Home / About us / Our history Our history Our history 1967 The Selby coalfield is discovered and the Central Electricity Generating Board begins building Drax Power Station to use its coal. Two other recently-built coal power stations, Ferrybridge C and Eggborough, begin generating electricity. 1974 Drax Power Station begins generating electricity after its first 660MW unit is commissioned. It is the most advanced and efficient coal-fired power station ever built in the UK. 1975 Drax Power Station is officially opened with three generators and a total electrical capacity of just under 2 gigawatts (GW). It has the capability to power around two million homes. 1986 Drax doubles in size and capacity to just under 4 GW, becoming the largest power station in the UK. 1988 Drax becomes the first power station to invest in retrofitted flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) equipment. Once fully operational in 1995, it removes 90% of sulphur dioxide emissions, making it the cleanest coal-fired power station in the UK. 1990 Drax Power Station comes under the ownership of National Power, one of three power generation companies created as part of the privatisation of the electricity industry in England and Wales. 1999 The power station is acquired by the US-based AES corporation for £1.87 billion. Turbine hall, Drax Power Station 2003 AES and Drax part ways after one of the power station’s major customers goes into administration. As creditors, various financial institutions take control of Drax Power Station. 2005 Drax Power Station undergoes refinancing and Drax Group plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange. 2008 Boosted-over-fire-air (BOFA) technology is retrofitted to all boilers and emissions of nitrous oxide (NOX) are reduced ensuring Drax Power Station is compliant with a strengthened Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD). 2009 Drax Group acquires Haven Power, enabling the group to supply a proportion of the electricity it generates directly to businesses and organisations. The engineering team at Drax overcomes final challenges to successfully adapt boilers to combust wood pellets, proving that co-firing (the process of using two fuels to power one boiler) can work. How to switch a power station off coal Read More 2012 Drax Power Station completes a five-year, £100 million plus project – the largest steam turbine modernisation programme in UK history – to upgrade its high- and low-pressure turbines. This saves around one million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to taking 275,000 cars off the UK’s roads. Drax commits to transforming the business into a mainly biomass-fuelled generator using compressed wood pellets in place of coal. It plans to upgrade the three generating units that came online in the early 1970s to run on 100% sustainable biomass, with no use of coal. 2013 The first of three power generating units is successfully upgraded to use compressed wood pellets in April. In December, new biomass receipt, storage and distribution systems to support the move from fossil fuels to renewables are officially opened. The new rail unloading bay (RUB 2) receives the first state-of-the-art biomass wagons. 2014 The second power generating unit is upgraded to biomass in October. Additionally, Drax completes construction of four large storage domes used to house the biomass supply. Each dome is bigger than the Royal Albert Hall, can hold 75,000 tonnes of high-density wood pellets and is explosion proof. 2015 Drax Biomass completes construction of two new pellet manufacturing facilities in Mississippi and Louisiana. It also opens its port facility on the Mississippi River in Greater Baton Rouge. Work is undertaken to partially upgrade a third coal unit to run on compressed wood pellets. Drax awaits European Commission approval for the full conversion. Drax’s fourth UK port facility begins biomass deliveries to the power station. A first phase of the £100m development is launched by Peel Ports in Liverpool and Drax becomes the first company to transport regular rail freight over the Pennines for nearly 35 years. Building a 21st century port Read More 2016 The group announces that 70% of the electricity it generates is through compressed wood pellets – around 20% of the UK’s renewable power. Only 30% of its electricity is coal-fired. 2017 Drax acquires Opus Energy, the UK’s largest non-domestic energy supplier outside of the Big 6. In April, Drax Biomass purchases a third pellet mill. LaSalle BioEnergy in Louisiana is commissioned in November. 2018 Will Gardiner becomes Group Chief Executive, as Dorothy Thompson retires. A fourth coal-fired power generating unit is taken offline at Drax. Over the summer it is upgraded to run on biomass. In May, Drax announced that it is to pilot the first bioenergy carbon capture storage (BECCS) project of its kind in Europe which, if successful, could make the renewable electricity produced at its North Yorkshire power station carbon negative. In December, Drax acquires Scottish Power’s portfolio of pumped storage, hydro and gas-fired generation from Iberdrola. 2019 The capacity of Drax’s power generation and storage assets increases to gigawatts (GW), following the acquisition of Cruachan Power Station, Galloway and Lanark hydro schemes, plus four combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power stations. In a world first, research engineers at Drax Power Station capture the carbon dioxide (CO2) from an operational plant fuelled by 100% biomass feedstock. The company records a 52% reduction in its carbon emissions in the first half of the year, compared to the same period in 2018. It uses its half-year financial results to announce that 94% of the electricity generated at Drax Power Station is now renewable. Drax partners with Equinor and National Grid Ventures in September, launching Zero Carbon Humber – a partnership to build the world’s first net zero industrial cluster and decarbonise the North of England. At COP25 in Madrid, CEO Will Gardiner announces that Drax’s world-leading ambition is to be a carbon negative company by 2030. 2020 Drax announces that almost 50 years of coal-fired electricity generation at Drax Power Station are expected to come to an end, with the end of commercial operations in March 2021 and capacity market obligations in October 2022. Drax delivers a comprehensive support package to local communities hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes laptops for school students, free energy for care homes and face masks for a York hospital. Drax Power Station cooling towers were also lit up blue in support of the NHS. In the summer, Cruachan Power Station began a six-year, ‘world-first’ power system stability contract with National Grid ESO. A month later, Drax revealed that its hydroelectric pumped storage plant would receive cutting edge technology to improve its efficiency. Drax announces a partnership with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Group for a BECCS pilot project which gets underway in the autumn. Drax joins partner organisation to form The Coalition for Negative Emissions, which sees CEOs from sectors from aviation to farming calling on the UK Government to recognise the critical role of negative emissions in reaching net zero. 2021 Drax becomes the first UK energy company to announce an initiative to improve employability for a million people by 2025 – Mobilising A Million. In late January, Drax completes the sale of its gas assets to VPI Generation Limited. The Group announces in February that it has signed an acquisition agreement with Pinnacle Renewable Energy. Subject to shareholder votes in the UK and Canada, Pinnacle – the world’s second biggest manufacturer of biomass wood pellets – would become an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Drax. The world’s leading sustainable biomass generation and supply business CEO Will Gardiner welcomes Pinnacle to the Drax family Related Stories Previous ELECTRIFICATION 14 moments that electrified history PRESS RELEASES Drax to stop using coal well ahead of UK’s deadline PRESS RELEASES New tartan to commemorate workers who died building unique Scottish power station Next Sign up for updates from Drax Sign up to receive our email newsletter to receive a regular roundup of Drax Group news and announcements Any personal data collected will be respected and protected and used for purposes of the newsletter only. 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