you have Done something very similar to what you did last, Amp. And so I guess the curiosity is Over what you expect your budget to look like in AB8?
And will we see another increase above your budget in Air Bait again. So is this a perennial issue that you'll be dealing with? Or do you think this will all settle down and And your RCV growth will start to increase at the outset. So I guess the second part of the question
is
where do you see your RCV CAGR normalizing in Air Bay.
Thank you.
Okay. I think if we look at The £300,000,000 half of that as we said are schemes which essentially were provisional for AMP7 and were effectively confirmed as AMP7 scheme. So essentially half of it is what one would May well have been confirmed within final determination. But this time around, because there was a delay in the way that a number of schemes were confirmed right across the sector. We had a relatively small component, but it was still £150,000,000 So that really was all part of scope.
So the additional expenditure that we're talking about is the 100 and 50 which is lower than we've done in previous cycles. But I think he's really here about Understanding what for us was one of the more difficult areas of our performance, where over a couple of periods, We've not been given the conventional funding that we thought we needed in order to be able to deal with principally sewer flooding issues. So this is really all about saying we need to take a radically different approach. We need to accelerate our digital strategy. And effectively, that's where the majority of that investment comes from with around £100,000,000 in D and M.
Once we've done D and M, it's there, It's invested. And one would expect that you get sustainable performance from your network. We've taken the approach we have because, a, we didn't want to leverage up the balance sheet ahead of unpaid. As Phil said, We're currently 62 percent debt to our RCV, well within the range, which actually leads us, as we approach Ampay, with headroom Further investment. And we know as we go forward that the industry and we have very significant challenges associated With climate change, with resilience, I think you know there's a lot of discussion around Combined sewer outfalls and what are we going to do to try and limit the extent to which they spill into the environment.
That's another area of potential future investment. So I think it's not really possible for me to say, Chris, where do we see Ampeight landing. But certainly, The level of expenditure that we've had, capital expenditure this period in AMP 7 It's significantly lower than the run rate we've had in previous cycles. And we can certainly see there being a driver for increased capital expenditure to meet A number of environmental drivers and a number of climate change drivers will go into Ampey. So you would expect a return to a higher capital expenditure profile to deal with those issues.
We think that we're in a great place for that. The approach that we've taken Keeps us in where we want to be in terms of leverage. It gives us headroom as we approach Ampay. And the investments that we are making are performance enhancing. And so they should not only deliver customer Improved performance, but also operational performance and the opportunity for enhanced ODI earnings.
So we think it's the right approach. Okay. Thanks, Chris. Next, It is Dominic, Dominic Nash from Barclays.
Morning, everyone, and thanks for the questions. I've got 3, if I may, please. The first question is probably going back to this TOFEX number again and the €150,000,000 raise that you've announced this morning. What I'm actually interested in and the question is around is how does the deltas look Relative to the final determination, in the I think in the last, yes, I think you invested 130,000,000 of Totex for ODI, but that came from, I think, an outperformance of £100,000,000 So I think on an underlying basis, your Totex Our underperformance was broadly flat. And I think the last time that we had a call with you, I think you said that you were in a similar place this time around.
So if we go through the sort of components of it, you've got the fund of termination. You get GBP 150,000,000 From the Bolton and the other upgrades, which I presume goes on top of the final determination as a remunerated TOTEX number. You then have this further €150,000,000 Is this going to be offset by this similar place this time around, Remark? Or are you now saying I think that you've answered 2 questions too. I think it was Martin.
But actually, this is going to be remunerated in different ways. And then the £63,000,000 green recovery number is on top of this again, and that would be another addition to the final determination. So that's the first question. Sorry, that's a little bit long winded, but there's a lot of numbers you're banding around.
I just want to get clarity.
The second 2 should be a lot easier. I'm interested in your renewables actually. You're a huge landowner. You've got some fantastic resources potential up there. So first of all, on the renewables yourself, could you just remind us how many megawatts or how much invested capital we've put into renewables And how much of that sits within and without the regulatory RCV and what you want to do with it going forward?
And secondly, I'm intrigued by your peat box And carbon sequestration and the 1,000 hectares you're putting through, I mean, I take it today, this is a cost. What's your discussion with the government regarding carbon sequestration? And can you see this becoming a revenue line for United Utilities going forward. Thank you.
All right.
Okay. Thank you. I think A mix between Felonoi in answering that, Dominic. I think if you look at the Totex picture, you're right to essentially Say that the final determination number you can effectively adjust to include A component of the first £150,000,000 which essentially is remunerated expenditure through The arrangements that we have in the FD and how it's then been enhanced. I think on the second 150, we would expect to see the return on that, a, through the menu arrangement, the fifty-fifty sharing mechanism and then through either operational efficiencies or principally ODI earnings in Amp 7 and Amp 8.
