(Image: Pic supplied)
North Yorkshire-based power company Drax has reported a double-digit drop in profits.
The energy giant recorded a decline in adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) to £279 million for the first half of 2026, down from £460 million during the same period in 2025.
The operating profit fell from £301million to £265million over the same period.
Likewise, profit before tax fell from £281million to £222million.
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Will Gardiner, chief executive of Drax Group, said: "Drax has delivered a good performance in the first half.
"Our colleagues and supply chain partners have been working hard to help keep the lights on for millions of UK households and businesses through a period of acute geopolitical uncertainty and challenging weather.
"We are at a key moment in Drax’s transition, investing to create a larger and broader portfolio with more MWs under management that can provide more power to the country when needed."
The company currently supplies around 6 per cent of the UK’s electricity and 10 per cent of its renewable energy.
Mr Gardiner said: "Critically, through our growth plans for batteries, OCGTs and our Selby site, we are driving economic growth across the country, in alignment with the policy priorities of the UK Government.
"We are also actively developing options for more renewables, including the proposed acquisition of Bluefield Solar Income Fund, and our trading and optimisation platform.
"Taken together we believe that these actions can support energy security and will increase the Group’s generation capacity by around 85% compared to 2025.
"As a result, we expect to increase our earnings, deliver value for our stakeholders, support growth and attractive returns for shareholders."
In May 2026, the company brought its first open-cycle gas turbine (OCGT) unit online, adding around 0.3GW of flexible generation to its portfolio.
A major outage of units three and four at the Cruachan pumped storage facility continues following a grid connection failure last December.
The issue was linked to assets owned by Scottish Power Energy Networks, and grid access is expected to be restored in 2027.
Despite some operational setbacks, Drax has maintained a strong financial position with £630 million in available cash and committed facilities as of June 30.
It is targeting adjusted EBITDA of £650-800m in 2029.
The company has declared an interim dividend of 12.9 pence per share, up from 11.6 pence for the same period in 2025.
It expects to increase its full-year dividend by 11 per cent to 32.2 pence per share.