pwr_march-2024 - 9

GLOBAL MONITOR
The plant was subsequently outfitted
with more environmental controls,
including boosted-over-fire-air (BOFA)
technology to ensure compliance with
the European Union's Large Combustion
Plant Directive in 2008. But in 2009, an
engineering team successfully adapted
the plant's boilers to combust wood pellets,
effectively proving co-firing capability.
" When converting a generating unit, the
steam turbine and generator itself remain
the same. The difference is all in the material
being delivered, stored, crushed, and
blown into the boiler and burned to heat
up water and create steam, " the company
noted (Figure 3). In April 2023-after 50
years of power generation from coal and
a decade after the first unit was converted
to biomass-Drax officially converted the
station to run wholly on biomass pellets,
ending its use of coal.
At the end of 2023, the plant's four
biomass units had a 2.6 GW capacity,
representing 4% of Britain's dispatchable
capacity. At times of tight margins,
the plant has consistently provided up
to 11% of the UK's total generation, the
company notes. Drax has since also added
to its portfolio the 600-MW Cruachan
Power Station-a flexible pumped-storage
facility within the hollowed-out Ben
3. Drax's conversion of its 4-GW coal-fired
power plant to a 2.6-GW biomass plant leveraged
its existing steam turbines, generators,
specially built trains, and pulverizing mills.
But to accommodate new storage needs,
the company built giant EcoStore biomass
domes-advanced technological structures
carefully attuned to storing biomass. Courtesy:
Drax Group
Cruachan mountain in Scotland. Drax
stresses the two assets form a crucial
renewables dispatchable resource for
the UK, producing on average 19% of
the UK's renewables at times of peak
demand across the year and up to 70%
on certain days.
Meanwhile, Drax Group also manages
a lucrative pellet production business.
While initially developed to bolster Drax's
fuel supply pipeline, the company has 18
operational and development sites that
produce biomass pellets of about 4.8
million tonnes per annum (Mtpa). The
pellets, made of sawmill and forest residuals
and low-grade roundwood, are
sourced from the U.S. Southeast and
Western Canada. Drax is currently targeting
a production capacity of 8 Mtpa
by 2030 to double sales of biomass pellets
to third parties via long-term contracts,
aiming for a market presence in
Asia and Europe.
But alongside its ambitions for an
expanded biomass supply chain, Drax
has actively fostered the development
of BECCS, a technology that pairs postcombustion
carbon capture with biomass
generation. The company's efforts
began in 2018 with a six-month-long
BECCS pilot at a Drax Power Station
unit to capture a tonne of CO2 a day using
a proprietary solvent developed by
UK firm C-Capture to isolate carbon dioxide
from flue gas released when biomass
is combusted.
Drax in 2020 initiated a second,
12-month pilot at the plant's " CCUS Incubation
Area " to test two Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries (MHI) solvents: the commercial
KS-1 solvent (which is in use at Petra
Nova, one of the world's largest power
generation carbon capture projects) and
KS-21, a newer technology designed with
Engineered valve and actuator solutions
coupled with through-life service for
your seamless nuclear plant operations.
PERFORMANCE, ENGINEERED.
trilliumflow.com/nuclear
March 2024 | POWER
www.powermag.com
9
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