Innovative power producer accepts the challenge for greener business practices

Economic and environmental challenges mean Drax has had to keep changing in order to keep up with global competition amid the slump as well as trying to adapt to the green business practices of the 21st century.

That's why Drax is sponsoring the Innovation of the Year prize at this year's Yorkshire Post Excellence in Business awards, where the headline speaker will be George Osborne, the Chancellor, the man charged with cutting Britain's 156bn deficit

The innovation category is open to companies that can demonstrate innovation in their approach to growth and development, whether they are large or small.

Mr Emery, production director at the UK's biggest coal-fired power station, which is based near Selby, has seen his industry go through major changes and he wants to see other Yorkshire businesses embrace innovation, whether it is in working more efficiently, adopting new technologies or offering new products.

"If you put a challenge in front of your existing employees it is amazing how they respond to it. They have been quite excited because they are very interesting challenges. Because we are innovating and because a lot of the staff are innovating, Drax has a higher performance then it has had for a long time.

"Coal-fired generation has not changed dramatically over a long period of time but the nature of our business and the challenges we have faced means we have had to innovate more in the last five years than in the previous 35 or 40.

"We are focussed on the challenge of reducing CO2 emissions and that is where biomass comes in. Drax is at the leading edge in the world of developing biomass and applying it to the power station.

"There is no blueprint for how to innovate. We are prepared to take economic and commercial risks to improve performance but you don't have to be a high-tech industry to innovate."

The awards are open to all companies headquartered in Yorkshire. Entries will be judged by a panel of leading business figures, including Sir Ken Morrison, the man who transformed a small family grocery into supermarket chain Morrisons, one of Britain's biggest businesses.

Yorkshire Bank is sponsoring the Companies with a turnover under 10m category in our Excellence in Business Awards.

The other main categories are: young business of the year, sponsored by Yorkshire Forward; companies with a turnover between 10m and 50m, sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers; and companies with a turnover of more than 50m, sponsored by DLA Piper.

The best company to work for category is sponsored by Bradford University School of Management. The Yorkshire Post young entrepreneur of the year category, for all promising owner-managers and directors aged 35 and under, is sponsored by O2.

The SME manufacturer of the year category, for manufacturing companies with a turnover of under 10m, is sponsored by the Manufacturing Advisory Service, the Government-funded organisation.

Another new sponsor is thebigwordGroup, the leading language services provider which is backing the exporter of the year category, which is open to all businesses, big or small, that have made progress in overseas markets.

The deadline for all entries is June 22. The judging panel will include senior figures from the main sponsors, DLA Piper, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Yorkshire Bank and Yorkshire Forward, along with Bradford University School of Management.

Sir Ken Morrison, the man who transformed a small family grocery into one of Britain's biggest business success stories, will also sit on the panel, alongside Paul Fullerton, the Bank of England agent for Yorkshire and Humber, Peter Charlton, Yorkshire Post Editor and Bernard Ginns, the Business Editor. For more details, visit www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/excellence.

KEY FACTORS

Peter Emery cited three key innovations carried out by Drax to help it cut carbon emissions:

burning 60 to 70 biomasses.

building the world's largest straw pelleting plant at Goole in East Yorkshire.

working with equipment suppliers to Drax to improve efficiency.

Mr Emery said Drax, a new sponsor, chose to support the Excellence in Business awards to make people aware of how the firm is innovating and to bolster the confidence of firms which want to do likewise.

"We felt it was important to encourage this sort of approach in the region."