A group of senior policymakers and government officials has visited Drax Power Station, near Selby in North Yorkshire, to learn more about the UK’s largest power station and its plans to pilot new carbon capture technology.
The delegation from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) spent the day with the Research and Innovation Team at Drax and also met with Drax Power CEO Andy Koss, to learn more about its Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) pilot – the first of its kind in Europe.
If successful, the project could make the renewable electricity produced at Drax Power Station carbon negative.
Andy Koss, Drax Power CEO, said:
“This project is the next step in our journey to extend the future of the plant, protect jobs and deliver clean, reliable power for millions of households and businesses.
“With our extensive engineering skill and expertise, we have already upgraded half of the power station from coal to use biomass, transforming the business to become the largest decarbonisation project in Europe.
“If successful, this BECCS technology could enable us to achieve negative emissions on the biomass generating units at the power station and also help the UK to meet its global climate change targets.”
The demonstration project will see Drax partner with Leeds-based C-Capture and invest £400,000 in what could be the first of several pilot projects undertaken at Drax Power Station to deliver a rapid, lower cost demonstration of BECCS.
Drax plans to convert a fourth generating unit from coal to biomass this summer and is also progressing plans for repowering its two remaining coal units with gas power generation and batteries.
Pictured are: Steve Drayton, Deputy head of Research and Innovation, Drax; Carl Clayton, Research and Innovation engineer, Drax; Andy Koss, Drax Power CEO; Mark Taylor, Deputy Director for Programme Delivery, BEIS; Matthew Billson, Head of Strategy, BEIS; Mark Kilcullen, Head of Industry and CCS, BEIS; Solmaz Parsa, Engineer/Technical Project Manager, BEIS; Peter Coleman, Science Team, BEIS; Nick Bevan, lead for gas/coal generation/CCS/CHP, BEIS.
ENDS
Media contact
Ali Lewis
Drax Group Head of Media Relations
T: 01757 612165
Jessica Gorton
Drax Group Press Officer
T: 01757 612848
About Drax
Drax Group plc plays a vital role in helping change the way energy is generated, supplied and used. Its 2,300-strong staff operate across three principal areas of activity – electricity generation, electricity sales to business customers and compressed wood pellet production.
The Group includes:
Drax Power Ltd, which operates the largest power station in the UK, based at Selby, North Yorkshire and supplies 7 percent of the country’s electricity needs. The energy firm converted from burning coal to become a predominantly biomass-fuelled electricity generator. Drax is the biggest single site renewable generator in the UK and the largest decarbonisation project in Europe.
Haven Power, based in Ipswich, supplies electricity to large Industrial and Commercial sector businesses.
Opus Energy, based in Oxford, Northampton and Cardiff, provides electricity and gas to small and medium sized (SME) businesses.
Drax Biomass, is based in the US and manufactures compressed wood pellets produced from sustainably managed working forests, supplying fuel used by Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire to generate flexible, renewable power for the UK’s homes and businesses.
For more information visit www.drax.com
