Tag: sustainability

Listening to local communities

21 March 2018

Sustainable business

Over the course of the year, we held many meetings and outreach events with the communities living in proximity to our gas-fired power station projects, including:

  • Millbrook Power, Bedfordshire: 160 people attended public exhibitions hosted by Drax in the villages neighbouring the project: Marston Moretaine, Stewartby, Ampthill and Lidlington. We also held a series of briefings with local elected representatives and interest groups. The feedback we received helped to inform the application we subsequently submitted to the Planning Inspectorate.
  • Progress Power, Suffolk: We held two roundtables with local landowners and politicians in Eye Community Centre in July and October to introduce Drax Group and better understand the community’s perception of the project. Further roundtables will take place in 2018 to involve local people in the design of the power station and sub-station.
  • Repower project, Drax Power Station: 120 people attended informal consultation events in Selby Town Hall, Drax Sports and Social Club and Junction in Goole. The sessions provided an opportunity for the Drax project team to discuss our plans with the community and identify the key issues of interest to them, ahead of the formal statutory stage of public consultation taking place in Q1 2018.
  • Rapid-response gas plants in Wales: We worked with Rhondda Cynon Taf Country Borough Council to discharge our planning obligations in relation to the Hirwaun Power project. We also started meeting with local stakeholders ahead of our statutory consultation on the Abergelli Power project in 2018.

The Sustainable Biomass Program

Sustainable bioenergy

In 2013, Drax co-founded the SBP together with six other energy companies.

SBP builds upon existing forest certification programmes, such as the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). These evidence sustainable forest management practices but do not yet encompass regulatory requirements for reporting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This is a critical gap for biomass generators, who are obligated to report GHG emissions to European regulators.

There is also limited uptake of forest-level certification schemes in some key forest source areas. SBP is working to address these challenges.

SBP certification provides assurance that woody biomass is supplied from legal and sustainable sources and that all regulatory requirements for the users of biomass for energy production are met. The tool is a unique certification scheme designed for woody biomass, mostly in the form of wood pellets and wood chips, used in industrial, large-scale energy production.

SBP certification is achieved via a rigorous assessment of wood pellet and wood chip producers and biomass traders, carried out by independent, third party certification bodies and scrutinised by an independent technical committee.

Working with our suppliers

Sustainable bioenergy

Pinewells, Lda. is part of Grupo Visabeira with global interests in the telecommunications, construction, manufacturing, technology, real estate and energy sectors. Constructed in 2009, the biomass plant in Portugal is one of the strategic investments of the group in the renewable energy sector. The plant has an annual biomass production of 150,000 tonnes, supplying both the international industrial and the internal domestic biomass markets.

Drax worked closely with Pinewells in 2017 to ensure the feedstock used for production is both harvested lawfully and sustainable by meeting the requirements of the Drax supplier data return and third-party audit. Working with the forest and quality engineers at Pinewells, we have supported the company to develop and implement their monitoring and inspection system within their own supply base.

Key features of this system include desk-based research to determine the characterisation of harvesting areas and field audits to approve the felling areas, highlight the Good Forest Practice Guide and deliver focused training. This work has provided a valuable foundation for Pinewells to implement the Sustainable Biomass Program (SBP) within their supply chain.

“Working with Drax this year has provided us guidance and understanding towards the requirements of SBP certification. The encouragement and advice from the Drax sustainability team proved both valuable and practical.”

— Alexandra Pedro, Pinewells’ Overseas Sales Director

The Bettercoal initiative

Sustainable business

Bettercoal is a global, not-for-profit initiative that has been established by a group of major European utilities to promote the continuous improvement of corporate responsibility in the coal supply chain, with a specific focus on the mines themselves. Through membership of the Bettercoal initiative, Drax aims to ensure that the coal industry respects people’s rights and makes a positive contribution to the social and economic livelihoods of workers, producers and communities.

The Bettercoal Code sets out 10 social, environmental and ethical principles. It is not a certification body, but outlines a process for assessing coal suppliers’ performance against the ten principles. Suppliers complete self-assessment questionnaires and approved assessors conduct Bettercoal Assessments. Continuous improvement plans are developed jointly with the supplier and summary results are shared with Bettercoal members.

All Bettercoal-engaged mines sign a letter of commitment at the outset, which outlines their responsibilities. If a mine then falls short of these expectations, such as by not following up on the continuous improvement plan put in place by their auditors, then they would lose their status as a ‘Bettercoal-engaged mine’.

Drax ended its membership of Bettercoal in June 2020.

