The graduates have secured places on the scheme at Drax Group which owns Drax Power Station near Selby in North Yorkshire – the UK’s largest single site renewable power generator, which produces enough renewable electricity for four million homes.
Karen McKeever, Drax Chief People Officer, said:
“As our business expands, it’s vital that we nurture new talent to support our decarbonisation plans as well as offering career development opportunities. Providing these graduates with the tools needed to become the skilled workforce of the future is not only essential to the success of our business, it’s also an incredibly rewarding part of what we do.”
Alycia Booth, aged 21, who has joined Drax’s trading team, said:
“I applied for a job at Drax because I was looking for a company that had a graduate scheme where I would have the best opportunity to grow and experience different areas of the company. I felt like Drax was the perfect place to start my career as a graduate, because they offer so much support. I am really looking forward to meeting my team and getting to learn all about how Drax works to provide power to our country renewably.”
Hakeem Hussain, aged 23, who has joined Drax as a finance graduate, said:
“Applying to Drax meant the opportunity to work for a company that is forward thinking with goals and values which I believe in. I am looking forward to gaining valuable knowledge and learning from the excellent finance teams within Drax, which in time will enable me to develop and excel in my career here.”
The graduates beginning their careers at Drax Group this year are:
- Connor Houghton, 21, Group Market Analysis
- Hakeem Hussain, 23, Financial Planning & Analysis
- Mark Swift, 22, Financial Reporting
- Obinna Iwuagwu, 27, Tax and Treasury
- Mohamed Salem, 22, Procurement/Financial Operations
- Alycia Booth, 21, Trading and Optimisation
- Bethany Moss, 22, Renewables and Sustainable Commodities
Five of the graduates will be based at Drax Power Station near Selby, one will be based in Drax’s London office and one in Northampton.
Drax is committed to supporting education and skills and runs a number of initiatives including work experience, tours of the power station and a long running apprenticeship scheme.
Drax already supports 17,800 jobs across the UK, 6,000 of which are in the North. The development of BECCS at Drax Power Station would see an additional 10,000 jobs created and supported during construction which is set to get underway as soon as 2024.
ENDS
Photo caption: L-R: Mark Swift, Mohamed Salem, Hakeem Hussain, Obinna Iwuagwu, Alycia Booth, Connor Houghton, Bethany Moss
Media contacts:
Megan Hopgood
Communications Officer
E: [email protected]
T: 07936 350 175
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.
Drax’s around 3,000 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 4 million tonnes 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 18 operational pellet plants and developments with nameplate production capacity of around 5 million tonnes a year.
Drax is targeting 8 million tonnes of production capacity by 2030, which will require the development of over 3 million tonnes 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 plants supply biomass used at its own power station in North Yorkshire, England to generate flexible, renewable power for the UK’s homes and businesses, and also to customers in Europe and Asia.
Customers:
Drax supplies renewable electricity to UK businesses, offering 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
