Supermarket giant Tesco is to build Britain's first straw-powered Combined Heat and Power plant to fuel its business.
The CHP plant is being constructed to meet the electricity and heating needs of the retailer's Goole distribution centre.

Tesco will buy waste straw from local farmers. The plant will need 50,000 tonnes of straw to run per year (equivalent to 100,000 straw bales a year).

The plant will generate 5MW of electrical power - enough energy to run eight Tesco superstores. All excess electricity will be sold back to the national grid.

Tesco estimates that it will have recouped the £12m set up costs within six years.

The plant works by burning straw which powers a steam turbine, generating electricity. The only waste is ash which can be passed back to local farmers to use as fertiliser.

Tesco has a target to reduce its business' carbon footprint by 50% by 2020.
Straw emits the same amount of CO2 that it absorbs when it is growing.

Tesco has already installed gas-powered CHP plants at stores in Carmarthen, Gloucester, Swansea, Reading and Orpington and its Peterborough recycling unit.

The power plant is scheduled to be operational next year.