Drax Group is seeking permission from the UK Planning Inspectorate to set up a 200 MW battery storage facility and convert three units of the 3,960 GW coal-fired Drax power plant in North Yorkshire (UK) into a gas-fired plant. The battery storage would be located at the same site. Both projects are subject to a positive investment decision and would require to be underpinned by a 15-year capacity market contract.
Drax Group already announced these plans for the conversion of the three remaining coal-fired units to run on gas in June 2017. The 3,960 MW Drax power plant originally featured six coal-fired units of 660 MW each, of which three have already been upgraded to run on biomass pellets. As of today, 68% of its power originates from biomass and three units (about 645 MW of electrical power capacity) which run exclusively on wood pellets.
The power station is located near Selby, North Yorkshire. It was constructed in 1973 (first phase) and in 1985 (second phase) and began to deliver power in 1974. Under pressure from the UK authorities to shut down all coal-fired plants by 2025, the Drax plants increasingly turned to burning biomass (wood pellets) instead of coal and petcoke.
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