16 May 2007 00:00
Cable fault to shut down Scroby Sands turbines for a day

E.ON UK, one of the country’s leading green generators, has revealed that one of the three cables from the Scroby Sands offshore wind farm to shore has developed a fault.

The company plans to shut down all 30 turbines at the wind farm tomorrow for a day while engineers dig down to the cable at Great Yarmouth beach to establish the cause of the problem.

Jon Beresford, Project Manager for E.ON UK, said: “We’ve been aware of the problem for a couple of days but haven’t had to shut the turbines down as the scheme’s designed to run on two cables if necessary.

“However, for the duration of the digging, we’ve taken the decision to dig down and find out what’s happened.

“We expect this to take us a day and, once we’ve done that, we can re-start the turbines and continue with any necessary repairs to the cable.

“We’re certainly hopeful that we won’t have to stop the turbines again and will be able to fix the problem pretty quickly.”

The faulted cable is not the same one that had a problem last year and, until the excavation work is complete, it is impossible to speculate as to the cause of the fault.

E.ON owns or operates 20 wind farms across the country, including the Blyth and Scroby Sands offshore schemes. It burns carbon neutral biomass material at two of its coal-fired power stations and is currently building the UK’s most powerful dedicated biomass power station at Steven’s Croft, near Lockerbie.

Ends

Notes to editors:
* E.ON is the UK’s largest integrated power and gas company – generating, distributing and retailing electricity – and is part of the E.ON group, the world's largest private-sector energy services company. We employ around 16,000 people in the UK;
* Our retail business, branded Powergen, is a leading energy supplier in the UK, with around 8.5 million electricity and gas customer accounts, both domestic and SME.

For more information contact:
Jonathan Smith on 024 7618 3676