Severn Trent has started operations at its latest green gas plant in Roundhill near Stourbridge – the utility’s second food waste anaerobic digestion plant.
The new facility uses anaerobic digestion to turn food waste from local businesses and other customers that is unfit for human use into clean power.
The site will be able to turn almost 50,000 tonnes of food waste a year into renewable gas that will be injected into the network for use in homes and businesses.
Severn Trent’s second food waste anaerobic digestion plant follows on from the success of the existing plant in Coleshill which has been operating since 2015.
Chris Jellett, Commercial Business Manager at Severn Trent, explained that the new plant would take food that can’t be eaten or used for any other purpose from local businesses and waste management companies. The new Roundhill site has a permit to recycle 48,500 tonnes of packaged and unpackaged food waste a year. The food waste is used to produce biomethane via anaerobic digestion which is then converted into gas suitable for injection into the gas supply network.
Chris Jellett continued:
“The plant will produce enough renewable gas to heat 2,700 homes for a year and enough renewable electricity to power 1,700 homes.
“We’ve got more than 60 years of experience of turning sewage into clean energy, and we’re now putting that to good use in our food waste plants.”
“Renewable energy is a really growing area for us and we currently generate the equivalent of more than a third of the energy we use through renewable sources and have ambitions to increase that to 50% by 2020.”
Severn Trent is continuing to invest in food waste anaerobic digestion plants, with construction work underway at a third site in Spondon in Derbyshire. That plant is expected to become operational in 2018.
The company, which serves eight million people across the Midlands and mid-Wales, has invested heavily in renewable energy in recent years and is now developing its expertise to generate even more clean power.
The company generates the equivalent of a third of its energy needs through renewables sources, including more anaerobic digestion plants, small-scale hydro plants, solar farms and wind turbines.
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