Meeting our regulatory requirements

We endeavour to comply with all regulations and legislation that affect our operations.

We seek to inform industry debate through response to consultations and participation in a range of workgroups.

We liaise with local authorities to help manage the impact of our investments on the environment. The primary regulatory body for environmental protection in England and Wales is the Environment Agency (EA) and in Scotland, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA).

The main tool of regulation for our combustion plants is pollution prevention and control (PPC). This means means that we need permits to operate our plants and they must meet exacting environmental standards to satisfy legal requirements under the IPPC Directive. PPC has introduced the requirement to operate using best available techniques (BAT), which means that our activities must use BAT to control pollution from our combustion plants. We maintain a close working relationship with the EA and other industry bodies to ensure that BAT delivers its aim of implementing environmental legislation through regulation. That way, it balances the costs to operators with benefits to the environment.

Our waste carrying activities are also regulated by the EA and our waste carrier's licence was renewed in 2007 with a single multi-site licence now covering all of our waste carrying activities. Where waste is handled by a third party on our behalf, the contract includes clauses to ensure that the waste management company or facility is appropriately licensed by the regulator.

We 've also been involved in the consultation process for the development of a standard approach to green energy tariffs proposed by Ofgem. Our hope is that, by adopting a consistent definition for green tariffs, customer confidence will increase and demand for lower carbon electricity will rise accordingly. We've also contributed to the debate over the restructuring of the renewables obligation. The introduction of a system of certificates weighted by technology types should facilitate a broader range of renewable energy generation technologies such as offshore wind, wave, tidal and biomass.