Drax Power

Drax Group plc is an innovative energy company that owns and operates the UK’s largest power station in Selby, North Yorkshire, typically providing some 8% of the UK’s electricity. The Group employs around 2,500 people. Upstream, Drax Biomass Inc in the US operates wood pellet plants for the self-supply of renewable biomass. The Group’s retail arm, Haven Power, serves the electricity needs of a growing number of business customers. Billington Bioenergy supplies a growing base of UK customers who heat their homes and businesses with wood pellets.

The Challenge 

The Drax Group required an intranet refresh on their new Office 365 platform. They wanted to reflect the new Group and business unit structure, connecting a global network of staff. Specifically, the new intranet needed to help Drax improve collaboration, communication and information sharing across and within business units, as well as provide an intuitive way to store and retrieve essential documents.

The Solution 

ClerksWell delivered the intranet using our EasyShare solution, an intranet-in-a-box product built on Microsoft SharePoint Online / Office 365. As EasyShare has a series of pre-built parts and templates it worked as an ‘accelerator’ and to drastically reduce development time, helping Drax not only to ‘hit the ground running’ but also to ensure that requirements are delivered within the timescales and budget.

​By choosing a product with a proven track record, the Drax Group took advantage of the combined customer experience of EasyShare clients and rely on the fact that the solution has been extensively tested both technically and from a user experience perspective.

​The project included training for ‘intranet champions’ as part of our standard project implementation.

Safety First 

Alongside employee engagement, the Drax Group intranet now plays a crucial role in the dissemination of health and safety information across the group. At Drax Power, a weekly safety updated is uploaded to the intranet, at Drax Biomass, information is made available to employees through a health and safety online portal. 

An Evolving Intranet 

Not a company to stay still for long, Drax Group has been able to extend its intranet to new acquisitions including Opus Energy based in Oxford, Northampton and Cardiff. Opus Energy supplies electricity and gas to businesses and has partnerships with over 2,300 independent UK renewable energy generators, providing a market for excess power from energy sources such as wind, solar, hydro and anaerobic digestion.