The ScottishPower group last year spent some £137 million on projects specifically designed to improve the environment. The company's total capital expenditure for the same period was £459 million.

The full extent of ScottishPower's successful environmental performance last year is detailed in two newly published reports. ScottishPower's Environment Report 1996-97, is the first to include contributions from ScottishPower's subsidiary companies, Southern Water and Manweb, and includes some initial thoughts on "green accounting".

ScottishPower's Standards of Performance in Energy Efficiency outlines the gains for customers and the environment resulting from the company's energy efficiency programme, including a 420,000 tonne saving in emissions of the greenhouse gas CO2.

Last year ScottishPower invested £22.8million on new, clean generation technologies to build on the company's record of maintaining emissions well below the UK average.

The projects included the installation of revolutionary gas reburn technology at ScottishPower's flagship power station, Longannet in Fife, which will further reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and help the station achieve its aim of becoming the cleanest existing coal-fired power station in the UK. Further reductions in nitrogen oxides are also being achieved by the installation of low-NOx burners.

In addition, the Government has recognised the contribution of ScottishPower's commitment to Scottish coal, which has a sulphur content much lower than the UK average, in helping reduce UK emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2).

The company's success in exporting electricity via the interconnector to England and Wales also has an environmental benefit by displacing generation from less environmentally efficient generating plant and so reducing SO2 emissions.

Energy efficiency remains a central part of the group's environmental strategy and its programme last year to promote energy efficiency measures among customers in the ScottishPower and Manweb areas will lead to a 716,000-tonne saving in emissions of the greenhouse gas CO2 - equivalent to the amount produced by a medium-sized coal-fired power station over two months.

It also represents a £47.1 million saving on the electricity bills of customers who are participating in the £11.9 million energy efficiency programme, funded from an allowance to ScottishPower equivalent of £1 for each franchise customer per year of the three-year scheme, which comes to a close next year.(Manweb's was a four-year scheme.)

Improvements have also been made to the landscape in which ScottishPower operates. £3.4 million was spent last year to improve ash handling facilities at Longannet and secure further increases in the amount of pulverised fuel ash (PFA) and other solid by-products of generation process being sold mainly for use as infill or as raw material for building products.

The sale of 203,400 tonnes of this waste last year, an increase of 26 per cent on the previous year, considerably reduced the need for disposal in the now well-established lagoon areas on the Firth of Forth, which have been successfully converted as recreation facilities.

Major environmental successes have also been attained by ScottishPower's subsidiaries. In Southern Water £46 million was invested to maintain and enhance bathing water quality in the vicinity of waste water outfalls. Last year Southern Water recorded one of the lowest water leakage rates in the country.

And Manweb is continuing to pioneer environmental innovations in the wires business, including use of trenchless technology which allows cables to be laid with minimal disturbance to the landscape.

Ken Vowles, Executive Director with Responsibility for the Environment, said ScottishPower's policy was to ensure that all business decisions were aligned with the company's environmental aims.

"Almost all our operations can have major environmental impacts and our challenge, which we are confident in meeting through our considerable investments in infrastructure and expertise, is to ensure that these impacts are kept to a minimum.

He added:"By assessment, prevention, control and monitoring risks we can identify business opportunities and become more efficient and competitive".

The Environmental Report was validated by the environmental consultancy Aspinwall & Company which noted that the information and data included reflected appropriately the key areas of environmental impact arising from the group's main operations.

Further Information:
ScottishPower Press Office      
Gordon Laidlaw or Colin McSeveny,                      0141 248 8200