Renewable energy company Drax has announced funding grants to 48 organisations including 12 across Scotland, in the communities where Drax operates.
The donations, which range from £750 to £2,000, are for community-led projects that support STEM education and skills, promote safety and help to benefit the local communities where these groups are based.
Eight of the organisations which will receive funding are based in Argyll and Bute, where Drax operates the flexible pumped-storage hydro facility Cruachan Power Station.
Earlier this year plans to build a new c.£500m underground pumped storage hydro plant at the site gathered further momentum, with Voith Hydro’s appointment to complete a Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) study for the Cruachan Expansion. The announcement marked a major milestone for the project, which could support over 1,100 jobs in the UK during construction whilst playing a crucial role in helping the UK grid achieve net zero.
A further three of the organisations benefiting from the funding in Scotland are located in Galloway, home to the Galloway Hydro-Electric schemes which Drax acquired in 2018.
The projects in the Argyll and Bute and Galloway areas that will receive donations worth a total of £9,850, from Drax Community Fund, include:
Adventure Oban:
A community-led group enabling equal access to the great outdoors for the community of Oban and Lorn, Adventure Oban will use their funds to support a ‘safer routes to school project’. The project will encourage active travel (walking and cycling) and funds will support software mapping costs.
East Ayrshire Council:
The local authority for East Ayrshire is aiming to promote Water Safety Awareness for school children through outdoor sessions at Loch Doon.
Taynuilt Primary School:
The primary school within the village of Taynuilt, nearby to Ben Cruachan, will be using funds to purchase new STEM equipment for their pupils.
MacDougall of Dunollie Preservation Trust:
A small charity that runs Dunollie Museum, Castle & Grounds north of Oban, will use its grant for the provision of a member of staff to support their community engagement programme.
Berni McMillan, Head Teacher, Taynuilt Primary School, said: “We are thankful to Drax’s Community Fund for awarding us with this £2,000 grant for STEM equipment. This funding will help us to provide valuable resources, ensuring we can further support our schoolchildren in science, engineering and other STEM subjects as part of their education, and encourage them to become the STEM professionals of the future.”
Sarah Cameron, Scotland Community Manager, Drax, said: “The latest round of grants from our Community Fund will provide organisations in both Argyll and Bute and Galloway with much-needed funds to promote safety and STEM education in their communities. It furthers Drax’s commitment to being a good neighbour in the communities where we operate and will play a crucial role in advocating STEM learning and a variety of other schemes for young people across the West of Scotland.”
ENDS
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Editor notes
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 19 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
