The Chairman of Iberdrola met Gordon Brown at his official residence at 10 Downing Street and assured the British prime minister that the Scottish electricity companu, which has a workforce of 9,000 and five million customers, invested £1 billion last year, turned over almost £7 billion, and made purchases of around £1 billion from 2,000 local suppliers.
Galán was accompanied by the CEO of ScottishPower, Nick Horler, who helped him highlight Iberdrola’s interest in contributing to the development of the UK’s energy system by providing clean electricity generation technologies in order to help reduce the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions.
Specifically, the company is focusing on developing its renewable energy portfolio in the UK, as well as participating in the programme to develop new nuclear power plants and start up carbon capture and storage (CCS) plants. ScottishPower aims to become a world leader in CCS, which is capable of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 90%, and has located its centre of excellence in this field in the UK. The subsidiary has also participated in the British Government bid to construct a CCS plant and has started up a pilot plant at the Longannet thermal power plant, whereby it is the only company in the UK that is able to offer CCS technology that is already operational.
Iberdrola has also formed a consortium with GDF-Suez and Scottish & Southern Energy to bid for new nuclear power plant contracts in the UK as part of the British programme to re-launch this source of energy in coming years.
Meeting with the Duke of Edinburgh
After his meeting with Gordon Brown, the Chairman of Iberdrola had lunch at Buckingham Palace with Price Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, during which he discussed several of the company’s social action programmes. Ignacio Galán also showed an interest in the Duke of Edinburgh Award, an international youth development scheme funded by the Duke of Edinburgh.
During this lunch, Galán was accompanied by the Chairman of the Iberdrola Foundation, Manuel Marín; the International Director, Amparo Moraleda; the CEO of ScottishPower, Nick Horler; and members of the board of directors of the Scottish subsidiary, Lord John Kerr, Lord MacDonald and Samantha Barber.
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