The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has informed Drax that following the recent high court judgment (as previously reported), it now intends after all to award an investment contract for biomass conversion of unit 3 at the 6 x 660 MW Drax coal plant site under the Final Investment Decision Enabling ("FID Enabling") mechanism – an interim support mechanism for renewables as the UK switches from the existing ROC regime to the new contracts for differences system.
However, the matter doesn’t seem to quite end there as DECC says it is also appealing against the high court judgment to the court of appeal. So any award of an investment contract for the conversion will therefore be dependent on the final conclusion of the legal challenge and also remains subject to EU state aid clearance.
Drax unit 2 has already been converted to 100% biomass (under the ROC scheme), while the unit 1 conversion has already been approved for an investment contract under FID Enabling.
