Water giant Severn Trent is burning human waste to create electricity – and aims to sell some of that power to the National Grid.
The company is turning dry solids into energy worth £17 million a year in a bid to hit its renewable energy targets.
Sewage sludge is collected from treatment works around Shropshire and is being transported via road tanker to the county’s main treatment sites.
Here it creates methane to drive turbines and provide energy – keeping down fuel bills.
Figures revealed to the Chronicle show that 3,955 MWh of energy has been produced in the county in the past year – enough energy to power 920 homes for a year – which has been created from combined heat and power (CHP) units in Monkmoor, Shrewsbury, and at similar works in Telford.
Severn Trent spokesman Gill Dickinson said: “The main reason for us to create renewable energy is so we can use energy on site to keep energy bills down.
“The more energy we can produce, then we can explore whether any of the leftover energy can go to the National Grid.
“It is a clever use of the sludge and the better we are at managing our resources the better it is for customers because we can keep their water bills low.
“Twenty per cent of our energy is produced from renewables mainly from sludge, and also the use of hydro sources and water based power at reservoirs and dams.”
The company aims to produce 30 per cent renewable energy by 2015.
Philip Pool, of Shrewsbury Friends of the Earth, said: “This is very much in the right direction. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and rather than release it into the atmosphere or burn it off, Severn Trent is using it to produce electricity.
“So a new renewable source is helping reduce the impact of future climate change.”
By Charlotte Hester
