We invested £1,115 million in 2010 in generation, storage and distribution assets to ensure a long-term secure and reliable energy supply.
£1,034 million of our investment figure covers the E.ON UK plc group including our generation and renewable assets. This includes the opening of our Isle of Grain gas-fired combined heat and power plant this year, as well as progressing with work on our nuclear joint venture, Horizon Nuclear Power.
We are also involved in major renewable projects, with work on the world’s largest offshore wind farm, the London Array, and, in 2010, Robin Rigg, our largest UK wind farm, was officially opened. In all, our UK renewable development portfolio could see an additional 1,500MW of wind and biomass power being brought online, which could lead to more than 4m tonnes of carbon dioxide being displaced every year.
In addition, we have invested £64m in our Holford Gas Storage facility in Cheshire where construction has continued in 2010. Now completed it is one of the UK’s most flexible gas storage schemes and offers us the opportunity to store gas for our customers when prices are lower and to remove it when prices are higher, so helping to smooth out peaks in prices. In addition, we have upstream gas assets in the central and in the southern North Sea.
Finally, we spent £0.14 million on research and development through E.ON New Build and Technology which covers cleaner fossil-fuel and nuclear power plant, carbon capture and storage, renewable technologies, alternative fuels, low emission transport technologies, and low carbon energy solutions and energy efficiencies for our customers.