E.ON plans to increase its generating capacity in Europe by about 50 percent by 2010. This mainly reflects the seven fossil fuel-fired generating units that were under construction at the end of 2007. We plan to build a number of new generating units by 2014, some of which are already under construction. Together with the planned increase in our wind-power capacity, these projects will add 23,100 MW of generating capacity to our portfolio.

 

We also intend to enhance the thermal efficiency of our generation fleet. In 2007, the average thermal efficiency of nuclear power plants in Central Europe and Nordic market units was 34.6 percent and 33.5 percent respectively.

Our new coal-fired generating units in Germany (Datteln and Staudinger) and the Netherlands (Maasvlakte) will have a thermal efficiency of 45 percent (well above the European average of 36 percent) and will also emit about 20 percent less carbon dioxide. We’re also planning to build a technologically advanced 1,100 MW coal-fired generating unit in the harbor area of Antwerp, Belgium, which we expect to emit 25 percent less carbon dioxide than a typical Belgian coal-fired unit. Plans call for the new unit in Antwerp to cost EUR1.5 billion and to enter service in 2014.

At Kingsnorth power station in England, we are planning the construction of the United Kingdom’s first new hard coal-fired generating unit in more than two decades. It will emit ten percent less carbon dioxide. This unit and the ones in Staudinger, Datteln and Maasvlakte will all be built capture-ready.

We are building two highly efficiently combined-cycle gas turbines (CCGT) in Irsching in southeast Germany. Irsching 5, an 845 MW unit, is expected to enter service in 2009 with Irsching 4, a 530 MW unit, coming on line in 2011. Operational testing of Irsching 4, the world’s largest and most efficient CCGT, began on December 20, 2007. This unit, which currently has 340 MW of capacity, will later be equipped with a gas turbine, which will give it a thermal efficiency of 60 percent, two percentage points higher than the current technology.

E.ON Nordic will help us reduce our specific carbon dioxide emissions by building a gas-fired combined heat and power plant at the Öresundverket power plant near Malmö, Sweden. The new unit, which is scheduled to enter service in January 2009, will generate 400 MW of electricity and 250 MW of heat. It will emit about one million metric tons less carbon dioxide.