Environmental Performance Indicators

Reflecting the importance that the company puts on the environmental challenge, we have agreed to the monitoring of progress and to annual reviews of environmental performance. In order to meet its objectives the Company has agreed on the following Environmental Key Performance Indicators. These fall under the headings of Energy, Water, Waste and Fuel. Our aim for the next financial year is to continue the downward trend and to establish long term goals for reductions.

Energy

We are progressing with our energy saving projects, installing low energy lighting, switching off computers and other electrical equipment overnight, and the installation of more electricity meters to measure our performance.

The peak demand for electricity reached an all time high during the last quarter of the financial year 2009/10, therefore it is not unexpected that our own domestic usage would increase.

In terms of electricity used, we recorded a minor increase of 6.8% over the previous year's results. This had a corresponding increase in CO2 of 13%. The disparity of these numbers is due to the increase in the carbon content of electricity supplied by Guernsey Electricity, rising due to the increase in on island generation, a direct requirement of our license condition to produce energy at the lowest cost.

Water

Water is a finite resource, especially in our local environment and as a responsible user our aim is to reduce our overall usage.

Our focus has been to improve the performance of our generation operations. The water used for engine cooling purposes is by far the largest area of use, where we have successfully managed to reduce from 0.69L per kWh generated in the financial year 2007/08 to 0.60L per kWh generated in the financial year 2009/10, this equates to an approximate saving of 13,700 tonnes for the reported year.

Our domestic water usage saw a minor increase of 7% (430 tonnes) which is disappointing, and we are maintaining our efforts to monitor and reduce this number.

Waste

Since achieving the Keep Guernsey Green award in 2007, the Company has been committed to reducing its mixed skip waste going to landfill. We appreciate that waste separation and segregation is important to the local environment and we actively seek to improve our recycling rates.

Our major waste producing area is our network operations, laying new cable and building new substations. This produces inert waste materials which are deposited at the land reclamation site at Longue Hougue. The increase of 17% in this type of material produced is a factor of the quantity of network improvements we have made over this year.

The percentage of material being recycled has increased over the previous year by 2%. The materials we currently recycle are: green waste, metal, electrical goods and appliances, electrical cabling, paper, cardboard, polystyrene, plastic, glass, cans. Although currently not included in these figures we also recycle liquid waste from our processes in the form of oil from transformer maintenance, and oil/ sludge from generation operations. In the near future we hope to have processes in place to recycle fluorescent tubes, sodium lamps, low energy light bulbs and batteries; these are dependant on appropriate recycling routes back to the UK being in place.

Fuel

We have continued to replace our older petrol vehicles with new more efficient diesel vehicles. We have challenged our vehicle drivers to plan their routes and working day to reduce the overall mileage. This has resulted in an excellent 7.5% reduction from the previous year's results.

The company has purchased one electric vehicle for evaluation; our hope is that in the near future these types of vehicles can replace a significant proportion of our fleet, which will assist in reducing our impact on the local environment.

Construction

We are committed to constructing electrical installations to the highest possible standards. We presently have contracts that provide innovative solutions that integrate solar hot water, electric heating with heat pumps and energy efficient lighting.

This low energy building has the wiring infrastructure within the outer skin of the property in order to reduce heat loss.

Overall