'Key moment': Drax reducing reliance on biomass with huge solar and wind farm deal
Energy giant Drax’s £561m takeover of a fund which owns solar and onshore wind farms is due to go through tomorrow as the company continues to reduce its reliance on controversial biomass processes to generate power for the UK.
Biomass, in which imported wood pellets are burnt at Drax Power Station near Selby to produce electricity, made up almost two-thirds of the Drax Group portfolio last year as the company supplied around six per cent of the UK’s power needs.
Drax receives Government subsidies for burning biomass to generate power, which is classed as renewable energy. But it has long faced accusations of sourcing pellets from environmentally important forests around the world, though the company says it is confident the wood is sustainable and legally harvested.
But following the expected confirmation of the company’s £561m purchase of solar and onshore wind farm owner Bluefield Solar Income Fund, due to be completed on Friday, and other similar recent deals, biomass is falling from its previous 65 per cent portfolio position to 43 per cent and is anticipated to drop to 35 per cent by 2029.
The percentage changes are being driven by the company increasing its overall generation capacity from 4GW last year to 6.1GW now and 7.4GW by 2029 as Drax acquires a variety of solar, wind and battery energy storage system (BESS) facilities.
CEO Will Gardiner said it is “a key moment in Drax’s transition”.
He told The Yorkshire Post: “Last year we had about 4GW of power under management.
"Drax Power Station was two-thirds of that. We’ll now have 6GW under management – so that’s 50 per cent growth in the last six months and that’s a combination of our first open cycle gas turbine coming on-stream; it is Flexitricity, which is an optimiser of batteries we’re managing; it is buying Bluefield which gives us about a gigawatt of solar.
"The business is not two-thirds biomass anymore, it is 40 per cent biomass and it is wind, it is batteries, it is solar, it is pumped storage, it is hydro, it is much more diversified.”
He added: “At times when there’s not a lot of wind and slower demand, we might be generating 50 per cent of the UK’s renewable power.
"From a business perspective, it gives us a more balanced combination of earnings. From an operating perspective, we now have pretty much the whole gamut of different types of generation."
It comes as Drax reported profit before tax of £222m for the first six months of 2026, down on the £281m for the same period in 2025. Biomass generation earnings dropped from £332m to £159m, which the company said “primarily reflects lower achieved power price” compared to last year.
Pellet production revenue also fell from £74m to £64m following the closure of a plant in Canada. Drax is conducting a strategic review of its wider Canadian pellet production business which is due to be completed by the end of this year.
Mr Gardiner said Drax Power Station’s use of biomass still remains a central part of the organisation’s business.
"There’s not a lot of opportunity to do more biomass. It is a key part of our business but we are going to be growing the business around it and as a relative proportion, it will be smaller.”
It is also due to submit a planning application for the creation of a data centre at the Drax Power Station site in the coming months.
Mr Gardiner said: “The next key step is having an end customer and we’re hoping to have that at some point next year.”
He said it is hoped construction could begin in around 18 months’ time.