In Gönyü, Hungary, E.ON today opened the country’s most up-to-date and efficient combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant. The plant, in which the company has invested approximately EUR400 million, is setting new standards in power generation in Hungary, with a capacity of 433 megawatts and efficiency of over 59 percent.

Highly efficient and flexible to use, CCGT plants are continuously increasing in importance in E.ON’s energy mix. They are particularly suited to speedily and flexibly balancing out load fluctuations in the grid which arise from the increasing, but non-predictable, feeding-in of wind and solar energy. In this way, these systems also make an effective contribution to the expansion of renewable energies.

Four further CCGT plants, with a combined capacity of more than 2,100 megawatts, are currently awaiting commissioning. They include the Irsching 4 CCGT plant and two large plants in Russia. Irsching 4, which will go into operation in summer 2011, will be the first plant of its kind to achieve an electrical efficiency of more than 60 percent. The Russian plants, located in Surgutskaya and Yaivinskaya, and their high efficiencies and total installed capacity of 1,200 megawatts will likewise give E.ON’s position in the Russian electricity market a boost.

Over the last few years, E.ON has successfully realized up-to-the-minute CCGT plants with a total capacity of approximately 7,500 megawatts. For instance, Irsching, in Bavaria, last year saw the commissioning of one of the world’s most efficient and high-capacity CCGT plants. The Irsching 5 block, in which E.ON, working with its partner companies, has invested around EUR400 million, reaches efficiency levels of 59.7 percent, with a capacity of 860 megawatts. Further state-of-the-art additions to E.ON’s capacity were realized between 2008 and 2010, when the CCGT plants in Malmö in Sweden, Escatrón in Spain, Émile Huchet in France, Livorno Ferraris and Scandale in Italy, and Shaturskaya in Russia went into operation. 2011 has already seen the commissioning of CCGT plants in Algeciras, southern Spain, and Grain in the UK, as well as the commencement of operations at Slovakia’s most modern and efficient CCGT to date at Mal?enice.

Jørgen Kildahl, the E.ON AG Management Board member responsible, among other things, for the Group’s generation business, comments: “The CCGT plants in Europe and Russia which have already commenced operations or are set to be completed shortly are enabling us to expand our generating capacities by approximately 9,500 megawatts. It’s important to emphasize that all our new CCGT plants are at the top of the table in their respective countries in terms of both efficiency and climate care. Furthermore, these plants are an impressive demonstration of E.ON’s expertise in developing and realizing innovative power generation technologies on the basis of natural gas.”

This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements based on the management of the E.ON Group’s current assumptions and forecasts as well as other information available at present. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors may result in the Company’s actual results, financial situation, development or performance differing substantially from the estimates indicated here. E.ON AG does not intend to update, and accepts no responsibility for updating, such forward-looking statements and adjusting them to future events or developments.