ScottishPower Renewables today welcomed the UK Government’s Renewable Energy Strategy announced by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

ScottishPower Renewables Director, Keith Anderson, said:

"ScottishPower Renewables is already the UK's largest wind developer with over 1200MW in operation, under construction or consented.  This package of proposals provides a sound platform to allow us to deliver the major investments in all types of renewables needed to meet 2020 targets.

"The Government is right to reinforce its commitment to the Renewable Obligation (RO) with proposals to raise the cap to at least 30-35% and extend the RO until 2035 or beyond.  Any change to the existing structure by defining a wholly new mechanism at this stage would have been completely counterproductive.
 
"We look forward to this level of commitment continuing and extending to support the design and construction of an electricity grid that supports the huge expansion of renewable projects critical to meeting the 2020 target.”

Yesterday ScottishPower Renewables was granted planning permission for the £200 million Arecleoch windfarm in South Ayrshire. The project is part of the €1.2 billion investment programme outlined by Iberdrola for developing renewable energy projects in the UK until 2010.

ScottishPower also plays a key role in connecting renewables to the Electricity Grid, through its Energy Networks business, which operates in Scotland and Wales, two of the most resource rich areas of the UK. In the past year SP Energy Networks has connected 575MW of renewable generation, and welcomes initiatives to streamline planning, accelerate new build, maximise the use of existing networks.

Media information: Simon McMillan 0141 566 4875 / 07753 622 257

• The integration of Iberdrola and ScottishPower, successfully completed on April 23 2007, has created a new organisation, which is one of the largest electricity groups in Europe with an enterprise value of around €80 billion, a presence in more than 30 countries and 22 million points of supply. The new group is also the world’s number one renewable energy operator with 7,000 MW of installed capacity and a pipeline of more than 40,000 MW