Police arrest 114 for suspected power plant raid

LONDON, April 13 (Reuters) - British police said they had arrested 114 people on Monday on suspicion of planning to cause criminal damage to a power station operated by Germany-based power generator E.ON AG (EONGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research).

They said they believed the group posed a serious threat to the safe running of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire in the English midlands.

A raid on a private school in Nottingham just after midnight led to the arrests and discovery of unspecified specialist equipment, police said, without adding details.

A spokeswoman for E.ON confirmed the company believed station was "the planned target of an organised protest during the early hours of this morning".

"While we understand that everyone has a right to protest peacefully and lawfully, this was clearly neither of those things so we will be assisting the police with their investigations into what could have been a very dangerous and irresponsible attempt to disrupt an operational power plant," she said.

Ratcliffe-on-Soar is a coal-fired power station with a total generation capacity of 2,000 MW, according to E.ON UK's Internet site. (Reporting by Frank Prenesti; Editing by David Holmes)