Co-op works on water

Local store plugs into community-funded micro-hydro

Power from a Peak District river is to be harnessed to generate green electricy for the local Co-op store in New Mills, Derbyshire. For the Co-op's Chris Shearlock, it ticked too many boxes to resist. As he says, "the local community is involved, it's co-operatively owned and it's generating renewable electricity." 

The Co-op signed up to purchase the power from the Torrs Hydro Electric scheme, and provided a capital grant to help fund more such projects too.

Torrs is the UK’s first community-funded hydropower scheme. It was kick-started by Water Power Enterprises, a social enterprise dedicated to cutting carbon emissions, which also helped project manage the building phase. The simple technology, based on ancient principles, uses a reverse Archimedean screw [see GF69 ‘The taming of the screw’] nicknamed ‘Archie’ at Torr Weir. The screw is turned by the flow of the river Goyt to generate up to 70kW of electricity, wired to deliver straight to the New Mills store.

“It’s forecast to do about 250,000 kilowatt-hours per year, about half the store’s requirement,” says Chris Shearlock, Sustainable Development Manager for the Co-operative Group. “If we use more power, we import from the grid; if we’re using less, we export.”

David Williams, Chief Executive of the British Hydropower Association, believes the New Mills approach is worth pursuing. “Community schemes are probably the best way for small hydro to go ahead at the moment, certainly in the present political and renewable energy climate – they get most support both from government and public.”

According to Shearlock, the Co-operative Bank has a £400 million fund for investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures, with about £100 million invested so far – mainly in small to medium-sized wind projects, combined heat and power schemes, and small hydro. Community-level renewable projects are an important part of the mix, and the bank has made a £48,000 grant to Water Power Enterprises to help establish more co-operatively-owned micro-hydro projects around the UK. “Frankly, I don’t think we’ve got time to say, ‘Let’s just have offshore wind’, or ‘Let’s just have small scale’,” he says. “Let’s have them all!” – Claire Baylis

22 April 2009

Claire Baylis