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Vernon Coaker, MP for Gedling, has found out more about how Severn Trent is investing in new technology to generate green power at one of its biggest sewage treatment sites.

Mr Coaker visited Stoke Bardolph Sewage Treatment Works for a tour of the site and had a chance to see first-hand the different techniques the company uses to generate clean energy.

He was shown how anaerobic digestion is used to turn both waste and crops into biogas that is then used to generate electricity or to go into the national gas grid for homes and businesses. And he was able to find out more about how the company uses its wind turbine to generate even more green power.

Mr Coaker said: “The scale of the site at Stoke Bardolph is impressive and it’s fantastic to see so much green energy being generated from waste here in Nottinghamshire.

“It was fascinating to see some really innovative technology being utilised to help build a sustainable future and I’m delighted to see that some of the clean energy that’s generated is injected straight into the grid for use by local homes and businesses.

”Sewage and crops are turned into clean power at the site through anaerobic digestion, where the waste is put into huge vats that digest it, like a human stomach, to produce bio-methane which then goes through another process to be converted into gas for the grid.Recent upgrades to the Stoke Bardolph site mean the amount of energy generated is enough to power 13,000 homes for a year.

Neil Liddell-Young, from Severn Trent’s renewable energy team, explained: “We’re committed to generating green power across our region, and in recent years we’ve made some substantial investments, particularly at Stoke Bardolph, to help us generate more clean energy than ever before.

“Right now we generate the equivalent of 38% of our own energy usage through renewable sources and we’re aiming to increase that to 50% by 2020.”

By generating renewable energy Severn Trent is also able to reduce costs which helps to keep customer bills down – the company currently has the lowest combined average bill in the country.

To find out more about how Severn Trent generates renewable energy visit: www.stwater.co.uk/about-us/climate-responsibility/renewable-energy.