THE ENERGY crisis is not over for retail suppliers, with companies continuing to adopt conservative hedging strategies ahead of winter as they look to navigate challenging market conditions driven by soaring wholesale costs.

Challenger supplier Good Energy reported losses for its first six months of trading yesterday, funnelling a huge boost in revenues into funding customer's energy supplies well into 2023.

The firm unveiled a hefty increase in revenues over the first six months of trading, which have climbed to £107.6m - reflecting a year-on-year spike of 58 per cent.

This was powered by higher energy bills for customers following record wholesale prices. It has also completed the sale of its generation portfolio of wind and solar assets for £21.2m.

However, these funds have been allocated towards leveraging supplies this winter, with wholesale costs ex- pected to remain historically elevated from continued conflict in Ukraine and fears of supply shortages.

This means that, overall, Good Energy posted a loss of £700,000 for the first six months of the year, a downgrade from profits of £4.8m this time 12 months ago.

The government is planning to pay the difference between wholesale costs and the proposed price cap freeze at £2,500 per year, funded through a £150bn scheme to freeze the price cap for the next two years.

While this package protects customers, it does not protect suppliers which will need to continue hedging over the coming months.

Good Energy chief executive Nigel Pocklington told City A.M.: "Robust hedging remains extremely important for suppliers to keep costs down wherever possible."

Shares in the company were up 0.76 per cent on the FTSE AIM All- Share at close of play yesterday.

(c) 2022 City A.M., source Newspaper