Drax : Primary School students learn about renewable energy

The team led a series of presentations adapted to suit the different age groups in the school with sessions including virtual tours of Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire and Drax's hydroelectricity facilities in Scotland and an activity lesson where the children replicated the water filtration process that takes place at the Drax Daldowie energy from waste facility.

The children also received a visit from one of Daldowie's technical apprentices Danielle Nicholson who talked about her role at the fuel plant and what skills are needed, to show the children some of the career options available in the energy sector.

Lila-May, aged 9 said:

"I really enjoyed learning about how the water is filtered and used to make renewable energy and the quiz was really fun."

Luke (Primary 2) and Charlie (Primary 1)

Colette Wright, Caledonia Primary School Principal Teacher, said:

"The children really enjoyed the workshop with Drax. Experiences like these are so important to get them excited about learning and bring the subject to life. The topic was particularly relevant with COP26 taking place just down the road too."

The Drax Visitor Centre Team has been running virtual workshops in schools, colleges and universities local to the company's operations ever since the start of the covid-19 pandemic to ensure that students didn't miss out on the opportunities that the company would usually offer.

Boaz (Primary 1) and Maxwell (Primary 2)

Alan Knight, Drax Group Director of Sustainability said:

"We're committed to supporting education in the communities local to our operations. I hope that sessions such as these will help pupils better understand how energy is generated and inspire an interest in STEM subjects."

Drax runs a number of initiatives to support STEM education including a virtual work experience programme, a STEM box project and virtual tours of the power station.

Top image caption: Emma (Primary 5) and Hannah (Primary 4)

ENDS

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.

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

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.

Pellet production and supply:

Drax owns and has interests in 17 pellet mills in the US South and Western Canada which have the capacity to manufacture 4.9 million tonnes of compressed wood pellets (biomass) a year. 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