Scottish Power to build new plant

Scottishpower is planning to build a big gas-fired power station near Bristol. The power plant, known as Avon power station, will have a generation capacity of between 900-1,200 megawatts and will use high efficiency combined-cycle gas turbine technology.

The planning process is in early development as the first stage of the consultation process is scheduled to begin this month. Scottish Power has not made a decision on when to bring the new plant online.

Separately, Scottish and Southern Energy said it is set to sign later this year a 10-year gas supply deal with Norway's Statoil. The Norwegian oil and gas giant will send 500 million cubic metres of gas annually to SSE's Peterhead power station via Scotland's St Fergus terminal.