DRAX’s Biomass Pelleting Plant has scooped East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s small business award at a ceremony hosted by Claire Frisby of BBC Look North.
A panel of councillors and council employees selected the pellet plant, based in Goole, as the winner of the Chairman’s Awards and Commendations, Small Business Award.
The panel was told about the huge investment Drax has made in the area; the number of jobs the plant has directly created; the financial lifeline the plant gives local farmers and the environmental benefits the plant has heralded.
The pellet plant’s role is to turn straw, sourced from local farmers and elsewhere, into pellets that can be burned in Drax Power Station’s boilers alongside coal. By displacing coal in this way, huge reductions in CO2 emissions can be made and farmers in East Yorkshire and beyond benefit from a new market for their by-product. Eric Jordan, pellet plant supervisor, attended the awards and said: “This award is a great achievement for the plant and for Drax.
It recognises that Drax is a great employer that invests in its staff while at the same time contributing to a greener future and the local economy.”
The plant, which opened in 2009, employs 24 people on a full time basis and also creates income for about 30 farms around East Riding of Yorkshire.
It can produce 100,000 tonnes of straw pellets per year which are transported to the Drax Power Station where they are co-fired with coal through a new, £80 million co-firing facility.
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