19 July 2010 16:02
The results are in – we have a name!

E.ON, one of the UK's leading renewable energy companies, has today (19 July) officially announced the winning name of its offshore wind farm naming competition.

Monty Panesar from Sussex County Cricket Club officially unveiled Rampion as the name of the proposed offshore wind farm at today's celebration and presented Davison High School with their prize of £1,000.

The competition received more than 2,500 entries, with Rampion - the county flower of Sussex - being the most popular with local people.

Vaughan Weighill, Project Manager for the site, said: "We've been overwhelmed by the response to the naming competition - we never expected so many people to get involved but it's great to see local people getting behind it and having their say on what the proposed site should be called.

"The creativity and diversity of names submitted to the competition was fantastic and we're really proud to have a name that has been nominated by local children and chosen by the people of Sussex. A big thank you to all those schools who submitted a potential name and to those who voted."

The winning school, Davison High School, received a cheque for £1,000, with the three runners up, The Globe Primary School, Fairlight Primary & Nursery School, and Worthing High School, winning £500 for their school.

The proposed Rampion offshore wind farm is located 13km off the Sussex coast and has the potential to produce 650MW of power, enough to supply around 400,000 homes^[i] with renewable electricity. 

In January 2010, The Crown Estate awarded E.ON the exclusive right to seek consent to build a large-scale offshore wind farm off the Sussex coast, as part of the Round 3 UK Offshore wind programme.

It is still early days for the Rampion site with plans to submit the planning application in 2012.

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, one of the world's largest investor-owned power and gas companies. We employ around 16,000 people in the UK and more than 88,000 worldwide;
• 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're one of the leading green generators in the UK, with 20 wind farms located from Cambridgeshire to Kintyre. We own and operate 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;
• Our green development portfolio could power over a million homes and displace the emission of almost two million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by building new onshore and offshore wind farms, biomass power stations, and marine power schemes;
• We recently launched our first wave power generator, which is the first in UK waters and which is capable of generating 750kW of renewable energy;
• 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 1,500MW of renewable capacity under development;
• E.ON Group aims to spend €8bn between 2007 and 2011 on renewable generation and climate protection activities.

For more information contact:

Alisha Allen on 02476 192 063

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^[i] . Based on an average annual domestic household consumption of 4,700 kWh (Source DECC)