UK utility Scottish and Southern Energy has finalized the first of four agreements with GD Power Development, a subsidiary of Chinese power player China Guodian Corporation, to support the development of four new wind farms in northeast China. The agreement was made through Scottish and Southern Energy’s (SSE) SSE Energy Supply subsidiary, which will also purchase approximately two million carbon emissions reduction certificates (CERs) over a period of five years, from the start of 2008. Each of the four wind farms is expected to have an installed capacity of around 50MW and will displace carbon emissions from coal-fired power stations in the region, leading to around two million tonnes of CO2 being avoided. The construction of the first of the wind farms, GD Xingcheng Haibin, is already underway and the last is expected to be commissioned during 2008. Ian Marchant, chief executive of SSE, said: “Climate change is literally a global challenge and supporting the development of clean sources of energy anywhere in the world is a key means of addressing it. We have deliberately acquired CERs which relate to a mature electricity generation technology which we have experience of operating, because we want to be sure that they are making a real difference.” Under the clean development mechanism (CDM), which is part of the Kyoto Protocol, countries and companies can meet their carbon emission reduction targets by purchasing CERs from CDM-approved carbon reduction projects in the developing world. This is the first time that SSE has directly acquired primary CERs from a project. In May 2007, SSE announced a target to reduce the amount of CO2 per kilowatt hour of electricity produced at power stations in which it has an ownership or contractual interest by 20% over 10 years, to 2016.

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