Restoring Brickmakers’ Wood

Sustainable business

The Eden-Rose Coppice Trust is a woodland network that transforms urban environmental disasters into beautiful, natural high-biodiversity woodland settings for people living with a terminal illness. Haven Power has been supporting the Trust’s ambitious Brickmakers’ Wood project in Ipswich since April 2016.

Brickmakers’ Wood is a three-and-a-half-acre site that is being transformed into a peaceful space for cancer patients, disadvantaged children and people with mental or physical health problems and learning difficulties. Throughout 2017, up to 12 Haven Power employees spent time volunteering at the project each month. Volunteers contributed to the restoration of the site and relished getting their hands dirty; clearing rubbish and dense overgrowth, building new structures, creating an allotment and planting wild flowers.

Without Haven Power’s contribution, the charity founders would have had to undertake most of the work at Brickmakers’ Wood themselves. In their words: “The continual volunteering has transformed the project, so we are now two to three years ahead of where we would have been otherwise.”

The site is being transformed into a town centre oasis and has already been put to good use. The charity has run skills workshops for 12-16 year olds who have been excluded from school, encouraging them to learn about woodcraft and how to run a business.

Giving up coal

Tony Juniper, Author, adviser and environmental campaigner

7 December 2017

Opinion
Tony Juniper at Drax Power Station between coal stock and biomass wood pellet storage domes

Tony Juniper* is an environmental campaigner, author and director at Robertsbridge, a consultancy helping advise Drax on its sustainability programmes

Back in 2006 while working as Director at Friends of the Earth I approved a new report to be published in support of our then campaign for a new Climate Change Act. We wanted to show UK government ministers how it would indeed be possible to make cuts in emissions so that by 2050 the UK could progressively have reduced greenhouse gas pollution by 80 per cent compared with emissions in 1990. It was a radical and demanding agenda that we’d adopted and it was important to show the practical steps that could be made in achieving it.

The analysis we presented was based on an electricity sector model that we had developed. Different data and assumptions could be inputted and using this we set out six possible lower carbon futures.

In our best case scenario we foresaw how it would be feasible to slash emissions by about 70 per cent by 2030.

This was based on an ambitious energy efficiency programme and a shift away from fossil energy and toward renewables, including wind and solar power. In that renewables mix was also an important role for biomass to replace coal in the country’s largest power station – Drax.

This was not only crucial for backing up intermittent renewable sources but also a key piece in a future electricity sector that we believed should avoid the construction of new nuclear power stations. In November 2008 our campaign succeeded and the UK was the first country in the world to adopt a new national law for the science-based reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Since then I’ve been working as an independent sustainability advisor, including with the advisory group Robertsbridge, of which I was a co-founder.

My work has included assisting various companies in meeting the targets set out in that new law. For example, I was the Chair of the industry campaign Action for Renewables which sought government and public support for the large-scale expansion of wind, tidal and wave power.

Different campaigners tried to stop the expansion of these renewable sources of electricity, however, and succeeded in derailing support for on-shore wind power developments.

Although in its infancy, concerns were also raised about proposals for different kinds of tidal power.

In the years after the Climate Change Act I was encouraged to see that Drax began to switch over to wood pellets to generate power but concerned to see that this too had come under attack. The broadly agreed view that sustainable biomass could have a role in the phase out of coal had gone, and in its place were claims  that it was actually worse than burning coal. It was against this backdrop of changed perspectives that myself and Robertsbridge colleagues were pleased to be invited to help Drax in devising a new sustainability plan.

Early on in our conversations with Drax it became clear that part of the challenge with biomass — deciding the extent to which it is a rational choice to help with the process of decarbonisation, is how the answer to that touches so many different issues.

For example, when it comes to the exit from coal, cleaner alternatives must be brought forward to replace it, including wind and solar power.

But although these sources of renewable energy are growing rapidly, they still come with their own challenges, especially because wind can’t generate on still days and solar ceases at night. This intermittency raises issues about what the best electricity storage or complementary clean power sources might be to back them up when needed.

There are important questions about the best sources of biomass and the extent to which long-distance transport of that fuel is desirable. On top of that are issues linked with the management of the forests from which the raw material is sourced, and whether the extraction of wood to generate power can be compatible with carbon neutrality. There is the matter of nature conservation and the extent to which wood fuel demand will affect the status of species and habitats of conservation concern. For example, to what extent might the wood pellet industry be driving the conversion of semi-natural woodlands to plantations?

All of this is bound up with the economic and social conditions prevailing in the landscapes from which the wood is derived and the extent to which those buying wood fuel can pursue positive outcomes for the environment, even when carbon and wildlife are at best of marginal concern to the local forest owners growing the wood.

