ScottishPower’s renewables business saw before-tax earnings soar by 29% to £127.7 million in the first quarter of the year.

The company’s latest financial reports suggest this was due to favourable wind conditions and increased capacity seeing 1,684GWh of renewable power being generated, an increase of 22.7% on the same period last year.

This growth was largely driven by onshore and offshore wind generation, up 32% and 12% respectively.

It saw earnings from its Networks business fall slightly by 1.6% but Generation and Supply earnings shot up 247% to £131.7 million,
following a poor first quarter the year before.

Keith Anderson, ScottishPower CEO, said: “Renewables has performed well and we can see the benefits of our £650 million investment in new onshore wind that was completed last year.

“Networks also continues to perform in-line with expectations based on the major investment plans running through in to the next decade. The improvement in Generation and Supply follows a very difficult 2017, which delivered one of the weakest performances for the business in the last decade.”

ScottishPower owner Iberdrola has improved its net profit to €838 million (£732m) in the first quarter of 2018, a rise of around 1.2%.

Around 960,000 ScottishPower customers are to see an increase in energy bills this year.