Drax withdraws from Government’s £1bn carbon capture project

Drax has decided to withdraw from a £1bn carbon capture project at the North Yorkshire power station site.

Backed by the government, the White Rose project would have seen a new facility built adjacent to the existing power station, designed to transport CO2 produced at Drax, through a pipeline and then stored beneath the North Sea.

However, Drax will now pull out of the project and not invest any further, due to the government’s decision to reduce subsidies for renewable energy. This will have a direct cause on the profitability of the plant.

The two year project led by the Capture Power partnership – made up of Drax, Alstom and BOC, is aiming to potentially capture 90% of carbon emissions from a new coal fired power station and safely store them beneath the North Sea.

Even though Drax will not commit any further investment, it will continue to make the site owned by Drax, along with the infrastructure at the Power Plant, available for the project to be built.

Pete Emery, Drax Group operations director, and capture power board director, said: “We remain fully committed to completing what we’ve signed up to – the completion of a study into the feasibility and development of world leading technology that could result in dramatic reductions in carbon emissions produced by power stations and heavy industry.

“We are confident the technology we have developed has real potential, but have reluctantly taken a decision not to invest any further in the development of this project. The decision is based purely on a drastically different financial and regulatory environment and we must put the interests of the business and our shareholders first.

“We will focus our resources on the areas which we can deliver best value, particularly working with Government to explore the potential for converting a fourth generating unit to run on sustainable biomass.

“Drax still believes this project has great potential and we have announced that the site at the Drax Power Plant, along with our existing infrastructure remain available for the project to be built.”

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