News – River Thames at Windsor to get hydropower at last

Photo © RWE npower

May 2008: Npower Renewables has announced that it has overcome many of the issues holding up the proposed hydro-electric power installation at Romney Weir, Windsor. A fresh planning application was put to the Royal Borough on 20th May.

The original plan, reported by TV Energy in March of 2004, was to install a standard hydro turbine at the site, which is close to Windsor Castle. Npower Renewables, which absorbed original project leaders Innogy Hydro, has now selected the Archimedes spiral design of turbine. This type requires less additional fish protection and arguably will have a lower visual impact.

More details are available from the Royal Windsor Website: www.thamesweb.co.uk.

Low Head Hydro Boost for Region

Artists impression of projected scheme

Innogy Hydro has received planning permission from the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead to install a 200 kW low head hydropower scheme on the River Thames at Romney Weir, Windsor. The installation will be the first of its kind in the south of England and is a very exciting development for the region.

The long mooted scheme has finally answered the concerns of local residents regarding noise and visual impact, along with Environment Agency concerns over environmental impacts, particularly with regard to fish populations.

The electricity generated by the scheme will be exported to Windsor Castle and will save approximately 600 tonnes of CO2 per year which would otherwise be produced by a power station using fossil fuels to generate the same quantity of electricity.

The scheme will be constructed mainly from barges moored within the main river channel and the construction period will be approximately 16 weeks. The majority of works will take place within the existing apron of the weir structure with a small amount of land on Romney Island required for the temporary storage of construction materials.

Once operational the plant will pass up to 14 cubic metres of water through the turbines per second and it is estimated that this amount of water will be available on average 65% of the year. The turbines will be controlled automatically to ensure a minimum wetting flow of 2 cubic metres per second is maintained over the weir and the turbines will shut down once water levels fall below the minimum threshold to allow 100% of the flow to pass over the weir.

The redundant weir gates with Eton in the background

TV Energy is currently organizing a FREE conference on low head hydropower in the South East of England, to take place on Wednesday 19th May at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford. Please contact Ian Bacon at TV Energy for more information.