Drax Group
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
electrical power generation
Electrical power industry
The electric power industry provides the production and delivery of electric energy, often known as power, or electricity, in sufficient quantities to areas that need electricity through a grid connection. The grid distributes electrical energy to customers...
company. The company's principal subsidiary is Drax Power Limited, owner of the Drax power station near Selby
Selby
Selby is a town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. Situated south of the city of York, along the course of the River Ouse, Selby is the largest and, with a population of 13,012, most populous settlement of the wider Selby local government district.Historically a part of the West Riding...
in North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...
, the largest coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
-fired power station
Power station
A power station is an industrial facility for the generation of electric energy....
in Europe which supplies about 7% of UK electrical consumption. The company is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index
FTSE 250 Index
The FTSE 250 Index is a capitalisation-weighted index consisting of the 101st to the 350th largest companies on the London Stock Exchange. Promotions to and demotions from the index take place quarterly in March, June, September and December...
as of 22 June 2009.
History
Drax power station was built in the 1970s by the Central Electricity Generating BoardCEGB
The Central Electricity Generating Board was the cornerstone of the British electricity industry for almost 40 years; from 1957, to privatisation in the 1990s....
(CEGB). In the privatisation and breakup of the UK power industry it was transferred to privatised generating company National Power
National Power
- History :National Power was formed following the privatisation of the UK electricity market in 1990. In England and Wales the Central Electricity Generating Board, which was responsible for the generation and transmission of electricity was split into three generating companies Powergen, National...
in 1990. National Power sold Drax power station in November 1999 to AES Corporation
AES Corporation
AES Corporation is a Fortune 500 company that generates and distributes electrical power. The company was founded on January 28, 1981, as Applied Energy Services by Roger Sant from the US Federal Energy Administration and Dennis Bakke from the Office of Management and Budget. AES Corporation is...
for £1.87 billion (US$3 billion).
The plant was troubled by the fall in wholesale energy prices and the collapse of TXU
TXU
Energy Future Holdings Corporation is an electric utility company headquartered in Energy Plaza in Downtown Dallas, Texas, United States. The company was known as TXU until its $45 billion leveraged buyout by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs...
Europe into administration
Administration (insolvency)
As a legal concept, administration is a procedure under the insolvency laws of a number of common law jurisdictions. It functions as a rescue mechanism for insolvent entities and allows them to carry on running their business. The process – an alternative to liquidation – is often known as going...
. TXU had taken 60% of its output. AES abandoned the plant to its creditor
Creditor
A creditor is a party that has a claim to the services of a second party. It is a person or institution to whom money is owed. The first party, in general, has provided some property or service to the second party under the assumption that the second party will return an equivalent property or...
s in August 2003, leaving a total debt of around US$2 billion. BHP Billiton
BHP Billiton
BHP Billiton is a global mining, oil and gas company headquartered in Melbourne, Australia and with a major management office in London, United Kingdom...
, International Power
International Power
International Power PLC is an international electricity generator formed in 2000 by the demerger of National Power. It is headquartered at Senator House, 85 Queen Victoria Street in the City of London...
, RWE
RWE
RWE AG , is a German electric power and natural gas public utility company based in Essen. Through its various subsidiaries, the energy company contributes electricity and gas to more than 20 million electricity customers and 10 million gas customers, principally in Europe...
and E.ON
E.ON
E.ON AG, marketed with an interpunct as E•ON, is the holding company of the world's largest investor-owned energy service provider based in Düsseldorf, Germany. The name comes from the Greek word aeon which means eternity....
were all touted as potential buyers, although all reported bids were for less than US$200 million. These offers were rejected, and the subsequent rise in energy prices meant that by late 2005 the plant's owners were receiving offers in the region of £2 billion. However, negotiations were not concluded successfully and, in September 2005, Drax Power Ltd announced that the latest bid to buy Drax had failed. On 15 December 2005 Drax Group plc floated its shares
Share (finance)
A joint stock company divides its capital into units of equal denomination. Each unit is called a share. These units are offered for sale to raise capital. This is termed as issuing shares. A person who buys share/shares of the company is called a shareholder, and by acquiring share or shares in...
on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
.
Operations
The business of Drax Group is the sale of electricity to the wholesale market as well as the sale of products of power generation such as pulverised fuel ashFly ash
Fly ash is one of the residues generated in combustion, and comprises the fine particles that rise with the flue gases. Ash which does not rise is termed bottom ash. In an industrial context, fly ash usually refers to ash produced during combustion of coal...
. The Drax power station consists of 6 units of 660 MW each. Total capacity is around 4 GW which is equivalent to roughly 5% of total installed capacity in the UK. In 2009, the company produced 22.6 TWh of electricity or some 7% of all power production in the UK. Coal is the key fuel for the company and in 2009 it burnt some 8 million tons of coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
. Part of the coal is coming from domestic sources, but the majority is from overseas suppliers. Next to coal, the company uses small amounts of biomass
Biomass
Biomass, as a renewable energy source, is biological material from living, or recently living organisms. As an energy source, biomass can either be used directly, or converted into other energy products such as biofuel....
and petcoke as fuel.
Carbon intensity
| Year | Production (TWh TWH TWH or twh could refer to:*Tennessee Walking Horse, a breed of horse* Toronto Western Hospital, a hospital in Toronto, Canada* TWH Bus & Coach, a bus company in Romford, England* Terrawatt-hour, measure of electrical energy, 1012 watt-hours... ) |
Emission (Gt CO2) | kg CO2/MWh |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 19 | 16.35 | 840 |
| 2003 | 26 | 21.64 | 833 |
| 2004 | 25 | 20.52 | 838 |
| 2005 | 25 | 20.52 | 830 |
| 2006 | 27 | 22.76 | 840 |
| 2007 | 27 | 22.5 | 844 |
| 2008 | 27 | 22.3 | 818 |
| 2009 | 24 | 19.85 | 815 |