Last week we took a trip to see Halton Hydro, the biggest community hydro scheme in England that is conveniently located on our doorstep 2 miles from Lancaster on the River Lune.
John Blowes from the management team kindly showed us around, and we explored some of the data acquisition systems and fish monitoring (the River Lune is one of four UK key Index rivers for salmon and sea trout monitoring). John also let Nicola assist him in doing some maintenance work – controlling the turbines whilst John had the arduous task of shoveling leaves off the scalpers in waders to keep the inlets clear!!
Opened in 2015, the two turbine hydro project can generate over than 1,000 MWh of electricity every year and powers the local community. The scheme only uses a small part of the available flow of the river (12m3/s maximum compared to an average of 34m3/s that often rises to 350m3/s)! More details on the tech spec can be found on Halton Hydro’s website here.
Storm Desmond in November 2015 caused extensive damage to the hydro station, although it has now been fully repaired and is back to full operational capacity.
Here at Milliamp we have particular expertise working with customers in the renewable sector, including software and hardware design for SCADA, telemetry and O&M platforms. Please browse our website for more info.
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