Then there is the extent to which economic incentives might be linked with the carbon stocks held in the forest. For example, strong demand for wood is held to be the main reason why since the 1950s the volume of carbon stored in standing timber in the forests of the US South has increased by over 100%.

Demand for wood might seem counter-intuitive as a positive factor in maintaining tree cover, but in the US South it has been a big part of the picture.

On top of all this is the question of what would happen if there were no demand for wood fuel. In landscapes that have seen volatility in demand arising from the decline in newsprint in favour of digital devices and the slowdown in US house building following the 2008 financial crisis, this is not easy to answer.

Although seeking answers is a complex task, our advice to Drax was that it should work with its many stakeholders in finding the best possible fit between its business planning and these and other questions.

One way of doing that would be to set out the different issues in an accessible manner and hence the production of the film that can be seen here.

It’s called ‘The biomass sustainability story’ And while most of us can agree with the basic idea that we have to stop burning coal, it seems the big questions are about what might be the best ways to do it? Might biomass have a role? I believe it does.

Have a look at the film and see what you think, especially if you feel as though you’ve already made up your mind.

Back to nature

28 November 2017

Sustainable business

Take a walk up the banks of Barlow Mound this weekend and you could encounter sheep, roe deer, rabbits, falcons, bats and impressive views of North Yorkshire as well as a host of other fauna and flora. What you might not realise is the hill you’re standing on is entirely man-made and is largely made of ash.

That this might be a surprise to visitors is testament to the success of Barlow Mound, a project which was conceived in the 1970s as a disposal solution for the left-over power station product of ash, that has gone on to provide a thriving natural habitat to be enjoyed by wildlife and local residents alike.

Whilst Barlow Mound has a fascinating recent history, it is by no means a thing of the past. Today it’s a unique environment that is continually managed by a passionate team and offers plenty for visitors to see.

The mound under construction

A mound out of a molehill

When Drax Power Station was first opened in 1974 it was the largest coal power station in Western Europe burning around 250,000 tonnes of coal a week. Burning that much coal resulted in a lot of pulverised fuel ash left over as a by-product. Today much of the ash by-product from burning biomass and coal at Drax is sold to the building industry, but before the market for this product emerged, building a mound was the thing to do.

“The Aberfan disaster happened at around the same time as construction began at Drax, so there was a lot of persuading people that it was the right thing to do,” FGD and By-Products Section Head Andrew Christian says. “So it’s an engineered mound to make sure it won’t ever move. There was a lot of engineering that went into it, and the Central Electricity Generating Board (which then ran Drax) were brilliant at engineering.”

As part of the planning permission for building the mound, Drax proposed to turn the mound into a natural habitat supporting trees and a variety of wildlife. Today the mound is continually managed by a passionate Drax team as well as contracted ecologists and tenant farmers to ensure the nature reserve is an environment that supports all those who call it home.

“All of a sudden I’ve got a farmer explaining sheep digestion systems to me and that’s obviously not my area of expertise!” Christian says. “For the ecologists it’s a bit of a dream because not that many people go on there, so there’s not many landmasses like that that have got wildflower meadows, grassland, trees, wet areas, where there aren’t human inhabitants, so things are left to naturally evolve.”

The team of ecologists provide regular advice to Drax, and that advice leads to installations such as the reptile hibernacula which provides a suitable home for grass snakes – “dig a hole, fill it full of rocks and logs, put the grass on top, they love it,” Christian says. Another reason the ecological advice is important is due to the self-contained nature of the habitat – a fence around the entire site means species numbers must be closely monitored.

What you can see at the nature reserve

There are four marked walks for visitors to enjoy that wind through the changing landscapes of the nature reserve, from Fenton’s Pond and its wildlife to the mound-top viewing platform offering panoramic views of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Humberside. Drax have recently improved facilities for walkers by installing new signage, a bird hide, and better identification of the walks. The nature reserve is also home to the Yorkshire Wildlife and Swan Rescue Centre which rehabilitates up to 2,000 birds a year.

Another new addition is the new outdoor classroom next to the Skylark Centre. The classroom is now regularly used by Outdoor Ted, an outdoor learning programme for primary schools in Yorkshire designed and delivered by education specialist Stacey Howard. Children can enjoy the nature reserve and can take part in activities such as archery, shelter building and making campfires.

