Global renewable energy company Drax Group is to establish a new independent business unit that will focus on becoming the global leader in delivering large-scale and high-integrity carbon removals.
The new business will oversee the development and construction of Drax’s new-build BECCS plants in the US and internationally and work with a coalition of strategic partners to focus on an ambitious goal of removing at least 6Mt of CO2from the atmosphere annually
Senior energy infrastructure expert Laurie Fitzmaurice has been appointed as President for the US-headquartered entity, leaving the UK operation still managed by a team based here.
The business will be operationally separate within the Drax Group and have its HQ in Houston in the United States. It will be led by Laurie Fitzmaurice, a senior energy infrastructure expert, who has nearly 30 years of experience in business development around the world.
In the UK, Drax’s plans for installing BECCS onto its Power Station in Yorkshire and its transformation into the world’s largest carbon removals facility have recently been granted planning approval by the UK Government. The Government has also recently recognised the important role which biomass can play in delivering the UK’s plans for Net Zero as well as supporting energy security. The delivery of this project will continue to be handled by a UK-based team within Drax Group.
Drax Group CEO Will Gardiner said: “The creation of this business brings to life years of hard work by many outstanding people across our Group and marks another step in Drax’s journey to enable a zero-carbon, lower-cost energy future. Our recent success is grounded in providing secure, renewable energy and our future is focused on playing a critical role in tackling climate change through the generation of secure, renewable power and the large-scale removal of carbon dioxide.
“I am excited to welcome Laurie as President of our new US-headquartered carbon removals business and look forward to working with her. We have a limited window of opportunity to capitalise on our first mover advantage and I am confident that the time is right for this approach.
“The new entity will bring focus and will scale the company’s ability to deliver carbon removals to organisations looking to reduce their carbon footprints. Delivering the ambitious targets will see the new entity become a leader in the growing carbon trading market.”
