What We Are Doing

We are working hard to minimise the carbon impact of our operations and to promote energy efficiency through a number of initiatives.

We are:

• Increasing the amount of renewable energy generation by: increasing the amount of biomass co-firing at our Ferrybridge and Fiddler’s Ferry Power Stations; building a major new hydro-electric power station at Glendoe, on the shores of Loch Ness; and developing a number of new wind farms.
• Investing in the research, development and marketing of new renewable energy technologies including off-shore deep water wind, tidal, and a range of micro generation technologies such as roof-top wind turbines, solar and photovoltaic cells, and heat pumps.
• Working to targets to reduce emissions by, for example, reducing energy and water consumption in our operational buildings and reducing fuel used in transport.
• Promoting energy efficiency measures to our customers. In fact, we exceeded targets set for us by the government for the period 2002-2005 by some 65%, helping customers save equivalent to 9,960GWh of energy.
• During 2007/08 we invested £3.7m in a number of innovative research and demonstration projects including clean coal technologies, carbon capture and storage, and novel fuel processing techniques. Other projects have focused on climate change, energy efficiency, energy storage and advanced renewable energy technologies. One of the largest R&D projects commissioned in 2007 was the Energy Demand Research Project which is jointly funded by SSE and the government, to enhance the understanding of how customers react to improved information on energy consumption.