TOKYO, Sept. 29 -- Researchers in Japan's northeast seaside city are conducting experiments to generate electricity from fish bones discarded by local seafood processing plants, local media reported on Monday.

The project, led by scientists from Tohoku University and Nihon University, calls for using methane gas produced from fish bones and scraps left after frozen foods were manufactured at the factories to produce electricity, according to a report posted on the website of The Asahi Shimbun.

The gas is created by mixing fish bones and sludge and fermenting them in a tank. Methane can be used to generate electricity by burning it as a fuel in a gas turbine to power an electric generator.

"If such power generation proves profitable, we hope to install the generators at school lunch processing centers and restaurants in highway service areas," Chika Tada, associate professor of environmental microbiology at Tohoku University's graduate school of agricultural science, was quoted as saying.

The researchers have been working on the experimental equipment set up in a parking lot of a seafood processing plant in Shiogama, a seaside city in northeastern Miyagi Prefecture since February.

They expect to generate 144 kilowatts per hour, the equivalent of powering 1.5 households, with the use of 200 kilograms of fish bones a day. Power generated by such a method will be used at the seafood factories.

The researchers will also consider selling surplus electricity to Tohoku Electric Power Co., a utility that serves Shiogama and other cities in Japan's northeastern region.

They will also experiment to see if they can accelerate the decomposition of fish bones and increase the amount that will be processed by March 2016.