Drax considers more co-firing but ends dedicated biomass plans

Drax have announced they will not be building a new dedicated biomass power plant at Selby because of 'disappointing' support offered by Government but are considering more co-firing of biomass with coal.

Drax PLC operates the UK's largest power station, which provides 7 per cent of the UK's electricity. Most of this electricity comes from coal but a small amount comes from mixing this coal with biomass, known as co-firing.

In 2011, the power station co-fired around 12.5 per cent of throughput, using 1.3 million tonnes of sustainably sourced biomass. Under new proposals the Government will offer increased support for co-firing using more than 15 per cent biomass and Drax plan to invest £50 million to upgrade their storage facilities allowing them to co-fire at least 20 per cent biomass.

Co-firing is a cost effective solution to decarbonising the electricity sector but dedicated biomass plants can offer even greater opportunities for reducing carbon emissions and there had been hopes that the company would build three new dedicated plants with German engineering giants Siemens.

However, the company has now abandoned plans to build the first of these plants near Selby because of the lack of financial support from Government and high cost to transport biomass inland from the continent, where most of the biomass would have originated.

Drax Chief Executive, Dorothy Thompson, said: "We have expressed disappointment with the proposed level of support for this technology, which makes the investment case for the independent [biomass] generators highly challenging. The development planned for the Drax power station site has proved the most [problematic] for a number of reasons, including its inland location which increases logistics costs."

Drax have not ruled out the possibility of building a new plant on the coast near Immingham, as this would reduce transport costs, but Thompson said they would not accept the significant financial liability that they would face were they to delay the investment decision to build the Selby plant until the industry had certainty over the level of support for dedicated biomass.

Consultation on the level of support given to biomass under the Government's Renewables Obligation recently closed and proposed changes to the scheme could have a major impact on the future direction of the biomass industry.

Under the proposals dedicated biomass support will be reduced from 1.5 ROCs per MWh to 1.4 ROCs in 2016, but standard co-firing will remain at 0.5 ROCs per MWh and "enhanced co-firing" will receive 1 ROC.