Drax has joined with engineering, construction and project management company Bechtel to identify opportunities to construct new ‘bioenergy with carbon capture and storage’ power plants globally.
Bechtel said it will focus its study on “strategically important regions” including North America and Western Europe, as well as reviewing how to optimize the design of a BECCS plant to maximise efficiency, performance and cost.
Jason Shipstone, Drax Group chief innovation officer, said: “Negative emissions technologies such as BECCS are crucial in tackling the global climate crisis and at Drax we’re planning to retrofit this to our UK power station, demonstrating global climate leadership in the transformation of a former coal-fired power station.
“We’re interested in potential opportunities for exporting BECCS overseas, where Drax could help other countries take positive action to address the climate crisis and meet the Paris climate commitments by using innovative carbon capture technology to permanently remove CO2 from the atmosphere.”
As well as Drax Power Station, which has been converted to use biomass instead of coal, Drax owns or has interests in 17 pellet mills in the US South and Western Canada which manufacture 4.9Mt of compressed wood pellets (biomass) a year. The mills supply around 20% of the biomass used at Drax.
The companies will also work together to identify how the design of a new-build BECCS plant can be optimised using new technology and best practice in engineering design.