Poopy power: Britain's first commercial venture to convert dog mess into free heat and renewable electricity is to be unveiled in July The green power system is already being dubbed 'Poopy Power' It is the brainchild of Gary Downie, a former banker now living in Cheshire Britain's deals with an annual mountain of 700,000 tonnes of dog mess Councils spend £72.5million a year sending it to landfill A revolutionary renewable power scheme dubbed 'Poopy Power' could provide cheap heat for Britain, it emerged today. Britain's first commercial-scale venture to convert canine excrement into bio-gas that can be used to power a turbine is set be unveiled after three years of development work. Streetkleen is the brainchild of Gary Downie, a former Manhatten banker now living in Cheshire, who has persuaded an unnamed English local authority to get involved. Creating a stink: How former banker Gary Downie's revolutionary dog waste system works The system converts canine excrement left in bins into bio-gas that can be used to power a turbine (file picture) The council is in final negotiations to adopt the revolutionary Streetkleen Bio system which could be rolled out as soon as July. Councils spend £72.5million a year sending Britain's annual mountain of 700,000 tonnes of dog waste to landfill sites. In London, borough councils spend £9.5million annually on sending waste from the capital's 800,000 dogs to landfill. But under the proposed green energy scheme some of that will be sent to digesters capable turning the waste into methane, CO2 and fertiliser. Source of power: Dog mess is seen as a health hazard, but it could soon be used to generate power for your home Gary Downie, who came up with the idea, aims to collect four tons a day of waste, which will be broken down by microorganisms and turned into power Mr Downie, 42, designed the self-contained system capable of powering up to 60 homes at a time. Despite using animal faeces, Mr Downie insists it is odour free and can operate on as little as 500kg of waste a day, generating 200,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year. He said every tonne of excrement kept out of landfill will displace 450kg of greenhouse gases. He expects to make money by charging a fee to process the waste, along with income from National Grid feed-in tariffs for its electricity. Mr Downie told the Independent: 'The idea is to get people to see beyond the "yuck factor" and consider this waste as an economic commodity which also has the social benefit of creating healthier and more sustainable communities if we can process it in a way that harnesses green technologies.' Mr Downie, who spent a decade working for Investec on the oil and gas markets, came up with the idea when he became fed up of pushing his baby's pushchair along streets and parks covered in dog mess. His system uses anaerobic digestion - using micro-organisms to break down organic material in the absence of oxygen - to produce a mixture of methane and CO2. The system will remove the waste from plastic bags used to pick it up using an automated system and then pass it through to a digester tank. The bio-gas will then be used to power a turbine generating electricity, while the heat and CO2 will be fed into an adjoining commercial greenhouse to grow plants with the help of a pasteurised bio-fertiliser resulting from the remains of the waste. Mr Downie added: 'We're going to grow Christmas trees, which can be donated to schools each year and then returned to the greenhouse so they can grow up with the child.'