Drax is partnering with local schools during National Apprenticeship Week (7th-11th February) as part of its commitment to helping young people kickstart their careers.
The energy company is offering interactive sessions for students and teachers in years 11-13 to raise awareness of the apprenticeships that Drax and other businesses have to offer.
The sessions will include an overview of everything related to apprenticeships and the opportunities that are available, tips for the application process and a Q&A session with some of Drax’s own apprentices. Students will also receive a writing guide to help them develop or polish up their CVs.
Karen McKeever, Drax’s Chief HR Officer, said: “National Apprenticeship Week is a great opportunity to demonstrate the value of apprenticeships and highlight them as a potential career pathway.
This year’s theme for National Apprenticeship Week of ‘Build the Future’ is especially important to Drax as we strive to equip our region’s workforce with the education and skills needed to work on climate-saving technologies like bioenergy with carbon capture (BECCS).”
Sarah Mulholland, Head of Policy at the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: “Net zero has the potential to unlock massive economic benefits across the north, particularly in the Humber – but we can only unlock that opportunity through investment in skills.
Businesses like Drax are leading the charge in this area and this initiative will help create a pipeline of workers for green jobs such as in BECCS and other new technologies.
Ultimately, levelling up boils down to creating well-paid jobs across all northern towns and cities, while giving local people the education, skills and transport they need to reach those jobs.”
Last year, Drax announced its Mobilising a Million initiative, which aims to increase social mobility by creating opportunities to support education and improve employability, ensuring the country has the skilled workforce needed to support a post-covid, green economic recovery.
These workshops build on this campaign by encouraging young people to consider the career options available to them, answer any questions they may have and give them the opportunity to hear first-hand from current apprentices.
The ‘Apprenticeships at Drax: What You Need to Know’ sessions will take place on Wednesday 9th February. Teachers and students can register to take part online.
Drax’s long-running apprenticeship scheme is part of its commitment to developing new talent as well as upskilling the workforce across the region. Drax has 52 apprentices as well as 50 existing employees working towards apprenticeship qualifications within the business.
Drax also recently transferred some of its apprenticeship levy to allow smaller local businesses to hire apprentices as part of its commitment to supporting the communities near to its operations.
Photo caption: Some of Drax’s award winning apprentices Ben Senior, Callum O’Grady and Cameron Shipstone
ENDS
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Editor’s Notes
Drax has been running an apprenticeship scheme for almost two decades at its eponymous power station in North Yorkshire. In recent years it has extended this across the whole business in the UK, as well as offering internships and graduate schemes as part of its dedication to improving skills and increasing opportunities for young people. For more details go to www.drax.com/careers.
Drax’s craft apprenticeship scheme gives new recruits the opportunity to gain skills and expertise by working alongside highly qualified engineers. It is a four-year programme, and specialises in three engineering disciplines: Mechanical, Electrical and Control & Instrumentation. In addition to engineering disciplines, Drax also offers apprenticeship qualifications in business support areas such as HR, cyber security, and administration. For current vacancies, go to https://www.drax.com/careers/apprenticeships/.
Drax runs a number of other initiatives to support STEM education and skills, including:
- Providing laptops with free internet access to support students with home learning.
- Free virtual tours of Drax’s power stations
- Virtual STEM workshops in schools.
- Virtual work experience.
Drax plans to deploy the pioneering negative emissions technology, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) at its power station in North Yorkshire. If successful, Drax could develop two BECCS units by 2030, capturing and storing at least 8 million tonnes of CO2 a year.
BECCS at Drax would support over 10,000 jobs at its peak, which is why it is vital that the region’s workforce has the skills needed to implement this green energy technology, enabling the UK to meet its 2050 net zero target whilst generating the renewable electricity the country needs.
Drax has partnered with Selby College to develop the UK’s first educational programme in carbon capture to help ensure that the region has the skilled workforce needed to operate the vital climate saving technology BECCS.
Drax announced its Mobilising a Million initiative in January 2021, when it published its Opportunity Action Plan in partnership with the Social Mobility Pledge led by former Education Secretary, the Rt Hon Justine Greening.
About Drax
Drax Group’s purpose is to enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future and in 2019 announced a world-leading ambition to be carbon negative by 2030, using Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) technology.
Its 3,400 employees operate across three principal areas of activity – electricity generation, electricity sales to business customers and compressed wood pellet production and supply to third parties. For more information visit www.drax.com
Power generation:
Drax owns and operates a portfolio of renewable electricity generation assets in England and Scotland. The assets include the UK’s largest power station, based at Selby, North Yorkshire, which supplies five percent of the country’s electricity needs.
Having converted Drax Power Station to use sustainable biomass instead of coal it has become the UK’s biggest renewable power generator and the largest decarbonisation project in Europe. It is also where Drax is piloting the groundbreaking negative emissions technology BECCS within its CCUS (Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage) Incubation Area.
Its pumped storage, hydro and energy from waste assets in Scotland include Cruachan Power Station – a flexible pumped storage facility within the hollowed-out mountain Ben Cruachan.
The Group also aims to build on its BECCS innovation at Drax Power Station with a target to deliver 4Mt of negative CO2 emissions each year from new-build BECCS outside of the UK by 2030 and is currently developing models for North American and European markets.
Pellet production and supply:
The Group has 13 operational pellet plants with nameplate capacity of c.4Mt, plus a further two plants currently commissioning and other developments/expansions which will increase this to c.5Mt once complete.
Drax is targeting 8Mt of production capacity by 2030, which will require the development of over 3Mt of new biomass pellet production capacity. The pellets are produced using materials sourced from sustainably managed working forests and are supplied to third party customers in Europe and Asia for the generation of renewable power.
Drax’s pellet mills supply around 30% of the biomass used at its own power station in North Yorkshire, England to generate flexible, renewable power for the UK’s homes and businesses.
Customers:
Drax is the largest supplier of renewable electricity to UK businesses, supplying 100% renewable electricity as standard to more than 370,000 sites through Drax and Opus Energy.
It offers a range of energy-related services including energy optimisation, as well as electric vehicle strategy and management.
To find out more go to the website www.energy.drax.com
