UK power generator Drax will focus on feedstock from wood chips rather than pellets at its bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (Beccs) power plants in the US, Drax biomass trading and logistics director Chloe Drew said at the 31 January-1 February Nordic Pellets Conference in Malmo, Sweden.
Drax is looking at building two new power plants in regions "with sustainable supply of biomass and favourable geology for CO2 storage", Drew said. Building the power plants in fibre-rich areas would remove the need for pelletisation, so that "we can put chips straight to the plant and storage", she said. But challenges remain related to the amount of wood chips required for a single plant, not all of which may be capable of being sourced locally to the plant.
A final investment decision for the first power plant — currently in a preliminary development stage — in the southern US will be taken by 2026, put back from 2024 expected previously, with commercial operations due to start by 2030.
Drax could consume around 3.5mn green short tons of fibre — wood chips and roundwood — annually at a plant with a net generation capacity of 270MW and annual output of 2TWh, according to feasibility studies it has conducted with engineering firms Bechtel and Worley, Drew said. Around 3mn t/yr of CO2 would be captured at the plant, which would need investment of around $2bn.
The company on 31 January announced a long-term deal with US forestry firm Molpus Woodlands for the optional provision of up to 1mn t/yr of sustainably sourced woody biomass for its operations in the southeastern US.
Drax is evaluating other sites for its second Beccs project, with targeted CO2 removals of 6mn t/yr from the two projects combined, Drew said. Drax is also looking at other potential future developments across the southern US, such as in Texas, Los Angeles, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, as well as in the Pacific northwest and Canada.
Potential for four Beccs units in UK
On its UK Beccs plant, Drax sees "a definite potential for the third and fourth units' conversion" to Beccs, once the first two Beccs units of 645MW each at the 2.6GW pellet-fired power plant in Yorkshire start up, Drew said.
Drax aims to fit CCS retrospectively at the first unit by 2030, and at the second unit "thereafter", and is in formal talks with the UK government on supporting only these two units. But the company sees the potential for installing CCS at the remaining two units, given the government's target of achieving at least 5mn t/yr of engineered removals of CO2 by 2030, scaling up to around 23mn t/yr by 2035, Drew said.
