Dong open's first UK power plant

• 13 years ago (2011-02-10)
• Junior Isles

Europe 1089 North America 1021 Nuclear 659 Renewables 776

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Dong Energy A/S, Denmark’s biggest utility, has inaugurated its first power station in the UK, the gas fired Severn Power station at Uskmouth in south Wales.

The £600 million ($966 million) power station has a capacity of 824 MW, enough to supply 1.5 million homes.

“The Severn Power station represents an important landmark development for us,” Anders Eldrup, Dong’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “With the UK facing a potential future energy gap in the next 10 years, gas-fired generation will become more and more important.”

The UK government wants to reshape the electricity market to attract new investors, as about a third of Britain’s aging fossil-fuelled and nuclear power stations are due to close over the next decade. Britain has pledged to slash its carbon -dioxide emissions to 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. The nation’s power market is dominated by six major producers: Centrica Plc, Scottish and Southern Energy Plc, E.On AG, RWE AG, Iberdrola’s Scottish Power and Electricite de France.

Eldrup told journalists it was “nice” to have a plant to handle the future gas streams from Dong’s fields near the Shetland Islands of northern Scotland.

Dong bought the Severn project, built by Siemens AG, from the Welsh Power Group Ltd. in 2009. Construction of the plant began in 2007, and started operating in November last year. The plant has an efficiency of 58 per cent.

The Danish utility also has 30 per cent of the UK’s offshore wind market, according to the statement.