Drax Group One significant change was the emergence of vertically integrated companies, combining generation, distribution and supply interests. In certain cases, it became necessary for generation assets to be divested, and so in 1999 Drax Power Station was acquired by the US-based AES Corporation for £1.87 billion (US$3 billion). A partial re-financing of Drax was completed in 2000, with £400 million of senior bonds being issued by AES Drax Holdings, and £267 million of subordinated debt issued by AES Drax Energy. Increased competition, over-capacity and new trading arrangements contributed to a significant drop in wholesale electricity prices, which hit an all-time low
Drax power station scheduled begin in late 2010 and to take up to three and a half years. Two other 300 MW biomass plants were planned by Drax at the ports of Hull and Immingham. In 2012 Drax group abandoned plans for the discrete biomass plant development, due to changes in government subsidies for biomass energy production favouring plant conversions over newly built plants. It switched to a project to convert half of the units at its existing plant to biomass firing. In September 2012 Drax Group announced the conversion to full firing with biomass of three of its six units. The first