E.ON has high standards for the operation of all its facilities. This also applies to our use of water at our power stations, which we use for cooling, process water and to produce steam. The amount of water used for other purposes is not material.

The largest amounts by far are used to cool our power plants. If a plant doesn’t have a closed cooling cycle, water is taken from an on-site preflooder, filtered, warmed by a few degrees Celsius and returned to the watercourse. We believe that the amount of cooling water we use isn’t a meaningful figure, since e.g. a power plant that raises cooling-water temperatures by only a small amount requires more cooling water than a plant that significantly raises cooling-water temperatures. How cooling water is used depends on factors like location, regulatory requirements and ecological considerations.

 

The water is either drawn from a nearby river or body of water or is part of a closed-loop system. Although the use of cooling towers dramatically reduces a power station’s water consumption, in this system water isn’t returned to the source from which it was drawn. This might have a bigger environmental impact than slightly increasing the water temperatures at the source, as in the case of non closed-loop systems. A closed-loop system could also make the power station less efficient. Although, the use of cooling towers drastically reduces the amount of water needed by a plant, the water is not allowed to return to its source.

 

Aside from its use as a coolant, water is also used to produce steam. Between 95 and 99 percent of the water used to produce steam is recondensed and used again. We also use process water for applications like desulphurization. Our consumption of process water (the amount of water used for production, minus cooling water) reflects the respective amounts of electricity generated and coal used by our market units that generate electricity.

E.ON’s use of process water in 2007 remained virtually the same compared to the previous year. However it is significantly higher than the figure for 2005. This is because 2006 was the first year for which we were able to report E.ON UK’s process water consumption. Another reason for the rise in process water is due to greater use of coal to generate electricity. Without E.ON UK, E.ON Group consumption rose five percent between 2005 and 2007. Because water is readily available at our power stations, reducing our water intake has a lower priority than other environmental protection issues. That said, we make sure we use water wisely.