Drax finishes up coal-fired power generation

Drax announces that almost 50 years of power generation from coal in North Yorkshire, UK, has come to an end.

Drax Power Station was once Western Europe’s largest coal-fired power station but has been transformed into the UK’s single-largest generator of renewable electricity.

Over the last decade, four of the power station’s six generating units have been converted to use sustainable biomass. Its four biomass units generated 12.7TWh of electricity in 2022.

By transforming the plant to use biomass instead of coal, Drax has reduced its Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by approximately 99% since 2012.

Following the end of the winter contingency agreement, Drax will now embark on a decommissioning process to remove coal-related infrastructure from the site. This programme will start with the flue gas desulphurisation plant that was built in the 1990s to remove 90% of the sulphur from the plant’s air emissions.

Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO, says, 'We’re now planning to go further by using bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) to permanently remove millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, and we are engaged in discussions with the UK Government to move this £2bln project forward.

'The global momentum for converting coal-fired power stations to biomass is growing as more countries work to reduce their emissions by moving away from fossil fuels to renewables while maintaining their energy security. In recent months, new projects have been announced in countries from Japan to Hungary. If BECCS were eventually added to each of these sites, they would be able to remove carbon from the atmosphere while generating power.'