Drax Group and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering, part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Group (MHI), have agreed on new bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) pilot project at Drax Power Station which will get underway this autumn.

Implementing BECCS at Drax could deliver 16 million tonnes of negative emissions every year – a third of the negative emissions the UK needs from BECCS to reach its zero-carbon targets by 2050.

MHI’s 12-month pilot will capture around 300kg of carbon dioxide every day to ensure it’s technology is suitable for use with biomass gases at Drax.

Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO, said: “Our plans to develop groundbreaking BECCS at the power station in North Yorkshire will help to boost the UK’s economy following the Covid-19 crisis and support the development of a zero-carbon industrial cluster in the Humber region delivering clean growth and protecting thousands of jobs.”

Kenji Terasawa, President and CEO, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering, said: “We are very proud to be a part of the BECCS pilot project with Drax. We firmly believe that our carbon capture technology would be able to contribute to the UK’s zero-carbon targets in a material way.”

The pilot project aims also to help Drax accelerate its ambition to become a carbon negative company by 2030.