Employees at Britain’s biggest renewable power station have donated over £10,000 to the charity Shelter, which aims to end homelessness and poor housing in Britain.
Drax’s Christmas parties did not go ahead this year, in order to reduce Covid risks, and instead employees were offered a festive hamper or to donate the equivalent value to the charity Shelter.
As a result of the generosity of employees, Drax raised more than £10,000 for the charity, which provides support to thousands of people in the UK who face homelessness and unsafe housing.
Alan Knight, Drax’s Director of Sustainability, said: “I hope the generosity of Drax’s employees will help Shelter to deliver the vital services to those most in need of safe housing this winter.
“Drax has a long history of supporting charities and it is important that we continue to do so especially at the moment, as their ability to fundraise and provide services to vulnerable people has been impacted by the pandemic.”
Drax is committed to supporting the communities local to its operations. It has invested more than £840,000 to support its customers and local communities since the start of the Covid-19 crisis.
ENDS
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About Drax
Drax Group’s purpose is to enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future and in 2019 announced a world-leading ambition to be carbon negative by 2030, using Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) technology.
Its 3,400 employees operate across three principal areas of activity – electricity generation, electricity sales to business customers and compressed wood pellet production and supply to third parties. For more information visit www.drax.com/uk
Power generation:
Drax owns and operates a portfolio of renewable electricity generation assets in England and Scotland. The assets include the UK’s largest power station, based at Selby, North Yorkshire, which supplies five percent of the country’s electricity needs.
Having converted Drax Power Station to use sustainable biomass instead of coal it has become the UK’s biggest renewable power generator and the largest decarbonisation project in Europe. It is also where Drax is piloting the groundbreaking negative emissions technology BECCS within its CCUS (Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage) Incubation Area.
Its pumped storage, hydro and energy from waste assets in Scotland include Cruachan Power Station – a flexible pumped storage facility within the hollowed-out mountain Ben Cruachan.
The Group also aims to build on its BECCS innovation at Drax Power Station with a target to deliver 4Mt of negative CO2 emissions each year from new-build BECCS outside of the UK by 2030 and is currently developing models for North American and European markets.
Pellet production and supply:
The Group has 13 operational pellet plants with nameplate capacity of c.4Mt, plus a further two plants currently commissioning and other developments/expansions which will increase this to c.5Mt once complete.
Drax is targeting 8Mt of production capacity by 2030, which will require the development of over 3Mt of new biomass pellet production capacity. The pellets are produced using materials sourced from sustainably managed working forests and are supplied to third party customers in Europe and Asia for the generation of renewable power.
Drax’s pellet mills supply around 30% of the biomass used at its own power station in North Yorkshire, England to generate flexible, renewable power for the UK’s homes and businesses.
Customers:
Drax is the largest supplier of renewable electricity to UK businesses, supplying 100% renewable electricity as standard to more than 370,000 sites through Drax and Opus Energy.
It offers a range of energy-related services including energy optimisation, as well as electric vehicle strategy and management.
To find out more go to the website www.energy.drax.com
