News Stories
SSE and Forth Ports announce Renewable Energy Joint Venture
01 July 2008 08:43
Scottish and Southern Energy plc and Forth Ports PLC announce today that they have entered into a strategic venture to develop renewable energy projects around Forth Ports sites in Scotland and England.
To be called Forth Energy, the new venture will invest in the generation, distribution and supply of renewable energy for export to the electricity network for commercial sale and for consumption at Forth Ports sites. It will support the sustainable regeneration of Forth Ports’ property development asset base. In some ports, there will be additional benefits arising from the transit of sustainable materials for power generation. Forth Energy has the potential to be Scotland’s biggest developer of on-site dedicated renewable power generation facilities.
The venture contemplates projects across a number of renewable energy technologies, including onshore and offshore wind and biomass, and related networks and infrastructure. Possible projects with a total installed capacity in excess of 150MW have been identified. The first of these – the construction of four 2MW onshore wind turbines at the Port of Tilbury – will proceed shortly, following the recent grant of planning consent. This project will require total investment of around £12m, to be provided by a mixture of project debt and equity.
If Forth Energy’s existing project portfolio is fully developed, up to 200 permanent skilled engineering and craft jobs will be created.