Drax Power Station, live

Drax at a glance

Drax output year by year

Metered output from Elexon, unit by unit, since the meter data starts in February 2019. Share is of all electricity supplied in Great Britain, including imports.

Load factor is the energy generated as a share of what the four biomass units would make running flat out all year. Output moves from year to year with planned maintenance outages and with how often power prices make it worth running all four units.

Does Drax still burn coal?

No. Drax was built as a coal station and for decades was Britain's biggest, emitting more carbon dioxide than any other site in the country: over 22 million tonnes in 2007. Four of its six units were converted to burn wood pellets between 2013 and 2018. Commercial coal generation ended in 2021, and the last two coal units, 5 and 6, were kept on standby for winter 2022 to 2023 at the government's request before closing for good at the end of March 2023. You can see the coal fade out in the table above.

Britain's very last coal power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, closed on 30 September 2024.

Where Drax's wood comes from

Drax burnt about 7.5 million tonnes of wood pellets in 2025. According to Ember's analysis of Drax's own figures, about 87% came from the United States and Canada and 13% from Europe, mainly Latvia, with less than 1% from the UK. Drax makes much of the fuel itself at pellet mills in the southern United States and British Columbia. Ships unload at Immingham, Hull, Liverpool and the Port of Tyne, and trains carry the pellets to the power station along a dedicated branch line.

The sourcing has been heavily scrutinised. In August 2024 Ofgem closed an investigation into how Drax reported where its Canadian wood came from: it found inadequate data governance, and Drax paid £25 million into Ofgem's voluntary redress fund. Ofgem said it found no evidence that Drax had broken the sustainability rules or been given subsidy certificates it was not entitled to.

Is Drax carbon neutral?

On paper, yes. Under UK and international carbon accounting, the CO2 from burning biomass is counted where the trees are cut down, not at the chimney, on the basis that replanted forests absorb it again. That is why Drax's electricity counts as renewable and why our carbon intensity figures, like the official ones, treat biomass as close to zero.

The chimney itself released about 14.1 million tonnes of CO2 in 2025, more than four times the next biggest emitter in the UK, the Pembroke gas power station. Critics argue that forests take decades to regrow, so the carbon debt is real in the years that matter for climate targets. Drax has long planned to fit carbon capture (BECCS) to two units, which would make the station a net remover of CO2. In 2026 it scaled back spending on the UK project, saying it needs a government business model and a CO2 pipeline and storage network before investing. The Environment Agency approved a permit change allowing carbon capture at the site in August 2026.

Subsidies, and Drax after 2027

Units 1, 2 and 4 are paid under the Renewables Obligation and unit 3 under a Contract for Difference, both of which end in March 2027. Ember estimates Drax received £999 million in 2025, about £13 per UK household, and £8.7 billion since 2012.

In November 2025 Drax signed a new Contract for Difference for all four units from April 2027 to March 2031. The strike price is £109.90 per MWh in 2012 prices, rising with inflation, and it covers about 6 TWh a year, roughly 40% of what the station generated in 2025. Drax can sell more power than that at market prices, but without subsidy, so expect it to run mostly when demand and prices are high: winter evenings and still, dark days when wind and solar are low. All of its wood must now come from sustainable sources, up from 70% before.

About this data

The live figures are each unit's physical notification: the output Drax tells the grid operator it will run at, half-hour by half-hour, published by Elexon an hour ahead. NESO can instruct units up or down after that, so the real output can differ slightly. The 12-month chart and the yearly table use metered output, which Elexon publishes about five days later and revises as settlement runs complete. Shares of Great Britain's electricity are against this site's live generation mix and generation history, which include imports. Facts on fuel, emissions and subsidies come from Drax, Ofgem and Ember. This site is independent and not connected to Drax.