The owners of a power station in North Yorkshire have withdrawn their support for a £1 billion power plant with Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) capability.

Drax Group has made the decision to pull out as a partner of Capture Power, the developer of the White Rose CSS project.

The group said it remained committed to fulfilling its current work on the two year project, but once completed it will not be investing further.

In addition, the company said it will continue to make its Selby site available for the project to be built by the remaining partners, Alstom and BOC.

Drax Group Operations Director, Pete Emery, said: "We remain fully committed to completing what we've signed up to – the completion of a study into the feasibility and development of world leading technology that could result in dramatic reductions in carbon emissions produced by power stations and heavy industry.

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"We are confident the technology we have developed has real potential, but have reluctantly taken a decision not to invest any further in the development of this project.  The decision is based purely on a drastically different financial and regulatory environment and we must put the interests of the business and our shareholders first.

"We will focus our resources on the areas which we can deliver best value, particularly working with Government to explore the potential for converting a fourth generating unit to run on sustainable biomass.

"Drax still believes this project has great potential and we have announced that the site at the Drax Power Plant, along with our existing infrastructure remain available for the project to be built."

Leigh Hackett, CEO of Capture Power, added: "Drax's decision not to invest further in the Project is disappointing, but we are keen to confirm that Capture Power remains committed to delivering the White Rose CCS Project. We can also confirm that we continue to work constructively with Drax on land, site services and shared infrastructure aspects to support the Project's delivery."

The White Rose CSS Project involves the development of a 'state-of-the-art' coal-fired power plant that is equipped with full CCS, producing up to 448MWe.

The project is due to conclude during the next 6 – 12 months.

(LM/CD)