Essen/Swindon, 03 February 2010, RWE Innogy GmbH

Contract milestone for Scotland’s largest biomass power plant

RWE npower renewables has announced its key contractors for the £200 million, state of the art, biomass combined heat and power plant at Markinch in Fife. Metso (Finland) and Aker Solutions (Norway) have been appointed as main contractors to take forward the project. Metso, a global supplier of technology and services for a variety of industries, will provide the site’s main biomass boiler. Aker Solutions, a leading provider of engineering and construction services and part of Aker Solutions ASA, will project manage construction, provide support services and procure some of the plant equipment.

RWE npower renewables is working in partnership with paper maker Tullis Russell to supply its plant with steam and electricity from the new biomass facility. The plant, which will be the biggest of its kind in Scotland, will have an installed capacity of 50 megawatts and will replace the existing coal-fired power plant at Tullis Russell.

Stephan Lohr, RWE head of biomass said: “The combined skills and expertise of our chosen contractors Metso and Aker Solutions will be a major asset during the construction of the new Tullis Russell biomass power plant. Whilst initial groundwork has begun, construction will begin in earnest later this year and the power plant is scheduled for operation in late 2012.

He added: “This project is RWE’s largest investment to date in biomass based power generation and part of our ongoing commitment to invest €1 billion per annum in renewable energy. In addition to this project, we are developing plans for a similar biomass plant in Lincolnshire, with an installed capacity of 65 MW. Across Europe, we are aiming to build biomass plants with a total installed capacity of around 390 MW by 2013.”

Signing the contracts, Dave Raybould (Aker Solutions), Peter Sharman (RWE), Dave Ley (Aker Solutions), Lennart Ohlsson (Metso), Martin Lenkens (RWE) and Kari Remes (Metso)

The development, announced in July 2008, was backed by First Minister Alex Salmond. It received £8.1 million support via the Scottish Government’s Regional Selective Assistance grant, established to support the creation of new jobs.

The plant will reduce Tullis Russell's Markinch site carbon footprint by 72%, helping to reduce Scotland's annual carbon emissions at the paper maker by 250,000 tonnes per annum.

Chris Parr, CEO of Tullis Russell Group, commented: “This project heralds significant economic and environmental benefits for Scotland. As well as helping to secure over 500 jobs at Tullis Russell it will create over 50 permanent jobs in the operation of the power plant and a new biomass fuel processing facility, and as many as 400 further jobs during the construction phase. The removal of 250,000 tonnes of fossil fuel C02 each year from our local environment will make an enormous contribution to our relentless efforts to minimise the environmental impact of our operation on the local community.”

Contractors Metso and Aker Solutions have extensive world-wide engineering and technological experience.

Johan Cnossen, Senior Vice President, Europe, Middle East & Africa region with Aker Solutions' Process and Construction business area said: “Aker Solutions has extensive engineering and construction capability in power generation, particularly in the UK and the US. We are looking forward to working together with RWE npower renewables, Metso and our suppliers on this important biomass project."

Lennart Ohlsson, President of Metso said: "We are very happy to have this opportunity to work with RWE npower renewables and help reduce CO₂ emissions in Scotland through the development of this new biomass plant."

RWE has over 15 years experience in delivering combined heat and power projects, building, operating and owning 16 plants in the UK and Republic of Ireland, providing more than 2,000 MW of heat and power capacity.