Photo: Steve Parker

Photo: Steve Parker

And in December 2017 the Skylark Centre is hosting two special Christmas Wonderland events for the public. This year’s events will see the Centre transformed into an elves workshop featuring Christmas traditions from around the world, face painting, Christmas quizzes, arts & crafts and marshmellow roasting around the outdoor fire pit. You can see more information on the Christmas Wonderland events here – everyone is welcome and entry is free with charitable donations welcomed.

A view to the future

It’s part of the original planning condition of Barlow Mound to maintain the habitat and natural resource. But the maintenance of the nature reserve is also about social responsibility. As Christian says, “If you live in Barlow village, when you come in and walk around it, it’s a fantastic place and it’s free.”

How sustainable biomass crosses the Atlantic to power the nation

21 June 2017

Sustainable bioenergy

In the UK, we’re so accustomed to using electricity we rarely think of the journey it takes from power station to plug.

In fact, electricity must travel across a network of cables, wires and substations before it makes it from the power stations generating it to the homes and businesses using it. At Drax Power Station, which supplies 16% of Great Britain’s renewable power, there’s another journey that takes place even before the electricity leaves the power station.

This journey – the journey of more than half of the compressed wood pellet fuel Drax uses to generate electricity – has its origins in the expanse of forestland in the southern USA.

From forest to fuel

The journey starts in the huge, working forests of the southern states of the USA where low value wood – such as the thinnings cleared as part of a forests’ growing cycle – is collected in a responsible and sustainable way to make high density wood pellets, which Drax Power Station uses to produce more than 60% of its electricity.

Drax Group’s own pellet manufacturer, Drax Biomass, produces around 15% of the power station’s renewable fuel. After pelletisation locally at its Amite and Morehouse facilities, located in Louisiana and Mississippi respectively, the biomass is transported to Drax Transit at the Port of Greater Baton Rouge, on the Mississippi River. From Morehouse, trains made up of closed-top grain cars, each capable of carrying 120 tonnes, transport the pellets 221 miles to Baton Rouge. At Amite, just 60 miles from Baton Rouge, fuel-efficient trucks carry 25-tonne loads between plant and port.

Once at the port, the truck and train cargoes are unloaded into one of two biomass storage domes – each holding 40,000 tonnes of biomass – before being loaded into the ships for their transatlantic journey.

A boat arrives at Peel Ports in Liverpool

From port to port

Drax uses a range of ships to carry the pellets on their 8,000-mile journey to the UK, ranging from big ‘Coastal’ ships, capable of hauling 20,000 tonnes, to truly massive Panamax ships, more than a quarter of a kilometre in length and capable of carrying up to 80,000 tonnes.

The ships leave the port and spend 24 hours travelling the 200 miles down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico, around Florida, and into the Atlantic. From here, it’s a 19-day voyage to reach ports in the UK. To put that into perspective, it took Columbus more than two months to make his first trip across the Atlantic.

The ships pull into ports in Tyne, Hull, Immingham and Liverpool, where they are unloaded. At the bespoke biomass port facility at Peel Ports in Liverpool an Archimedean screw removes the pellets from the ship’s holds and transports them onto a conveyer belt, which loads them onto trains. These four ports can process up to 12 million tonnes of biomass every year, combined.

From port to power station

Like the stateside journey, Drax uses trains to carry its cargo from port to power plant. The difference on the UK side, however, is that the UK trains were designed specifically to carry biomass wood pellets. Clever design and engineering was used to maximise the space inside each carriage and ensure the trains carry large loads despite UK rail restrictions.

These trains carry the pellets across the country (and even over the Pennines for trains coming from Liverpool) to Drax Power Station in Selby, North Yorkshire. Roughly 14 trains arrive at the plant every day and collectively unload about 20,000 tonnes of pellets every day, from Monday to Saturday. A system of conveyor belts carry these pellets to one of Drax’s four giant biomass storage domes, each capable of housing about 80,000 tonnes of pellets.

Then, when needed, the conveyor system takes the pellets on their final journey: into the furnace. The pellets are combusted, which boils water to create steam, which turns a turbine connected to a generator, which then feeds electricity to the national grid. The electricity travels across miles of cables, and wires, through substations and transformers, and finally into your power socket.

An engineer looking into a Drax furnace

Long journey, low emissions

Despite the number of miles travelled, the journey of biomass is tracked and managed to ensure the Drax Power Station supply chain is as low-carbon as possible. The result is that, even with all supply chain emissions considered, the power generated has a carbon emissions profile that is more than 80% lower than coal.

It might be one of the most impressive supply chains involved in powering this island – but it’s not the only one to travel thousands of miles. The journey of biomass to England joins liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipped from the Middle East, coal from Colombia and solar panels manufactured in China – imports that ensure we have readily available access to power on our shores.

