[February 2006]  Engineers and scientists at E.ON UK are working on next generation energy technologies in a multi-million pound R&D programme aimed at reducing the impact of climate change.

Teams across the company are quickening their pace to achieve advances in all areas of the energy chain and support E.ON UK's visionary strategy to be a low carbon leader.

Its expanded R&D programme is improving techniques in generation, distribution and energy storage, and is bringing forward the most promising concepts at the earliest opportunity.

Power Technology, the company's centre of excellence for engineering and technology in the power industry, is the focal point of the programme providing expert capabilities and first-hand practical knowledge of plant operation.

At the heart of the activity is E.ON UK's e.Locator initiative. Led by Power Technology, it is in itself a multi-million pound investment and research programme, whose name is derived from E.ON low carbon advanced technology options research.

The e.Locator programme is designed to focus on strategic directions for the future by bringing together current, emerging and new technologies and comparing their relative merits.

The skills of many of Power Technology's 250 professional engineers are being channelled into the five key areas identified in e.Locator.

The five – cleaner fossil-fuel generation, nuclear power, renewables, enabling technologies and demand side initiatives – are seen as offering the greatest potential for exploiting cleaner energy technologies and energy efficiencies. 

• Cleaner fossil fuel generation embraces technologies such as CO2 capture and storage, advanced combustion and gasification 
• Nuclear covers evaluation of the latest technologies and issues central to any new plant construction such as safety, planning and licensing 
• Renewables spans biomass fuels, wind, hydro, wave and tidal power through to fuel cells 
• Enabling technologies cover the production, storage and distribution of low carbon fuels – such as hydrogen and biomass – plus the bulk storage of energy and low carbon impacts on power networks 
• Demand-side initiatives bring together micro and industrial and commercial CHP schemes, micro-generation, demand management, energy efficiency and low carbon buildings

Innovations and new techniques are being evaluated either independently or in partnership arrangements with government, the EU, scientific organisations, companies and universities.

In its latest move to further E.ON UK’s drive for low carbon leadership, Power Technology has signed a landmark sponsorship agreement with the Canadian International Test Centre for CO2 Capture (ITC), at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan.

The agreement is designed to bring together the ITC’s leading expertise in the use of amine scrubbing for CO2 capture from flue gases and Power Technology’s knowledge of advanced optimisation of coal-fired power station steam cycles.

The full programme of projects involving Power Technology covers research areas such as lowering carbon output, reducing environmental impacts, production of hydrogen energy and clean gas, and energy efficiency and management initiatives. They include: 

• The five-year, £17-million, EU-funded Cachet study to evaluate four hydrogen-based techniques for pre-combustion capture of CO2 from gas, coal and oil. 
• The Gem project, co-funded by the UK Department of Trade and Industry, is examining how coal gasification (IGCC) can be used to produce a cheaper, sulphur-free synthetic gas for use by CCGT power plant. 
• The four-year, £11-million, EU-funded Castor programme to deliver more economic technologies for post-combustion capture of CO2 and its subsequent transport and secure storage. A 1 MW test plant is coming on stream at Esbjerg in Denmark in which the partners are Power Technology and E.ON Energie in Germany. 
• A three-year project, utilising the world-leading expertise of the British Geological Survey, is pinpointing sites for CO2 storage in the North Sea and on mainland Britain. 
• The four-year, £10-million Dynamis project to investigate technologies for large-scale hydrogen production for use in power generation and transport systems including cars.

Power Technology Director Derrick Farthing said: “These investments and the application of our world-class engineering capabilities demonstrates our commitment to reducing the energy industry’s carbon footprint.”

Further details available at: techinfo@eon-uk.com

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