Drax, UK’s power utility, is all set to convert its fourth coal unit to run on biomass. Drax has already switched off the coal unit at its power station in Yorkshire in preparation for the conversion.
The company has spent about £700 million in converting three of its six units at the 3.9GW power station to use biomass feedstock.
For the fourth unit, Drax is reusing its redundant kit from when it first began co-firing biomass and coal eight years ago. This is expected to help Drax spend a much lower cost of about £30 million in converting the fourth unit to biomass.
The conversion is expected to be completed over this summer and operational by the second half of this year.
Drax has received subsidies through the Renewables Obligation (RO) scheme for two of its existing biomass units at the power station while the third unit is supported by a Contract for Difference (CfD).
Going forward, Drax targets replacing the last two coal units with up to 3.6GW of gas generation and up to 200MW of storage.
Find out more about UK’s coal to biomass conversion at CMT’s 4th Biomass Trade and Power Europe on 12-13 February 2019 in Copenhagen.
