As one of the UK’s and world’s leading energy companies, we see our role as pivotal; we must provide the framework for moving to a low carbon society by changing the way energy is produced and used. We are a society dependent on energy and this will increase as we seek to reduce our reliance on gas and oil through further electrification – for example, through the increasing use of electric vehicles and using new, innovative ways of heating and lighting our homes.

Providing lower carbon energy is therefore crucial but we must also factor in two other key drivers: we need our energy to be affordable and we need it to be secure. To achieve this, we believe we need all options available, including clean coal, nuclear, gas and renewables.

As well as ensuring that we provide affordable, reliable energy, we also need to do everything we can to minimise our impact on the environment.

In the UK we’re using and developing renewable energy projects as part of our balanced energy mix. We’re investing £2 billion alone in joint venture London Array with DONG Energy and Masdar. Once complete, the scheme will be the UK’s largest offshore wind farm.

We own one of the UK’s largest dedicated biomass plants in Lockerbie, Scotland and we’re investing in a marine scheme as well.

Across our Group we’ve set a target of reducing our C0₂ emissions by 50% by 2030 and in the UK, we aim for a 10% reduction in carbon intensity by 2012, compared to 2005

We’re on the way to achieving our UK target of a 10% reduction in carbon intensity by 2012 against 2005 levels (excluding Combined Heat and Power stations), with a 6.5% reduction to the end of 2008. We are also on track for the E.ON Group target of reducing carbon intensity by 50% by 2030 against 1990 levels, having already achieved a 35% reduction.

We took some significant steps forward during the year, despite the extremely challenging economic conditions. It’s those conditions that have led to us recently taking the decision to delay our plans to build a new, cleaner coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent for up to three years. The recession has depressed energy demand and we do not believe there is a need for the energy this will plant can provide until at least 2016. We remain committed to Kingsnorth and hope it will become the test bed for the carbon capture and storage technology that is essential, not just for the UK, but worldwide for the many economies that depend on coal for their power generation.

We’ve continued to develop our renewables portfolio and, together with our partners, gave the green light for the London Array, the world’s largest offshore wind farm, in May.

We now have planning permission for more than 100MW of onshore wind projects which are currently in the later stages of development and we’re currently commissioning our Robin Rigg offshore wind farm in the Solway Firth. This generated its first power during autumn 2009. We continue to invest in biomass energy, with plans for a new plant on the outskirts of Sheffield and at Portbury Docks to follow our first biomass power station, built at Steven’s Croft, near Lockerbie.

Longer term, we announced at the start of 2009, the formation of a joint venture with RWE that will lead to the development and construction of at least 6GW of nuclear power to give us the diverse generation portfolio we believe is essential to deliver a low carbon future.

We also supported our customers by insulating over 200,000 homes and distributed over 36.8 million low energy light bulbs as well as trialling our low carbon HeatPlant scheme to certain vulnerable customer groups, contributing to save more than 12 million tonnes of CO₂.