The pub with a hydro. Whats not to like about a low-carbon pint… or coffee as we had! The hydro will be feeding the pub and our neighbours directly
Its been a couple of days away again. Monday it was Edinburgh and yesterday it was the Lake District. Paul is away in Norfolk assisting with another biomass project but more on that later from the man himself.
My colleague Mike Hudson had arranged a meeting in North with a company who have been developing a compressed air energy storage process. I was there for an initial discussion and evaluation… it was intriguing and also common sense but has not been done before. Early days but you never know. My second time in Scotland in so many weeks. It will be interesting to see where the YES / NO aspect is next week.
I was then down to see the Hafod y Porth hydro twin. Namely the Pub with a hydro in the Lakes otherwise know as Stickle Ghyll. The 99kw system is progressing well. The form-work was up and the concrete was going in for the intake weir and fore-bay tank. One advantage of these steep sites is that the pipe is short and you can walk it quickly or twice as I did with John Millen yesterday. Our colleagues from Northern Ireland were over in the Lakes and we had a chat about the potential in N Ireland. I was over in NI a few years ago and its a different financial support mechanism. No feed in tariff it was all Renewable Obligation Certificates but also some high cost environmental assessment payments… will have to do some more research. Overall Stickle Hydro is progressing well…the weather is with us. Good for building and bad for generation. But you cant have everything!
The second lap of the hydro site yesterday morning with John Millen the project manager and a team of NT General Managers from Northern Ireland . Long discussion both of the project but of also the potential in Northern Ireland. I feel another hydro prospecting visit happening. The intake weir going up really quickly in the background.
Low key interpretation on site. We have 200,000 visitors pass this site in a year.
Comedy moment for me. The health and Safety signs have been recycled from the Wales hydros. Bilingual Welsh and English…You have to remember that quite a few centuries ago Welsh was the native language here abouts. The team have thought of everything!
