17 January 2008 12:04
E.ON buys Midlands-based energy services company CHN Group

E.ON, one of the UK's leading power and gas companies, has today announced it has bought West Midlands-based heating services company CHN Group in a multi-million pound deal.

CHN, which is headquartered in Lower Gornal, provides heating services to major blue chip builders, local authorities and housing associations across the region. 

The company, which has six offices across the Midlands and which employs 430 people, will become part of E.ON's Energy Services division.

Don Leiper, Managing Director of Energy Services, said: "This is a great deal for us as we look to expand our business and to acquire a rapidly growing company with talented and experienced employees.

"And, just as importantly, we'll be able to utilise CHN's expertise to roll out the installation of the low carbon solutions, such as solar panels, thermal and ground source heat pumps, we're developing as E.ON changes the way we look at energy in the UK."

The deal forms a key part of E.ON's strategy to expand its home installation service, with the aim being to have a national network of field staff delivering central heating products to housing associations and local authorities.

"We're obviously aware that staff at CHN might be apprehensive about today's announcement but I can assure them that we recognise their expertise and experience and that's one of the reasons why we bought the Group," said Don.

"We look forward to working with our new colleagues and to taking our business forward."

More information about the CHN Group is available at: http://www.chngroup.co.uk/CHNInserts_07_150.pdf.

Ends

Notes to editors:

• E.ON is one of the UK's leading power and gas companies - generating and distributing electricity, and retailing power and gas - and is part of the E.ON group, the world's largest investor-owned power and gas company. We employ around 18,000 people in the UK;
• Our retail business is a leading energy supplier in the UK, with around 8 million electricity and gas customer accounts, covering domestic, SME and industrial. Powergen offers central heating and boiler care through its Home Energy Services business;
• Our distribution business, branded Central Networks, provides a reliable supply to 4.9 customers in central England through 133,000km of underground and overhead cables - enough to go round the Earth more than three times - and via almost 97,000 substations. The company covers an area from the Peak District in the north to parts of Bristol in the south, and from the Welsh Borders to the Lincolnshire Coast;
• We are sponsoring The FA Cup, which is known as The FA Cup sponsored by E.ON. We sponsor Ipswich Town FC and are an official partner of The Tour of Britain, sponsoring the King of the Mountains competition;
• The generation business produces enough electricity to cater for the needs of around eight million homes from a portfolio of world-class gas, coal and oil fired power stations;
• We are a market leader in combined heat and power, providing our customers with around 600MW of electricity and more than 1,000MW of heat at 13 sites across the country;
• We're one of the leading green generators in the UK, with 21 wind farms located from Cornwall to Northern Ireland. We also burn biomass material mixed with coal in two of our power stations and are currently building one of the UK's largest dedicated biomass power stations at Lockerbie. Combined, our renewable portfolio generates enough green energy to power the homes in a city the size of Manchester;
• We plan to spend £1bn on new renewables in the next five years, including new onshore and offshore wind, new biomass and wave and tidal power. Our green development portfolio could power over a million homes and displace the emission of almost two million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year;
• Our target is to cut the carbon released by each kW of electricity we generate by 10% between 2005-2012, having already reduced it by 20% since 1990;
• We have 1,300MW of renewable capacity under development;
• We invested £53 million in energy efficiency in 2006. These measures included loft and cavity wall insulation, installation of energy efficient boilers and smart metering, a technology we are investing a further £12 million in over the next two years.;
• Our non-operational carbon intensity dropped by 15.5% per employee in 2006;
• We are investing £50 million in new technologies and approaches over the next 5 years, through the Energy Technologies institute;
• We have Biodiversity Action Plans at many of our sites which align us with the UK target of significantly reducing biodiversity loss;
• E.ON Group recently announced it intends to reduced the carbon intensity of its generation by 50% by 2030 (on 1990 levels);
• E.ON Group aims to spend €6bn on green generation by the end of 2010.

For more information contact:

Jonathan Smith on 024 7618 3676