January to March

The year began with the long-awaited decision by the Scottish Government to grant approval for a project to upgrade the high voltage transmission line between Beauly, near Inverness and Denny, near Falkirk.

The majority of the 220km line is in Scottish & Southern Energy’s network, with just the last 20km of line falling within ScottishPower’s territory. This essential infrastructure development will be crucial to the development of Scotland’s renewable energy resources.

Also in January, we announced plans to revolutionise the electricity network by developing a significant Smart Grid in Glasgow, with the aim of improving the reliability and quality of electricity supplies and making the network flexible enough to support significant deployment of small scale renewable energy sources.

The IBERDROLA Foundation launched its new Masters and PhD scholarship programme, to award scholarships to support up to 40 individuals in the study of energy and environment related courses in Spain and the UK.

We continued our sponsorship of Celtic Connections, a major traditional music festival involving 1,500 musicians and singers from all over the world.

In February, Tongland Power Station, part of our Galloway Hydro-electric Scheme celebrated its 75th anniversary and re-opened its newly refurbished Visitor Centre to local school children.

Also in February, we launched a new green energy tariff, Simply Green Energy, which meets Ofgem’s green supply guidelines. The tariff matches customers’ energy use with a supply of renewable wind energy into the grid – and customers donate to the ScottishPower Green Energy Trust, which supports small-scale renewable energy projects at community level.

In March we announced average gas price cuts of 8% for around 1.6 million customers, along with a new £50 winter rebate for vulnerable customers with electric heating.

In addition, the ScottishPower Energy People Trust supported the launch of a home energy advice team in Glasgow, alongside Glasgow City Council and the city’s Fuel Poverty Partnership, G-Heat.

April to June

In April we launched our popular schools competition, the ScottishPower Story Swap Shop – a joint venture with the Edinburgh Book Festival and Friends of the Earth Scotland that encourages children to read, recycle their books and raise money for environmental projects.

In May we announced our on-going commitment as lead sponsor of the Celtic Connections music festival for a further year. We also launched a partnership with The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Glasgow City Council, to give more young people the opportunity to take part in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme.

As part of the programme, young people taking part in the scheme will benefit from additional learning opportunities at our technical training centre in Cumbernauld.

In June, Iberdrola Engineering and Construction established a new UK base in Glasgow and 96 employees from our Energy Networks business transferred to the new organisation, which is based in Bellshill, Lanarkshire.

Also in June we learned that we had retained Platinum status in Business in the Community’s Corporate Responsibility index for the fourth consecutive year.

July to September

In July we hosted a visit by Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore, to Longannet Power Station, where he also paid a visit to ScotAsh, our ash recycling joint venture with Lafarge Cement.

In September we announced an Academic Alliance to support the research capacity of academics at University of Edinburgh and Imperial College, London.

October to December

In October IBERDROLA held its first global international employee volunteering day, which was supported by more than 300 staff across the group. Staff in the UK worked on an environmental project at the RSPB’s reserve at Lochwinnoch, helped a homeless people’s charity in Inverclyde and collected cash for the Poppy Appeal.

In November we joined forces with the University of Strathclyde to fund a Chair in Smart Grid technology, to support high quality academic research and development that will lead to the practical application of new technologies.

In December, a consortium led by Transport Scotland, and of which ScottishPower is a member, was awarded funding of nearly £3m to create a corridor of electric vehicle charging points across central Scotland. The money will fund up to 375 charging points and support the rollout of electric vehicles.

Performance Highlights

Social

  • Community investment of £3.4 million
  • Nearly £1m spent on education and training projects for young people
  • Almost 200 employees involved in volunteering projects in 2010 – from encouraging Science, Technology and Mathematics in schools (STEM Ambassadors) to lending senior management expertise to the boards of charities and improving school playgrounds and community spaces
  • ScottishPower Energy People Trust donated nearly £1.7m to 29 projects run by not-for-profit organisations to help people suffering from fuel poverty. 637,883 households were helped in 2010. Over £8m has been awarded to 160 fuel poverty projects since the Trust was formed in 2005, helping nearly 1.5 million people throughout Britain
  • We launched a brilliant new energy monitor, Unifi, which helps customers track energy use in pounds and pence and can be used to switch appliances on and off remotely using an iPhone
  • Our 13 Community Liaison Officers carried out 10,600 home visits in 2010, many of them to vulnerable customers
  • We came top in the UK National Customer Satisfaction Index of energy utilities during 2010, with a 10% improvement in our score

Environmental

  • £60 million spent on energy efficiency and fuel poverty projects in 2010 (mandatory Government programmes)
  • Supplying Scotland’s biggest green energy contract to Procurement Scotland, which means that every school, hospital and public building from the Scottish Parliament to Edinburgh Castle is using our renewable energy
  • We invested £98 million in environmental initiatives in 2010, including energy efficiency and clean coal projects
  • We continued to sponsor full-time countryside rangers at five of our sites in 2010, managing our land in the interests of biodiversity
  • We became the first UK energy supplier to achieve the Carbon Trust Standard for commitment to reducing our carbon emissions

Economic

  • Procurement spend in 2010 exceeded £6 billion – a high proportion of this went on Scottish coal and biomass fuels injecting money into the Scottish economy
  • Capital investment for 2010 was £585m. £395m was for new grid connections and power projects, supporting engineering and construction jobs