Sustainability, certified

24 March 2017

Sustainable bioenergy
Drax Morehouse woodchip truck

Of all the changes to Drax Power Station over the last decade, perhaps the biggest is one you can’t see. Since converting three of its six generating units from coal to run primarily on compressed wood pellets, Drax has reduced those units’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by over 80%.

And while this is a huge improvement, it would mean nothing if the biomass with which those reductions are achieved isn’t sustainably sourced.

For this reason, Drax works with internationally-recognised certification programmes that ensure suppliers manage their forests according to environmental, social and economic criteria.

Thanks to these certification programmes, Drax can be confident it is not only reducing GHG emissions, but supporting responsible forestry from wherever wood fibre is sourced.

Sustainability certifications

The compressed wood pellets used at Drax Power Station come from various locations around the world, so Drax relies on a number of different forest certification programmes, the three main ones being the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI), Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®)1 and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).

The programmes share a common goal of demonstrating responsible forest management, but adoption rates vary by region. European landowners and regulators are most familiar with the FSC and national PEFC standards, while North American landowners generally prefer SFI and American Tree Farm System (also members of the PEFC family). In instances in which Drax sources wood pellets carrying these certifications, or in instances in which Drax purchase pellets sourced from certified forests, these certifications offer an additional degree of assurance that the pellets are sustainable.

Over 50% of the pellets used at Drax Power Station come from the southern USA, where SFI and American Tree Farm System are the most widely implemented certification programmes. Overall adoption levels in this region are relatively modest. However, the SFI offers an additional level of certification that can be implemented by wood-procuring entities, such as sawmills, pulp mills and pellet mills.

This programme is referred to as SFI Fiber Sourcing, and to obtain it, participants must demonstrate that the raw material in their supply chains come from legal and responsible sources. These sources may or may not include certified forests. The programme also includes requirements related to biodiversity, water quality, landowner outreach and use of forest management and harvesting professionals. Together, these certification systems have long contributed to the improvement of forest management practices in a region that provides Drax with a significant proportion of its pellets.

And since the SFI and ATFS programmes are endorsed by PEFC, North American suppliers have a pathway for their region’s sustainable forest management practices to be recognised by European stakeholders.

These certification programmes have been in use for many years. But with recent growth in the market for wood pellets, a new certification system has emerged to deal specifically with woody biomass.

Trees locked up in a bundle

New kid on the block

The Sustainable Biomass Program (SBP) was set up in 2013 as a certification system to provide assurance that woody biomass is sourced from legal and sustainable sources. But rather than replacing any previous forest certification programmes, it builds on them.

For example, SBP recognises the evidence of sustainable forest management practices gathered under these other programmes. However, the PEFC, SFI and FSC programmes do not include requirements for reporting GHG emissions, a critical gap for biomass generators as they are obligated to report these emissions to European regulators. SBP fills this gap by creating a framework for suppliers to report their emissions to the generators that purchase their pellets.

When a new entity, such as a wood pellet manufacturer, first seeks certification under SBP, that entity is required to assess its supply base.

Feedstock which has already been certified by another established certification programme (SFI, FSC®, PEFC or PEFC approved schemes) is considered SBP-compliant.

All other feedstock must be evaluated against SBP criteria, and the wood pellet manufacturer must carry out a risk assessment to identify the risk of compliance against each of the 38 SBP indicators.

If during the process a specific risk is identified, for example to the forest ecosystem, the wood pellet manufacturer must put in place mitigation measures to manage the risk, such that it can be considered to be effectively controlled or excluded.

These assessments are audited by independent, third party certification bodies and scrutinised by an independent technical committee.

In conducting the risk assessment, the wood pellet manufacturer must consult with a range of stakeholders and provide a public summary of the assessment for transparency purposes.

Sustainable energy for the UK

Counting major energy companies including DONG Energy, E.ON and Drax as members, the SBP has quickly become an authoritative voice in the industry. At the end of 2016, the SBP had 74 certificate holders across 14 countries – including Drax’s pellet manufacturing arm, Drax Biomass, in Mississippi and Louisiana.

It’s a positive step towards providing the right level of certification for woody biomass, and together with the existing forestry certifications it provides Drax with the assurance that it is powering the UK using biomass from legal and sustainable sources.

Like the fast-reducing carbon dioxide emissions of Britain’s power generation sector, it’s a change you can’t see, but one that is making a big difference.

Read the Drax principles for sustainable sourcing.

1 Drax Power Ltd FSC License Code: FSC® – C119787