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Electricity to be created from sewage |
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Tuesday, 30 January 2007 |
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Water utility Severn Trent is making plans to generate electricity from the sewage from its Derby customers at its Spondon site.
Having looked into how to make full use of renewable energy, the company has created a way to extract methane from sewage and convert it to electricity using a combined heat and power unit.
Severn Trent is already using this system at a number of sites. In 2004, it spent £518,000 on installing the technology at Alfreton Sewage Works, where sewage from 36,000 trade and domestic customers is used to make electricity.
Each of the 30 sites with the technology can generate enough electricity to supply the equivalent of 60,000 homes.
The energy created is used to power each site, with excess sold to the National Grid.
Severn Trent has not yet said when the technology would be introduced in Derby and the cost is also unknown. It is thought it will be part of an ongoing £18m investment in the site until 2010.
The company’s Managing director, Tony Wray, said that developing renewable energy technology would help towards keeping water bills as low as possible, while being kinder to the environment. He also hailed it as an inexhaustible supply of fuel.
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