Drax secures forward power sales despite tough market

British power producer Drax Group Plc has secured forward power sales since the end of July even though trading conditions in energy markets have been challenging, it said on Wednesday.The hot weather of last year dampened demand for energy over the past year, causing prices for natural gas and coal to fall. This has give pressure to many power plants where lie round the Britain and the Europe.

Drax has released management statements consistent with its interim report from July 1 to Nov. 3, which includes details on the company's continued conversion of its North Yorkshire, U.K.-based power station and potential expansion of operations in two U.S. regions.Since the result of half-year was published on 29 July, we were facing with a challenging trading condition in the market. But until now, we continue to make money from a contracted position the operator of Britain's largest power station said in a statement. Drax said that it has additional power sales of more than 3 terawatt hours for 2015 compared with the position reported in July.Drax provide power electricity to about 7-8 percent of the Britain's requirements. In Yorkshire, about half of the generation capacity at its coal-fired power plant us gradually convert to biomass fuel.

As the development of biomass industry, more big scale pellet plants was build all over the world, especially in Europe, USA and other countries. After the EU have set up the standard of carbon emission, the development speed of biomass industry increase. More and more big commercial company take part in this process, though many of then get support from the government. That increases the speed of building more and more big pellet plant in EU, especially for those area with easy transportation and big amount of biomass materials.Drax finished converting the first unit in May of 2013, and one year later began cofiring at its second unit at a rate of 85 percent biomass, which was fully converted to biomass in October.

Link to How to start a pellet plant

Drax's third unit conversion has been awarded a government Investment Contract, management reported, and subject to receiving state aid clearance from the European Commission, plans are to convert the final unit between July 2015 and June 2016 During a July call to discuss financial results of the first half of the year, Drax CEO Dorothy Thompson said that the company may potentially convert a fourth unit as well.The conversion will address a key source of pollution that contributes to the environment, and it will also reduce operating costs for the power company.

"In all, capital investments remain on schedule and budget. Commission of the new on site biomass facilities at Drax is complete and all four stages domes re now in service now". Also, Drax Group has business relations with U.S which builds and operates wood pellet plants. It expects commercial operations to start at its first pellet plant there in the first quarter of next year and its second plant to start up in the second quarter.

We also continue to evaluate options for further value enhancing, biomass-related capital investment. These include a fourth unit conversion, a third US Gulf pellet plant and the development of U.S. east coast pellet operations,the group said.

As the development of biomass industry, more and more pellet plant was build around the world. These pellets not only used for room heating system, but also used for commercialize using. That is the reason that more and more power station convert to burn biomass fuel to replace of traditional fuel. Under this condition, the big scale pellet plant can meet the standard of pellet demand. As long as in this condition, the carbon emission standard which set by the EU can be realized in2020.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Biomass Pellet Fuel Market Across Portugal
The Portuguese wood pellets market started developing around 2005 and is still in an initial stage; the large majority of the production is exported and the domestic consumption is extremely scarce...

CE Certified Pellet Mills&Pellet Plants of DIN Pellets
KMEC spares no efforts in upgrading pellet machine quality and services of consultations on establishment of pellet production plants and therefore CE pellet mills and pellet plants have been manufactured to meet the demands from European cl

Homemade wood pellet machine
Wood pellet machine is a kind of equipment to compress the woody waste into pellet without the bonding materials. As the development of biomass energy, requirement for homemade wood pellet machine are increasing day by day.

How to start a pellet plant
How to start a pellet plant is usually raised by clients or potential clients who possess abundant and sufficient biomass material such as wood blocks, wood sawdust or saw shavings, bark, tree branches and twigs as well as rice husk, wheat straw, cotton stalks, maize stalks, corn cobs, bagasse, palm EFB, bamboo.