Archives: Press Release

• Fuel cell FEED study to assess the feasibility of building a second carbon capture pilot at Drax Power Station will help position the UK as a world leader in the fight against climate change
• The technology used will produce power at the same time as capturing carbon dioxide from Drax’s flue gases
• Neighbouring horticultural site will use the CO₂ to improve yields and demonstrate how businesses working together in clusters can deliver climate solutions

Th government funding will be used to explore using FuelCell Energy’s molten carbon fuel cell to generate electricity whilst capturing CO₂ from the flue gases produced during the combustion of biomass for renewable power generation at Drax.

Once captured, the CO₂ will be transported to a horticultural site which is located next to the power station, to help improve its greenhouse yields.

Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO, said:

“We believe fuel cell technology could help us to meet the rise in global demand for electricity, whilst capturing the carbon dioxide produced during its generation.

“Our FEED study will help us to understand the technical and economic feasibility of fuel cells, with a view to scaling the technology up, whilst showing that clusters of businesses working together to deliver climate change solutions, can also deliver benefits for their business.”

Chris Skidmore, Energy & Clean Growth Minister, said:

“Cutting edge technology to capture carbon will cut emissions as we work towards a net zero economy while creating new jobs – a key part of our modern Industrial Strategy.

“This innovative project from Drax represents a major milestone in efforts to rollout carbon capture at scale by the 2030s.”

The technology developed by US-based FuelCell Energy captures the CO₂ from an external flue gas stream whilst also generating electricity. This gives the technology a potential advantage over solvent-based systems, which can consume heat and electricity in order to operate.

“Carbon capture using FuelCell Energy’s solution is a potential game-changer for affordability and efficiency of concentrating and capturing carbon dioxide from emitters,”

said Tony Leo, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, FuelCell Energy.

“We are pleased to have the opportunity to partner with Drax and BEIS for such an innovative and critically important subject as cleaner energy.”

The FEED study will explore the potential for utilising the CO₂ from the fuel cell pilot to help improve crop yields. Tomatoes and other salad crops will be grown by APS Group in huge greenhouses owned by P3P Partners which are next to Drax Power Station.

Click to view/download graphic

Philip Elborne, Business Development Manager at P3P Partners LLP said:

“We are really excited to be working with Drax on their Fuel Cell carbon capture project. We pride ourselves on building and operating high quality, efficient combined heat and power systems and are committed to delivering the most value to our customers. Being able to utilise CO₂ captured from this system into our glasshouses will help us to achieve this while supporting the goal to reduce emissions.”

Phil Pearson, Group Development Director at APS Group said:

“This exciting partnership with Drax will enable carbon dioxide captured at their power station to be piped to our neighbouring glasshouses to produce high quality salad crops. We have already deployed gas-fired combined heat and power systems on all of our British glasshouse nurseries to produce clean electricity for local communities whilst using the carbon dioxide and heat to grow the crops with negligible waste.”

Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire is the UK’s largest renewable power generator after converting two thirds of the plant to use sustainable biomass instead of coal.

It is now looking at a range of technologies which could enable it to capture the carbon dioxide released from the combustion of biomass to become the world’s first negative emissions power station.

The Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering have estimated that bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) could enable the UK to capture 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year by 2050 – approximately half the nation’s emissions target.

The Front End Engineering Design (FEED) study will be completed at Drax later this year.

ENDS

We have an animation (https://vimeo.com/329448083/a9c9b21224) which shows how the fuel cell technology works – as well as a graphic (https://www.drax.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Drax_fuel_greenhouse_v6.jpg) showing how CO₂ produced at Drax Power Station will be transported to the salad farm nearby.

Media contacts:

Ali Lewis
Drax Group Head of Media & PR
E: [email protected]
T: +44 (0) 771 267 0888

Jessica Gorton
Drax Group Press Officer
E: [email protected]
T: +44 (0) 771 267 7177