I think at this point in time, where Our view is that we will deliver the original FD scope within the FD TOSX. So I think probably that says to you, we would not expect to offset the additional £150,000,000 with Totex savings against the FD. I think we found lots of opportunity to invest the full allowance in order to get the returns that we're forecasting. It doesn't mean that we won't continue to look and we won't continue to work hard to find Totex savings. But at the moment, I think you the assumptions that you laid out were broadly correct there.
I think renewables do you want to pick that up in terms of investment and what we're doing there in terms of our renewable portfolio?
Yes. So I guess 25% of our power comes from renewables, of which the solar is just part of that. And that solar piece that we've sort of said about recycling Capital from today, we've built out the solar to a point where it now makes sense that we've got the offtake agreement. So we're benefiting from renewable energy for the long term, but we're now going to recycle the capital there to sort of put back into our business to sort of support further sort of carbon reduction Elsewhere in the Bio Resources business, for example. So I think a very positive reuse of capital to support Bio Resources.
Yes. And I think when you look at the estate, you're correct. We are the, I think, the largest corporate landowner with sort of, I think, 56,000 hectares last count, a lot of which is catchment land around reservoirs as well as our facilities. I I think looking at the 6 pledges that we've got, clearly, Peatland restoration is Very important on two counts, as you said, Dominic. The first is in the context of carbon capture, but also in slowing the flow and essentially restoring the storage capability that the peatlands around our reservoirs have for water.
So a lot of the things that we've been doing on the peatlands is essentially reversing the changes that were made over a century ago, which were essentially getting water off the moors faster that I think is good for them. So a lot of work going on there. We it's an interesting point you make about the extent to which we Is this carbon capture capability something that has greater potential? Certainly, the partnerships we have with people like RSPB, where we have a very long and successful Relationship is one where we work together on a number of our major estates, looking at things like peatland Restoration. And the relationship with RSPB is one where we can leverage the investment that we make, which is within our plans for AMP7.
But we leverage that through the various grants and funding. We can often get significant multiples of the investment that we're prepared to make through the work that we do with RSPB and the grants and funding that's available from elsewhere, including government. So to an extent, we do a lot of what you talk about, An interesting idea, and I'll talk to the team and see extent to which there is actually a market for this. I think the other area for us and an opportunity to use land is in tree planting. And interestingly, there's a shortage of trees.
So one of the things that we've done is establish a couple of nurseries within our area so that effectively we can generate the tree stocks that we need. And of course, there are a whole series of job opportunities, apprentice opportunities for the local Communities that go with that. And then we've identified a number of locations around our estate, where this 1,000,000 tree commitments that we've got, We know that we can meet those. So a huge amount going on in rewilding our states in improving the carbon capture as well as getting the benefits on things like water quality. So And it's an area that I think will just get increasing focus as we go over time.
So I think
is that I think we've
dealt with those, haven't we? All right, very much Dominic. Verity, good morning. Verity Mitchell from HSBC. Good morning.
Good morning. Yes. I have a front of the CCW report on poverty, please. You gave us some very good schemes, but you do have a high We know. And then my second question is back to green recovery and your allowances.
When you say You want to develop CSO investment in the next AMP, but you only asked for about CHF 5 £1,000,000 And I think that related to that, you asked for about £67,000,000 of higher resources funding, which you didn't get. So perhaps you could talk through You're thinking about why you asked for that with quite such an amount, but only a small amount of CSOs? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Yes, the CCW report, I don't know if everybody is aware, but essentially, there was a consultation Issued yesterday our announcement from the Consumer Council For Water, which was looking at the subject of social tariff And recognizing that at the moment, we have something of a postcode lottery applying in a way that social tariffs are made available to customers who are struggling. The definition of people who essentially struggling to pay their water bills as if where The water bill represents something like 5% of income. And obviously, as Vericchio says, we have a very large Community in the Northwest who's struggling.
So the idea that's coming up and there are sort of 40 different points here that everybody's currently trawling through, But the idea is that essentially the government creates a central fund. The water companies are involved in setting up and I'm running that fund. And what that fund does is it takes away the postcode lottery that says it doesn't matter whether you live in an area of socioeconomic deprivation or whether you live in an area that is affluent, where Today, social tariffs are much higher because people are prepared to contribute to those, to help those in need. And we have one of the lowest social tariffs because of the economic situation here. This would essentially be part of the leveling up agenda across the country and ensuring that if you are struggling and if you are in a situation of water poverty and water costs are more than 5% of your income, then you get help regardless of where you live in the country.
And personally, I think that's a great idea. I think it's something that we're very supportive of. There are lots of points to raise. There are lots of issues to deal with. But I think the line of March, as far as we're concerned, is right.
People should not be subject of a postcode lottery in the way that they're helped when they're in financial difficulty. It doesn't matter where you live in the country. You should receive the same level of help. So I think that's the CCW issue. And I hope, Verity, I've been clear on where we stand on that.
