Today the UK has taken a major step towards achieving it’s 2020 renewable energy target with the announcement of consent being granted for a new 500MW offshore windfarm at West of Duddon Sands (WODS).

Located 14km southwest of the Barrow-in-Furness coastline, the joint development between ScottishPower Renewables, DONG Energy and Eurus Energy will produce enough clean green energy for over 372,000 homes.

This offshore windfarm project will comprise of up to 139 turbines , two offshore substations and one onshore substation. A separate planning application for the onshore substation at Heysham was granted permission in September 2007 by Lancaster City Council, which is the connection point to the electrical grid.

Keith Anderson, Director, ScottishPower Renewables said: “We thank BERR for their time and effort on this project and we look forward to finalising our plans. We are already the biggest generator and developer of wind energy in the UK with over 600MW in operation and a pipeline of 1800MW to be developed by 2012 and as our first offshore windfarm, West of Duddon represents a significant milestone for ScottishPower Renewables. The development of this major project will be a key part of our plans to expand our offshore and marine portfolio here in the UK. We believe that the rapid development of offshore resources is essential if the UK is to achieve its challenging 2020 renewable energy targets”.

Per Hjelmsted Pedersen, Director, DONG Energy said: "We are happy to have received consent on West of Duddon Sands and to move forward with our plans in the Irish Sea, where we have a leading role with two wind farms already in operation".

Junichi Tsuruta, Managing Director, Eurus Energy UK Ltd said, "We are delighted to have gained permissions for our first offshore development with the West of Duddon Sands Project. The expertise we have gained, and will gain, from this project will enable Eurus Energy to further expand our global windfarm portfolio"

Thursday 4 September 2008

NOTES

• The integration of Iberdrola and ScottishPower, successfully completed on April 23 2007, has created a new organisation, which is one of the largest electricity groups in Europe with an enterprise value of around €80 billion, a presence in more than 30 countries and 22 million points of supply. The new group is also the world’s number one renewable energy operator with 7,000 MW of installed capacity and a pipeline of more than 40,000 MW.
• DONG Energy is one of Northern Europe’s leading energy groups. We are headquartered in Denmark. Our business is based on procuring, producing, distributing, trading and selling energy and related products in Northern Europe. The company delivered revenue of DKK 41.6 billion in 2007. DONG Energy has more than 5,000 employees. For further information, see www.dongenergy.com.
• Eurus Energy is a joint venture between Tokyo Electric Power Company (the largest electric power company in Japan) and Toyota Tsusho Corporation (a trading affiliate of Toyota Motor Corporation). It is one of the oldest and most diverse wind power development companies in the world. Eurus Energy has offices in Europe, the United States, and Asia, and an ownership interest in more than 30 wind farms representing more than 1,500 MW of capacity globally.

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Simon McMillan – 0141 566 4875 / 07753 622 257