Powering a greener 2022: Happy New Year from Drax

Drax has transformed the power station to become the biggest decarbonisation project in Europe having converted four of its generating units to use sustainable biomass instead of coal. Drax now produces 12% of Britain's renewable electricity - enough for four million homes.

Drax Plant Director, Bruce Heppenstall, said:

"On behalf of Drax, I'd like to wish everyone a healthy, happy new year. Drax is already the country's biggest renewable power generator, and we're looking forward to an even greener future with our two remaining coal units scheduled to close completely in September 2022 - the end of an era and a major milestone in Drax's journey to becoming a carbon negative business."

Drax is developing the vital negative emissions technology bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and plans to invest £40m in the project in 2022.

Work to build BECCS at Drax could get underway as soon as 2024 with the creation of tens of thousands of jobs.

Its first BECCS unit could be operational in 2027, with a second in 2030, creating the world's biggest carbon capture in power project, permanently removing 8million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, making a significant contribution to the UK's net zero targets.

The New Year's message will be visible from 5pm - 3am on New Year's Eve and 5pm - Midnight on New Year's Day.

ENDS

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Ben Wicks
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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

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