We are not only found on the open sea and at high altitudes in our quest for new solutions for the exploitation of renewable energies. We are out in the countryside too – to be more precise, in the agricultural and forestry industries – where we leave no stone unturned in our efforts to find energy production options that help to protect our climate. This is why our efforts are also actively focused on the utilization of biomass.

This option involves the use of fields and forests for the agricultural/ industrial-scale production of energy-rich plants – such as, for instance, maize, certain cereals and wood – as well as harvesting residues as the basis for energy production. In a particularly environmentally friendly manner too. Because the burning of biomass releases precisely the same volumes of CO2 that the plants absorbed from the atmosphere during growth.

We are one of the world's technology-leaders when it comes to biomass exploitation and have biomass plants with an electrical equivalent output of around 700 megawatts currently installed in Germany. Further projects are already in the loop.

In Lockerbie, we also operate Scotland’s largest biomass power plant with an installed capacity of 44MW. It not only reliably provides around 70,000 households with electricity, but also enables us to avoid the production of around 140,000 tonnes of CO2 per year in comparison with the emissions from conventional power plants.