A new power plant has recently opened in the French Alps and, rather unusually, it is powered by cheese. Using a by-product of Beaufort cheese, the plant will produce 2.8 million kilowatt hours of energy per year.

When full fat milk is used to make Beaufort cheese, there is cream and whey left behind during the process. Whilst the cream is used to make ricotta cheese, the whey is placed into a tank, along with bacteria, and natural fermentation takes place to produce methane. This gas then heats water to 90 degrees Celsius and in turn generates electricity. This electricity is then sold to energy company EDF.

Although this is not the first cheese powered plant, it is the largest with the first prototype being built 10 years ago.

It’s not just the French who are using this brie-lliant idea either, as we have one over here in the UK. The power plant, based in Somerset, claim that they save over 4 million kilos of carbon dioxide per year, proving that these power plants could help reach CO2 reduction targets.  

In-cheddable!