A talk led by Jeremy (Sharenergy) and Sam (Shropshire Council).

Jeremy works for Sharenergy to set up community renewable energy projects across England and Wales. He helps coordinate community groups such as Powys Action on the Climate Emergency (PACE), Montgomery Energy Group (MEG), is a trustee of Lightfoot Enterprises, Bike to the Future and Circular Economy Mid Wales. Jeremy initiated funding and technical steer for the delivery of the hydro weir scheme at Ludlow, which will be the first topic of our World Water Day talk.

The Ludlow hydro scheme is a 30kW Archimedes screw turbine which is operating successfully. It generates 170,000 kWh per year (a tenth of what a Shrewsbury weir would generate). That is enough to power 60 homes a year. The Ludlow Hydro Co-operative (LHC) was created in 2015 and raised £400,000 through a community co-operative share ownership scheme to fund the installation. This is located on the Horseshoe Weir of the River Teme at Ludford Mill, on the outskirts of Ludlow in Shropshire.

Shrewsbury Weir Hydro is a proposal for a 400kW turbine to be located at Castlefield’s Weir Shrewsbury. It's expected to generate 1.7 million kWh every year for 50-100 years; that’s enough to power 600 homes a year (and this number increase as homes become more efficient). The scheme will save 900 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year going into the atmosphere when compared to the same amount of power being generated in a conventional power station.

Hydro is a nice long-term solution that sits well with river heritage and tried and tested Victorian engineering principles. The addition of well-functioning fish-pass can help improve the river ecology.

There are indeed other places on the River Severn where hydro power could work, and it's a reliable way to generate power consistently through the year, given that it has a higher capacity factor than solar or wind, and helps to balance the overall mix of renewable energy by providing reliable power in the autumn and winter months.

The first talk will summarise the scheme delivered at Ludlow; the second talk will outline the proposals for the scheme planned in Shrewsbury.

There will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions.

Hydro - some background info.

Join us on the day on MS Teams.