19 December 2011 11:00
Holford Gas Storage starts commercial operations
E.ON Gas Storage UK has begun full commercial operations at the Holford Gas Storage facility in Cheshire, England.
The first three caverns, which represent the first phase of the development, are now fully available and with a current capacity of 60 million cubic metres, the facility will play a vital role in the UK's energy infrastructure.
Commenting on the start of commercial operations at Holford, Jo Vizor, Manager Director, E.ON Gas Storage UK said:
"This is a major milestone not just for our teams who have worked so hard on this project but for the whole of the UK. Without question the Holford gas storage project will provide a vital resource throughout the year and will play a central role in helping to provide secure gas supplies to the UK.
"Creating and preparing the caverns for commercial operation has involved many complex engineering and solution mining techniques and our ability to draw on the expertise in our UK and wider pan-European team has been crucial."
Construction work at Holford began in 2005. The creation of the underground gas storage caverns has taken approximately two and a half years. When all eight caverns are commercially available at the end of 2012, Holford will have capacity of up to 160 million cubic metres.
Ends.
Notes to editors:
E.ON is one of the UK's leading power and gas companies - generating 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. E.ON employs around 12,000 people in the UK and more than 79,000 worldwide;
In the UK, E.ON supplies power and gas to over five million domestic, small and medium-sized enterprise and industrial customers. E.ON also offers innovative energy services and technologies tailored to meet its customers' needs, and is helping customers become energy fit by encouraging them to insulate their homes, moderate their energy usage and even generate their own power;
E.ON generates electricity from a mixture of fossil and renewable sources. It has world-class gas-, coal- and oil-fired power stations, onshore and offshore wind farms and is a market leader in combined heat and power (CHP). It is one of the UK's leading green generators with 21 wind farms and the UK's first wave power generator, with another 1,500MW of renewable capacity under development.
For more information contact:
Scott Somerville on 024 7618 3438