The chance to buy shares in Abingdon Hydro will be opened to us on Saturday 1st November.
The shares will pay for the £1 million scheme to harness power from The River Thames, a scheme that has been in planning and consultation for 4 years, by people from the local communty wanting to generate green energy for Abingdon from an untapped source.
Some of the water currently flowing over Abingdon weir will go instead through two Archimedes screws, generating between them at full power almost 100kW of electrical power, and on average 55kW (55,000 Watts). That is 1,000 55W light bulbs.
Find out more from Abingdon Hydro.
All that energy unused 24/7. If UK were really ‘Green’ every significant fall of water would have one of these. Best wishes to A.H.
Will Kennington follow suit ? The fall across Sandford lock is even greater.
I agree with you Spike! AH is a great cause; but it does also serve to highlight the Green/Environmental “plight” we are supposedly all up against…
Remember a while ago, there was something about “glo-ball War-ming” that was in the news, and stuff like that…(?), not sure if it is still an issue…but everyone banged on about how I can save the planet by not leaving my TV on standby, or by not driving with roof bars….
It turns out, it isn’t the billions of tonnes of CO2 that America/China (and of course others) are putting in to the atmosphere by burning coal…..it’s the hoovers! We’re all using hoovers that are too powerful! God- darn it…no one was watching the hoovers….!
I don’t understand why EVERY new build property/development doesn’t have 100% solar roofing, grey water supplies and ground source heat pumps where possible. Oh….sorry…I forgot….it’s all about profit.
We all want to save the World, but not if it costs the Earth.
The hoops that AH have had to jump through for this project is ridiculous (and they should be highly commended for their stamina), but the onus is all wrong. This should have “got the green light” ( a low emission, low energy, LED light at that, of course)….as a matter of course, with all the negative stuff being looked at if necessary and proved to be of concern. Not the other way round… As you say, there should be dozens – hundreds, of these along the Thames…not a couple….
Still….as long as we all stand at the sink washing our yoghurt pots….
Not sure about hydro shares.
I prefer to keep my funds liquid.
Boom boom.
Good luck to them, but £1million would buy them an awful lot of solar. A 8kw system is about £10-12k, albeit the screw will turn night and day and solar is just when the sun is up. Not quite sure on the maths over the year but this seems expensive?
All the open air carparks in the town had solar “roofs” we would generate a huge amount of power – and keep your car dry too. Not to mention all the offices and houses….
If you havent already look at solar for your own roof – the costs are falling and the returns are good as a financial investment let alone helping the planet.
Quite agree with Daniel that solar ought to be automatic for all house builds – not a roof tile in sight, 100% solar.
How about geo-thermal? The problem for many developers and buyers is that the initial expense is still high. Most budgets are stretched to the limit on buying/selling.
I think AH deserves to succeed. How much it will contribute to the grid in total percentage terms is another question. However, because we can’t do much it doesn’t mean we should do nothing. Good for them!
I agree with Danial and James about solar. The growth of solar in the last few years has been great but we could and should move forward even more quickly.
Well done to the AH team though. I know they have worked tirelessly to get this project going. Best of luck to them.