POWER company SSE has held firm on its targets for the year despite reporting a dip in customer numbers and the amount of renewable energy it produced in the past three months.
The business said it made “good progress” in the three months to June despite being hit by “short-term challenges”, ahead of its annual general meeting yesterday.
The Big Six energy provider saw its total number of UK energy customers slide to 5.71 million in the period to June 30, compared with 5.78m in the same period last year.
SSE chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies said: “The early months of our financial year have brought some short-term challenges and some encouraging longer-term developments, but the key months of our financial year lie ahead.”
SSE said it fell short of its renewables forecasts by around 20% due to poor weather over spring and the start of summer.
Nevertheless, SSE’s green energy output rose by 15% to 1794 gigawatt hours for the quarter, driven by increased wind power.
Last month it also confirmed plans to close its last coal-fired power station, in Cheshire.
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