United Utilities is making a further £100 million available to invest in resilience, according to its full year results for the year ended 31 March 2017 published this morning.

The company's underlying operating profit rose 3% to £622.9 million. Total capital expenditure during the year, including £148 million of infrastructure renewals expenditure, was £804 million, in line with the company's plans to accelerate the AMP6 investment programme.

The additional £100 million for resilience will take United Utilities' total AMP6 investment 2015-20 to around £3.2 billion. The company also expects to invest over £100 million in non- regulated projects. This relates primarily to solar power, with £45 million invested in the first two years of AMP6.

United Utilities said it is progressively moving greater capability into its Integrated Control Centre to deliver a more proactive and predictive approach to monitoring its assets and networks.

The firm's asset optimisation programme is continuing to deliver the benefits of increased and more effective use of operational site management to optimise power and chemical use.

In addition to the energy the firm already generates from bioresources, United Utilities is also developing other renewable energy facilities. The utility is working with a single engineering partner and four design and construction partners during AMP6.

The water company said it is involving partners much earlier in project definition and packaging them by type, geography and timing in order to deliver efficiencies. The projects are allocated on an incentive or competitive basis, leading partners to present a range of solutions, innovation and pricing.

The £804 million investment during the period has taken total AMP6 investment to £1.6 billion over the first two years. Accelerated investment had also delivered further operational and customer benefits and contributing to a net ODI reward of £6.7 million.

Commenting on its retail market joint venture Water Plus with Severn Trent, the utility said it had benefitted from first mover advantage. The Jv achieved a net gain through early switches in the market, demonstrating it is "well placed to compete" as the market evolves.

Steve Mogford, Chief Executive Officer, said:

“We have delivered a strong performance for our customers, shareholders and the environment in this second year of the 2015-20 regulatory period. This performance combined with our confidence in delivering a net outperformance over the regulatory period has enabled us to commit to a further £100m of additional investment in the region. This will support our resilience projects bringing additional customer benefits over the next three years."

“We have achieved our best ever customer satisfaction scores under Ofwat’s Service Incentive Mechanism (SIM) ending the year in an upper quartile position amongst our peers. We introduced a number of innovations enhancing our customer service offering. One of the most successful, Priority Services, provides dedicated support to customers experiencing personal or financial difficulties."

“The acceleration of our investment programme continued delivering the early benefit of operational efficiencies and means we have de-risked a number of our Outcome Delivery Incentive (ODI) measures. This contributed to another net ODI reward and improves our likely cumulative outcome over the five-year period. Our Systems Thinking approach is unparalleled in the sector and is delivering a radically different way of managing our business."

“Our performance in the early part of this regulatory period puts us in an industry leading position and demonstrates that we are well placed to deliver further value for customers, shareholders and the environment. This is supported by a robust capital structure and good credit ratings.”

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