LONDON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - The British government has
approved plans by Drax to convert up to two of the coal-fired
generation units at its power station in north Yorkshire to
gas-fired generation, the country's planning inspectorate said.
Drax has already converted four of its six coal units at the
plant near Selby to use biomass.
The two remaining units will be replaced with gas-fired
power generation which will each have a capacity of up to 1.8
gigawatts.
Last year, environmental law firm ClientEarth submitted an
objection to the planning inspectorate over Drax's plans for the
gas-fired power plant and the inspectorate recommended that the
project was refused due to its contribution to greenhouse gas
emissions.
However, the government said the gas-fired units would emit
less carbon dioxide than coal-fired and some fossil fuel
generation capacity is needed to provide back-up for
intermittent renewables capacity.
(Reporting by Nina Chestney, editing by Louise Heavens)