There are other aspects and details that I think we'll work through. I think in terms of looking at the other items, when you looked at our green recovery application, You're absolutely correct. There was a relatively small component in there for CSOs, and that was associated with conducting a number of investigations. It's an area where we've invested very heavily over the last 10 years or so, Something like £1,200,000,000 invested in the North West and improving river and bathing water Quality shellfish beaches shellfish areas, for example, and a lot of success. But obviously, CSOs are an issue.
We've put a lot of money into putting sensing out, being able to monitor CSOs. We're doing a lot of work to understand that data. And we put a relatively small amount into green recovery to be able to do more work on that in the run up to Ampeight and anything that we may then choose to propose as we go forward into Ampey. The other area was, as you call, bio resources. And it was associated with what effectively is called the Industrial Emissions Directive, where the Environment Agency Has clarified its interpretation of that directive and how it applies to companies, and it broadly applies to bioresources.
So it's associated with how you handle sludge, how you handle waste In the Bio Resources part of the business, it's a bit of a strange one because the interpretation was issued after We'd all submitted our business plans. In fact, I think it was after the draft determinations. So the investment necessary to comply with that directive wasn't included within business plan submissions. And essentially, we've made and so our green recovery Submission was to say, look, now we understand this, here is what we think the implications are. We're currently in discussion around that.
I think the Environment Agency is clear that they do want that interpretation to apply. I think the issue is How is that going to be funded? And as a consequence of how it's funded, when will it be delivered? And that really is a dialogue that's ongoing following the draft determination on green recovery that Ofqual produced. Jenny Ping, Citi.
Hello. Hi. I think I
have one question which Dominic asked, but I don't think we got an answer from you. So I'm going to ask on his behalf and on my behalf is the megawatt numbers in terms of the solar assets that's Going into the capital recycling program and then just generally the total megawatt number in renewables that you have operational today. Thanks.
Right. Have you got off the top of your head?
Sort of, I'll have a go, Steve. So I guess in terms of sort of gigawatt hours that are sort of produced by our renewable. So I think it's about 25 percent of the total. So I think it's about 200 gigawatt hours. Now that covers a whole range of things including the solar.
I don't know what the solar state is per se. But the key the important thing is from our renewables perspective, We are retaining the offtake arrangements with that all that solar estate. So it doesn't change our use of green energy. We'll continue to benefit from the So we're offtake. All we're really doing is recycling the financial asset and then Utilizing that capital going forward in a more productive way.
Yes. As Jenny, as Phil said, that About a quarter of our total energy demand is met by renewables. The majority of that is through biodigestion. And we've also got gas to grid facilities and others. So I know the renewable component is a relatively small Proportion of our overall consumption.
But on the basis that I don't want to dodge the question, We'll get Rob to dig out the actual numbers because I haven't got the papers in front of me to be able to answer and We'll make sure that that information is available and out there. Okay. Further question from Martin Young, Investec. Martin, over to you.
Yes. It's just one question. And by all means, So you're not in a position to answer it, if indeed that is the situation. But I see that Oplot has got a number of discussion papers out this morning on PR 24 and beyond. And I guess on the hope that you might have had some element of sight of those papers before they hit the screen This morning, just wondered if you had any sort of knee jerk reactions to what they're talking about and what they might be proposing for upcoming regulatory periods.
Yes. Martin, I'm sorry, I genuinely can't say anything. I've been entirely consumed with year end over the last few days. So I don't have an advanced view or a form view of what we've seen this morning. So I apologize for that, but I think next opportunity when we speak, I'll be in a better position.
Okay. Right. I think we've no further questions on screen and we've none coming through Sorry, Chris Leyber. Chris, I'm sorry about that.
Quite all right, Sue. Thank you very much. It was actually just a follow-up to Martin's question. 2 of the things that Off White have included. 1 is indexation of the return on equity and one is a lower gearing level.
I'm sure you've discussed those Elements in the past, and I'm wondering whether those two elements are a surprise to you And I guess how you would feel about those elements being included in Power 24?
So I guess probably as with all these things probably the devil's in the detail Chris. I suspect we need to get into Reading the documents, as Steve said, we've not had sight of it in advance. So I don't have an inside track as to what was in the document. I think in the context of sort of below level gearing. Interesting, I think it will be key to understand sort of what's driving that and how that feeds through.
So Probably too early to really comment today, I think.
Yes. Sorry, Chris. We're not in a position. We genuinely have not been cited prior to this morning.
Thanks very much. Okay. All
right. Okay. We genuinely have no further questions now. Nothing coming in on Slido, nothing on the screen. So can I I just thank you for attending this morning and for the questions?
And hope to catch up with you in person soon. Thank you very much and good morning.