If receiving government energy subsidies were an addiction, then Drax would be hooked. To its credit, the operator of Britain’s biggest power station is hardly in denial. It has been working on self-help measures that it hopes will stand it in good stead when access to its fix is unceremoniously removed in less than a decade’s time. Whether shareholders are ready to believe that it can make a success of going clean is another matter.
Drax’s main asset is its eponymous power station near Selby in North Yorkshire, which is fired by a mixture of coal and biomass. It also makes compressed wood pellets in several locations in the United States that are transported back to Britain to burn at the power station to help