The latest phase of the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD), which regulates the emissions to air from power stations throughout Europe, was introduced in January 2008.

Ahead of this date, we worked alongside other UK generators to develop and agree a regulatory framework with our lead regulator, the Environment Agency, for the period 2008-2015. This will take into account not just the emissions reductions required by LCPD, but also the requirements of the Pollution Prevention Control (PPC) Regulations and the National Emissions Ceiling Directive (NECD).

Once the regulatory landscape was understood, we took the decision to opt one of our existing coal-fired power stations - Ratcliffe-on-Soar near Nottingham - into compliance with the LCPD. For our other two coal-fired stations, at Kingsnorth in Kent and Ironbridge in Shropshire, we've opted to take a limited hours derogation, so they will each run for no more than 20,000 hours and will close by the end of 2015 at the latest.

Over the past four years, we've been introducing technologies at these plants to reduce emissions. This includes the use of a process called boosted over-fire air (BOFA) at Ratcliffe and similar technology at Ironbridge to reduce emissions of oxides of nitrogen, along with improvements in our flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) plant at Ratcliffe.

LCPD has also required a move to using continuous emissions monitoring (CEMs) to measure and report on the emissions of key pollutants from our coal-fired power stations. Historically, our reported emissions have always been calculated on the basis of fuel and boiler characteristics, so the move to CEMs will allow us to report more accurately on the actual emissions from our power station stacks.

With the tighter emissions controls required by LCPD, the availability of real-time emissions data for comparison against our regulatory requirements will allow us to manage our stations more effectively. We have installed new CEMs at both Kingsnorth and Ironbridge and tested the existing CEMs at Ratcliffe to ensure they meet the standards required by LCPD.