Research, Development and Demonstration (RD&D) at the heart of our Changing Energy strategy

Our world-class research and development expertise is supporting our Changing Energy strategy by opening up new avenues for sustainable, low carbon energy solutions.

Solutions for a sustainable future

Finding the sustainable energy solutions needed by homes, businesses and industry for generations to come is the challenge at the heart of our research, development and demonstration (RD&D) programme.

During the past four years our RD&D programme has quadrupled in size and totalled more than £10 million in 2007. In supporting our Changing Energy strategy, it touches all parts of the energy chain from improving current power plant and future design concepts to helping our customers make the best use of energy. Our dedicated RD&D team is committed to delivering a portfolio of projects that further E.ON's strategic technical objectives.

In the short term this means getting the best out of our current plant portfolio, looking at issues like advanced control software to lower carbon dioxide emissions, improving gas turbine blade life and fuel efficiency, as well as optimising the safe and effective life of high pressure steam components. Longer term RD&D revolves around identifying the most promising, practical and cleaner, low carbon technologies and concepts of the future. We're investigating cleaner fossil-fired technologies and a range of carbon capture and storage techniques, as well as evaluating the role for renewable technologies such as onshore and offshore wind turbines, marine energy, biomass, photovoltaic, hydro, solar, geo-thermal and fuel cells. Technologies like energy storage, networks for small-scale generation, lower carbon fuels and smart metering are also under investigation.

We also offer our expertise to form alliances with Government and other organisations to promote research into energy issues. We're investing up to £50 million into the Government's £1 billion flagship initiative, the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) over the next 10 years. The ETI promotes world-class RD&D, involving expert engineers and scientists in academic and industry organisations, to form a bridge between longer-term research and the commercial application of proven technologies.

We've also committed extensive support to the Energy Research Partnership (ERP), which provides vision and direction to UK energy innovation. Our Chief Executive Paul Golby is co-chairman of the ERP, which operates as a high-level forum for public and private stakeholders and funding organisations in the field of energy RD&D.