Bristol Energy lost another £14.8million last year, latest financial data shows.
Details of the losses were revealed in the failed company's final annual report published yesterday (Sunday, January 10).
Bristol City Council established Bristol Energy in 2015 to provide affordable energy for residents while returning a profit for the local authority.
The company failed to turn a profit despite up to £37.5million of council investment, and the local authority finally admitted defeat last year, breaking up and selling the company for a total of £15.3million.
It has asked its external auditor Grant Thornton for a public interest report into the matter, to find out what went wrong and the exact extent of the losses for council taxpayers.
In the meantime, the latest annual report of the energy firm, renamed BE 2020 in October, sheds some more light on the financial fortunes of the company in its last complete year of trading as Bristol Energy.
Financial statements for the year to March 31, 2020, show the firm posted an adjusted operating loss of £8.5million last financial year. This compared with £10.1million in 2019 and £10.3million in 2018, and takes its total posted operating losses to around £40million since 2016.
However, adjusted operating losses do not tell the whole story. The £8.5million figure reported for the 2019/20 year does not take into account just under £3.3million in bad debt and other costs such as £219,000 for restructuring.
When these extra costs are included the official operating loss reached £13.26million last year.
And after interest and tax were taken into account, the total loss for the year “being total comprehensive expense for the year” was £14.8million, the report states.
In previous years, this figure reached £12.1million in 2019, £11.2million in 2018 and £8.4million in 2017.
"The directors do not recommend the payment of a dividend," the report for 2019/20 says.
Bristol Energy was set up in 2015 by Bristol City Council’s then cross-party cabinet after the idea of a wholly council-owned energy company was approved in principle in 2010.
The current ruling Labour administration took office in 2016.
The company’s business plan at that time committed the council to spend £15.7million on Bristol Energy.
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Three years later, the Labour cabinet agreed to increase the investment to a maximum of £37.7million.
Bristol Energy gained 3,000 new residential customers last financial year, taking the total to 168,000, but lost a handful of business customers, leaving it with 176 by March 31, 2020, according to the latest annual report.
Its annual turnover was £102.2million compared with £76.2million the previous financial year.
By September 2020, the company had sold its domestic and residential customers for a total of £15.3million.
Together Energy agreed to buy its domestic customers for £14million while Yu Energy agreed to purchase its business customers for £1.34million.
