A family run Staffordshire manufacturer is providing an answer to the global energy shortage - by making burners that generate heat and power from crops and wooden waste.

Nick Paul, chairman of Advantage West Midlands travelled to Talbott's in Stafford to see how the company is playing a role in developing Britain's first large electricity plant to be powered by grass.

The company, which employs about 30 people, is a partner in the Eccleshall Biomass project, a £6.5 million scheme to develop a twomegawatt power station on the Raleigh Hall Industrial Estate, Eccleshall.

Mr Paul was touring some of the county's innovative regeneration and business development schemes at the invitation of the Southern Staffordshire Partnership.

Fuelled by a renewable energy crop called miscanthus - also known as elephant grass - grown by a co-operative of 170 farmers in Staffordshire and Shropshire, Talbott's steam-turbine generator will supply electricity to around 2,000 local homes.

The project has received funding of £935,000 from Advantage West Midlands, in addition to core funding from the DTI and DEFRA and investment from the private sector.

Mr Paul said: "The agency has a key role in helping to transform the region's economy and this is an exciting project where the private sector and local farmers have created a unique partnership to boost the fortunes of the rural community.

"Talbott's is clearly a company with vast expertise in the growing sector of renewable energy systems and the agency is delighted to support such a pioneering and sustainable scheme which typifies the spirit of innovation in the West Midlands."

Ben Talbott, managing director at Talbott's, said: "The history of Eccleshall Biomass project is rooted in the Staffordshire area, with the original idea brought to the drawing board a few years ago by local businessmen and farmers.

"All the parts for making the generator are sourced in the West Midlands, so it's a real success story for the region."

The company was established in the 1970s and there are now 3,500 of the company's generator systems operating in the UK and around the world. Eccleshall Biomass, a partnership between Talbott's and Raleigh Hall Properties, is hoping to start construction of the power plant later this year, with a completion date of 2007.

Mr Paul also saw Talbott's newly developed high-speed biomass turbine which will form an integral part of the biomass generator heat and power system to be installed at Harper Adams University College, Shropshire, later this year as part of a £1.5 million green energy demonstration project part-funded by the DTI.

This new, patented technology will allow the efficient, reliable and viable production of renewable biomass energy on a small scale, providing the university with 100kW of electrical energy and 150kW of thermal energy.

Biomass fuels grown by the university itself will be used to power the generator.