Editor’s Notes

• The funding for the fuel cell Front End Engineering Design (FEED) study at Drax was secured through the government’s CCUD Phase 2 competition.
• The FuelCell system captures up to 85 tonnes of CO₂ per day while generating additional power.
• The fuel cell runs on natural gas which creates additional CO₂ emissions – these are also captured during the process. It will also destroy up to 70% of the NOx emissions from Drax’s flue gases.
• FCE’s carbonate fuel cell is modular, and this demonstration project will utilise two standard fuel cell modules similar to FCE’s SureSource3000 commercial power generation system.
• Drax Power Station is the single largest user of sustainable biomass for power in the world – around 75% of the electricity it produces is renewable, enough to power four million households.
• Biomass, such as sustainably sourced compressed wood pellets, is a renewable fuel – the CO₂ captured  when it grew is equal to the emissions it releases when used to generate electricity so it does not contribute new carbon to the biosphere. When coupled with CCS, the overall process of biomass electricity generation removes more CO₂ from the atmosphere than it releases – delivering negative emissions.
• The government’s Clean Growth Strategy identified ‘sustainable biomass power stations used in tandem with CCUS technology’ as a potential route to achieving long-term decarbonisation between now and 2050.
• Drax is already capturing a tonne of CO₂ from its first BECCS pilot project – the first of its kind in the world, using an organic solvent developed by Leeds University spin out C-Capture.
• Drax announced in May it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Equinor and National Grid Ventures. The three energy companies will work together to explore how a large-scale carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) network and a hydrogen production facility could be constructed in the Humber in the mid-2020s.
• Drax is also working with Deep Branch Biotechnology to utilise the carbon captured at Drax power station. The pilot project will create protein from the carbon, which can be used as sustainable animal feed.
• There are other markets which Drax expects to provide significant opportunities such as using the CO₂ captured in the creation of synthetic fuels which could help other hard to decarbonise sectors like aviation to reduce emissions.

About Drax

Drax Group’s ambition is to enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future. Its 2,600-strong staff operate across three principal areas of activity – electricity generation, electricity sales to business customers and compressed wood pellet production.

Power generation:

Drax owns and operates a portfolio of flexible, low carbon and renewable electricity generation assets across Britain. 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 two thirds of 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.

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.  It also owns and operates four gas power stations in England.

B2B supply:  

Drax owns two B2B energy supply businesses:

• Haven Power, based in Ipswich, supplies electricity and energy services to large Industrial and Commercial sector businesses.
• Opus Energy, based in Oxford, Northampton and Cardiff, provides electricity, energy services and gas to small and medium sized (SME) businesses.

Pellet production:

Drax owns and operates three pellet mills in the US South which manufacture compressed wood pellets (biomass) produced from sustainably managed working forests. These pellet mills supply around 20% of the biomass used by Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire to generate flexible, renewable power for the UK’s homes and businesses.

For more information visit www.drax.com 

About FuelCell Energy

FuelCell Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ: FCEL) delivers efficient, affordable and clean solutions for the supply, recovery and storage of energy.  We design, manufacture, undertake project development of, install, operate and maintain megawatt-scale fuel cell systems, serving utilities and industrial and large municipal power users with solutions that include both utility-scale and on-site power generation, carbon capture, local hydrogen production for transportation and industry, and long duration energy storage.  With SureSource™ installations on three continents and millions of megawatt hours of ultra-clean power produced, FuelCell Energy is a global leader in designing, manufacturing, installing, operating and maintaining environmentally responsible fuel cell power solutions.  Visit us online at www.fuelcellenergy.com and follow us on Twitter @FuelCell_Energy.

The funding will be used by Leeds-based C-Capture and Drax’s Innovation team to further develop its understanding of how C-Capture’s technology could be scaled up at Drax in North Yorkshire, to become the world’s first negative emissions power station in the 2020s – effectively removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from atmosphere at the same time as electricity is being produced. The company, which was established out of Leeds University’s School of Chemistry, has been working with Drax Group on its successful BECCS project, which started capturing carbon dioxide from February, proving the technology works.

The work being undertaken over the next two years includes:

• An extension of C-Capture’s existing pilot facilities at Drax Power Station.
• Plant performance optimisation trials
• A chemistry validation and testing programme with world-class research partners SINTEF and the CO₂Technology Centre Mongstad, in Norway.
• Process design development to move towards commercial scale deployment, including re-purposing the existing Drax infrastructure for BECCS.

This award represents a vote of confidence in the scheme and will give C-Capture and Drax Group a clearer understanding of how the technology could be scaled up in the 2020s, enabling Drax Power Station to capture and store up to 16 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.

The funding has been awarded by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) through its Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) Innovation Programme.

Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, Chris Skidmore, said:

“Cutting edge technology to capture carbon will cut emissions as we work towards a net zero economy while creating new jobs – a key part of our modern Industrial Strategy.  This innovative project from C-Capture and Drax represents a major milestone in efforts to rollout carbon capture at scale by the 2030s.”

Caspar Schoolderman, COO and Project Lead at C-Capture said:

“The on-going support from BEIS and our shareholders – BP, Drax and IP Group – has allowed C-Capture to build a team with unique skills and capabilities. The technology that we have developed is a game changer for carbon capture. Drax Group’s expertise in re-purposing existing infrastructure and C-Capture’s novel CCUS solution could allow the cost-effective deployment of BECCS for the first time on an industrial scale anywhere in the world.”

