The Drax Group has welcomes the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation that if Government wants to deliver on its climate targets it must deliver specific policy which supports the development of carbon removals projects in this country.
And the call became even more focussed because Drax is continuing the decommissioning of its two remaining coal units at Drax Power Station, which won’t be available to generate power this winter after almost 50 years of keeping on the UK lights.
This confirmation follows a recent request by National Grid ESO to explore the possibility of extending coal generation at Drax Power Station but concluded that due to a combination of technical, maintenance and staffing reasons, the extension of coal over this winter was not possible.
Group CEO, Will Gardiner, said: “The CCC’s report is welcome as it is a holistic view of the scale of the challenge facing us all in reaching Net Zero, as well as acknowledging the vital role that carbon removals technologies like BECCS will play in getting us there. We support its recommendation that faster progress is needed to reach the UK’s ambitious carbon removals targets.
“With the right support from the UK Government, we plan to invest billions into delivering BECCS at our power station in Yorkshire. Our formal discussions with the UK Government on BECCS deployment and parallel discussions about a ‘bridging mechanism’ to support the transition to BECCS have been productive and we are looking forward to continuing these in the coming months.
“We also await the publication of the UK Government’s biomass strategy, which we hope will reinforce the critical role that BECCS will play in energy security and decarbonisation, as well as timelines for the deployment of initial BECCS projects in the UK.”
