Enron's wind farm in North still trading

Enron, the troubled US energy giant, said it had no plans to dispose of its wind farm business in Northern Ireland despite the appointment of administrators to the European holding company.

Enron said its Owenreagh wind farm, which supplies power to Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE)under the UK government's green energy scheme, would continue to operate as a going concern.

Owenreagh is the only wind farm in Ireland using Zond turbines. The wind farm, which was developed in 1996, is based in Co Tyrone and consists of 10 500 kw turbines which provide clean wind power.

An Enron spokeswoman in the US said the facility was part of the Enron Wind division and would continue to provide energy under its existing contracts with NIE. "It is a going concern and is fully operational. We see no reason why this situation should change in the immediate future," she said.

Enron wind currently provides power to NIE under its environmentally friendly electricity scheme, Eco Energy. The Eco Energy tariff is one of the UK's most successful green tariffs and has double the number of customers pro rata than the UK average. More than 1,000 domestic and small-business customers in the North have already signed for NIE's Eco Energy scheme.

Enron Wind, one of the world leaders in the wind power generation market, is one of only eight wind farms in Northern Ireland and makes a vital contribution to Northern Ireland's green electricity grid. Its parent company Enron is in the midst of one of America's worst corporate scandals after it emerged that it overstated its profits by $600 million (€675 million) during the late 1990s, leading investors to downgrade the company's credit rating and unable to service its $13 billion debt mountain.

The energy giant has been forced to offload many of its complicated network of subsidiaries and only narrowly secured a loan from its key creditors, Citibank and JP Morgan, for $1.5 billion in order to give it time to restructure its business.