Vattenfall
Brief description:
Vattenfall is a Swedish power company and one of the leading energy producers in Northern Europe. The name Vattenfall is Swedish for waterfall, and is an abbreviation of its original name, Royal Waterfall Board (Kungliga Vattenfallstyrelsen). Vattenfall is wholly owned by the Swedish government. 46% of Vattenfall's production is from fossil energy, 28% from nuclear energy, and 24% from hydroelectric energy (as of 2008). Production resources for hydroelectric power is mainly located in Northern Sweden, nuclear power at two plants in Sweden (Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant and Ringhals Nuclear Power Plant) and at two plants in Germany, and gas- and coal-based power in Germany and Poland. In Germany, Vattenfall is the electric utility for the states of Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Berlin, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Saxony. Vattenfall owns two nuclear power plants in the country: Brunsbüttel Nuclear Power Plant and Krümmel Nuclear Power Plant, both located near Hamburg. It also owns a number of coal-fired power stations, including Jänschwalde Power Station, Boxberg Power Station, Lippendorf Power Station (owned in part), Schwarze Pumpe Power Station, and Rostock Power Station (in part). The first fire in the transformer of the nuclear power plant Krümmel in 2007 forced a closure of the power plant for over two years, while a short circuit in July 2009 in another transformer led to another closure. Due to these incidents the Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Peter Harry Carstensen announced that this will be "letzter Versuch" (their last try) before complete closure of the facility. Vattenfall’s coal-fired power plants account for more than twice as much CO₂-emissions as the rest of Sweden combined, and, if counting their Swedish-owned but foreign-located plants as Swedish, would bring Sweden up to fourth most CO₂-emitting country, counting per capita. In May 2009, Vattenfall was voted the winner of the 2009 Climate Greenwash Awards for "its mastery of spin on climate change, portraying itself as a climate champion while lobbying to continue business as usual, using coal, nuclear power, and pseudo-solutions such as agrofuels and carbon capture and storage (CCS)." Vattenfall owns four of the dirty thirty most polluting power stations in Europe.
Contact information:
Webpage: www.vattenfall.com
To contact the Press Office, please call +46 8 739 50 10
Website: http://www.vattenfall.com/
