‘Concrete Cow’ Turns U.K. Crops to Power for Profit

Severn Trent Plc started generating electricity from the U.K.’s first commercial-scale crop-fed power plant as the utility seeks to lower its carbon emissions by using an emerging form of renewable power.

The company’s Severn Trent Water unit began supplying the national power grid from a gas-fueled turbine at a site near Nottingham, Gill Dickinson, a company spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview. The gas comes from anaerobic digestion towers, which use micro-organisms to break down corn and wheat.