Families enjoy Easter-egg-stravaganza at Drax’s Skylark Centre

Hundreds of visitors are joining the fun at the Skylark Nature Reserve this week for a special Easter-themed set of events including egg decorating and a scavenger hunt.

The three days of events during the Easter half-term holidays feature activities to suit children of all ages including exploring the science behind the melting points of different types of chocolate and making your own catapults to see whose design can fling chocolate eggs the furthest.

An Easter quiz and craft session run by the visitor centre team round off the family fun throughout the week at the 350-acre nature reserve at Barlow, which forms part of the power station site. Developed by Drax in the early 1970s, it is now home to a variety of wildlife and is also a valuable educational resource for schools, colleges and local nature groups.

Jane Breach, Community Engagement & Visitor Centre Team Leader at Drax, said: “It’s fantastic to see visitors of all ages enjoying the Easter holidays with us this year. Easter is a great opportunity for families to spend time together and we’re delighted they choose to do that with us here.

“We’re passionate about engaging children with STEM subjects from a young age and hope that these activities will spark an interest in young people studying them later in life. There will be plenty more great events coming up throughout the year and we look forward to seeing everyone again then.”

Drax runs a variety of initiatives to support STEM education and skills including offering power station tours, interactive workshops and work experience opportunities.

For information on future events at Drax and the Skylark nature reserve, visit Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/DraxGroup/ or the Drax website at https://www.drax.com/visit-us/#events.

ENDS

Photo caption:

  1. Lauren with Wilf and Millie, 6
  2. Frankie, 7 and Olly, 5 with Jane from the Drax Visitor Centre Team taking part in the egg catapult competition

Media contacts: 

Megan Hopgood
Communications Officer
E: [email protected]
T: 07936 350 175

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.

Drax’s around 3,000 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

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 19 operational pellet plants and developments with nameplate capacity of 4.6Mt, which will increase to c.5Mt once developments are 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