Drax Power in turbine upgrade as part of £40m investment project

Over the next four months, more than 1,000 contractors will work around the clock to enhance the performance of one of the station’s four biomass units and improve its efficiency.

Drax will install a new high pressure turbine barrel, new pipework and will survey the station’s boilers as part of its plans to reduce the cost of its biomass power generation by a third by 2027.

The upgrade is the third and final upgrade as part of a £40m investment programme in the station’s turbines which started in 2019.

Mike Maudsley, Drax Group’s UK portfolio generation director, said: “These turbine upgrades will improve the plant’s efficiency, ensuring Drax can continue to generate the reliable, renewable electricity millions of homes and businesses across the UK rely on, beyond 2027.

“It’s also a huge boost to the region’s economy, with more than a thousand contractors working on site during the project – that’s in addition to the 6,600 jobs supported throughout Drax’s supply chains in the North.”

The power station has been transformed in recent years from using coal, to generating renewable power with sustainable biomass – cutting carbon emissions by more than 90 per cent since 2012 making Drax one of the lowest carbon intensity generators in Europe.

Drax plans to become carbon negative by 2030 by using bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS).

Earlier this year Drax progressed its plans for BECCS, selecting Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) as its technology partner and kickstarting the planning process to develop BECCS at Drax this decade.

Subject to Government support, work to build BECCS could get underway in 2024 with the creation of thousands of jobs.

The first BECCS unit at Drax Power Station would then be operational in 2027 with a second in 2030, permanently removing at least eight million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.

In the first half of 2021, Drax Power Station generated 7.6TWh of renewable power from sustainable biomass, enough to supply over five million households.

Drax stopped using its coal units for commercial power generation in March and they will close completely in September 2022 when its existing capacity market agreements come to end.

Drax kickstarted the planning process to develop BECCS at Drax in March and announced MHI would be providing the technology required for BECCS at Drax in June.