Drax acquire renewable assets for £702 million

Drax has announced that it is set to play a larger role in Great Britain’s energy system after purchasing Spanish company Iberdrola’s portfolio of flexible, low-carbon and renewable assets.

The completion of the power plant purchases cost Drax £702 million (€779 million) and is set to increase the company’s electricity generation capacity by 60%. This increase means that Drax will now provide enough power for the equivalent of more than 8.3 million homes.

Drax’s chief executive officer, Will Gardiner said, “As a British energy company, we are very proud to be the new owners of these critically important power stations across England and Scotland. For decades Drax has been at the heart of our energy system and now we’re going to play a bigger role than ever.”

2.6GW of generation capacity is going to be added to Drax’s portfolio. It will consist of Cruachan pumped storage hydro (440MW), run-of-river hydro locations at Galloway and Lanark (124MW) and a biomass-from-waste facility at Daldowie, Scotland as well as four Combined Cycle Gas Turbine stations in England: Damhead Creek (805M2) in Kent, Rye House (715MW) in Hertfordshire, Shoreham (420MW) in West Sussex and Blackburn Mill (60MW) in Lancashire.

Gardner added, “We are investing in Great Britain by acquiring this portfolio of flexible, low-carbon and renewable generation assets. They complement our existing activities by providing very flexible power which not only keeps the lights on for thousands of households.”