Aimed at supporting projects which can help deliver cost effective carbon capture initiatives which could then be used in industrial applications, the BEIS funding will help the UK to lead the world in developing CCUS technologies.

Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO, said:

“If we scale C-Capture’s BECCS technology up at Drax across all four of our biomass generating units, the impacts will be far reaching.

“As the world’s first negative emissions power station, Drax could become the ‘anchor’ for a CCS network in the Humber region, capturing carbon from other nearby industrial emitters as well as our own CO₂.”

“C-Capture’s technology could enable us to not only make a real impact on reducing our own carbon emissions, but also to deliver clean growth and jobs across the north, as well as new export opportunities for the UK making this project of major significance globally.” 

If Drax’s BECCS pilot can be scaled up to deliver negative emissions, Drax Power Station would be helping to remove gases that cause global warming from the atmosphere at the same time as electricity is produced.  Drax Power Station is already the largest decarbonisation project in Europe having converted two thirds of its generating units to use biomass instead of coal.

ENDS

Media contacts:

C-Capture

Professor Chris Rayner
Founder
T: 07879 834689 / 0113 343 6579
[email protected]

Paul Taylor
Taylor Keogh Communications
E: [email protected]
T: 07966 782611 

Drax Group

Jessica Gorton
Press Officer
E: [email protected]
T: 07712 677177

Notes to Editors

• C-Capture’s technology uses new proprietary solvents to remove carbon dioxide, offering a safer and less expensive alternative to current technologies based on the use of amines. It provides a means to make the removal of carbon dioxide significantly more economic from arrange of large-scale processes, such as power generation from coal, gas and biomass, and the production of cement, steel, and aluminium.
• C-Capture, based in Leeds, was formed in 2009 by Prof. Chris Rayner as a spin-out from Leeds University with funding from IP Group.  It had to date received £2.2m grant support from the UK Government (the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) through its Energy Entrepreneurs Fund, with further support from the CO2 Capture Project.  C-Capture has also raised £3.5m in new equity funding in a round led by BP Ventures, Drax, and IP Group. The funding underlines the credibility of C-Capture’s technology as the company continues to position itself to help mitigate climate change by providing systems that remove carbon dioxide emissions from power stations and cement, steel and aluminium facilities.
• The Committee on Climate Change’s Net Zero report states that BECCS could generate up to 173 TWh of electricity by 2050, capturing up to 51 Mt CO₂ – around half of the remaining carbon in the economy that the UK will need to capture to become ‘net zero’.
• Drax is talking to a number of industries about using the CO₂ it is already capturing in their processes. This could be for the production of concrete, putting the fizz in the drinks industry or creating synthetic fuels to use in hard-to-decarbonise sectors like aviation.
• Drax is also working with the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership, and other interested parties to explore the role CCUS can play in turning the Humber Estuary – the UK’s most energy intensive industrial cluster – into the world’s first ‘net-zero-carbon cluster’. It is ideally located for accessing offshore stores in the North Sea such as the Endurance field, which is roughly 60 miles off the coast.
• If Drax can scale up its BECCS pilot it could create more opportunities for capturing and storing carbon dioxide from other industrial emitters in the Humber region, unlocking the potential to create a new hydrogen economy, creating jobs and delivering major environmental benefits globally.

About C-Capture

C-Capture designs world-leading chemical processes for carbon dioxide removal. It has patented a unique, solvent-based technology which offers a safe, low-cost way to remove carbon dioxide from emissions sources such as power stations, industrial plants and anaerobic digestion for positive environmental benefit. In May 2018 C-Capture announced a partnership with Drax Group to run a pilot of its technology at the North Yorkshire power station, which will see carbon dioxide captured from biomass used in power generation, and show how C-Capture’s technology can be used as part of a process to remove existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (BECCS). C-Capture is proud of the potential its technology offers to mitigate climate change as part of the growing market for environmentally-conscious power generation and industrial processes. The company was formed in 2009 as a spin-out from Leeds University, and is backed by IP Group, Drax and BP Ventures. IP Group was set up with a mission to evolve great ideas, mainly from partner universities, into world-changing businesses.

Read more about C-Capture here and follow on Twitter

About Drax:

Drax Group’s ambition is to enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future. Its 2,600-strong staff operate across three principal areas of activity – electricity generation, electricity sales to business customers and compressed wood pellet production.