Liquid energy

Waterways to host £150 million green energy project
Long left dormant since their heyday before the railway age, Britain’s canals are set to power our homes and cool our offices.

British Waterways has begun a £150 million scheme to build 50 wind turbines and a handful of hydro-electric power projects along the 2,200 miles of canals, rivers, docks and weirs that it manages.

Together, they’ll generate about 100 megawatts of renewable electricity – more than ten times the whole canal system currently uses for pumping water, lighting and operating locks – and enough to power 45,000 homes.

The scheme, which is being managed by Partnership for Renewables (PfR), a company jointly owned by the Carbon Trust and HSBC’s Environmental Infrastructure Fund, will use sites along the canal network to generate electricity either for the National Grid or directly for local consumers, such as bankside offices or warehouse buildings.

PfR is already assessing possible sites along the network and will soon be beginning consultations with local residents over issues such as noise, sightlines and the protection of birdlife. Many wind turbine sites in the UK have attracted strong local opposition but PfR says it is “taking its environmental responsibilities very seriously” and is involving local people from an early stage. The first turbine is expected to go into service in 2011.

Jonathan Ludford, a British Waterways spokesman, said the programme would generate about £1 million over five years for the company, which would feed back into the management and maintenance of the country’s canal system. “This is just one way of promoting Britain’s canals as a green resource that make a big contribution to the fight against climate change,” he said.

Canal water is already used to cool and, to a lesser extent, heat large buildings along the network, through heat-pump exchanges. Clients in on the act include the University of Huddersfield and the BBC studios in Birmingham. – David Baker

19 November 2008

David Baker

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