Update from the Hydro Garden

We have been busy with preparations in anticipation of the paperwork we need in order to operate full-time. Jon has done an amazing job with compliance and engineering a solution that can be de-rigged when needed causing as little impact as possible to the existing infrastructure. The channel can now fill up comfortably and provide the volume of water needed to power the turbine. The extra drop pipe has been fitted and this will add even more power to the system.

We are really looking forward to testing the turbine aka 'Shirley' and seeing what sort of power can be achieved and if there's anything that can be improved before the final install.

Meanwhile in the garden space we are waiting on building works to be completed, myself and Mel are making art and interactive displays for the walls and the fence looks great after being painted. I will share more on that in my next post.

Here's some pictures from the Brook.

Saturday 7th September

To celebrate the project we had a whole day of water related Carnival activities to engage the public in the hydro and wider environmental and sustainable aims, celebrating water!


Tour of the hydro
The waterwheel was on show
The waterwall was played with.

As well as river goddess headresses, yoruba water goddess drumming and singing, Oxum puppet!

Community Knowledge Fund and Saddleworth Hydro visit

Last week we had Ruth from the Community Knowledge Fund and Peter from Saddleworth Community Hydro visit to our stream and site of the micro hydro.

It was great to have both funders meet and see the coding week in full swing.

Everyone is on tenterhooks to see it finished!

Coding for Good Week

We had a brilliant week with the Coding for Good Group.
They learned how to design and code a website in just 4 days!
They also took part in Carnival arts from drumming to crafts.

Their website is live here- sharing the knowledge they learnt about Saddleworth Community Hydro and the nature that surrounds it.

Coder's Website

Paid opportunity for non scientific judges of science films

The Medical Research Council (MRC) are looking for public judges for the MRC Mac Perutz Award. They require 10 triage judges and 2 panel judges to judge 60-seconds videos that aim to tell a non-scientific audience about cutting-edge medical research. Applicants should be over 18 and have a non-scientific background.

To find out more and apply, click the below links:

Triage Judge Public Member (registration of interest for this position closes Wednesday 17th July)


Judging Panel Public Member Judging Panel Public Member (registration of interest for this position closes Wednesday 31st July)

British Hydro Association Letter to Ed Milliband

With the new government not yet a week into the job BHA have wasted no time sharing a letter with the new Secretary of State for the Department of Net Zero and Energy Security, Ed Milliband.

The letter can be viewed here-
Open Letter

Coding for Good Applications are live

Last weekend we attended the Stalybridge Coding Dojo at Stalybridge Library.
Our summer school in coding for good is now available to book onto as we offered it to the coding attendees first.
Sign up via the form on the website- Summer Coding Opportunity

JR Town Planners


JR Town Planners from Manchester visited yesterday.
They're offering to assist us to navigate the licensing for the abstraction and impounding of water for hydro power and any other permissions we may need.

flow rate measurements

As part of our research we've been periodically measuring the flow rate of the stream using a "V" notch guage:



The flow rate can be estimated from the distance between the water surface and the bottom of the notch.

height (cm) : flow rate (litres per sec)
8 : 3
10 : 5
12 : 7
14 : 10
16 : 14
18 : 19
20 : 24

At present, mid June, we're getting 12 cm, so about 7 litres per second over the weir

There's another 2 litres per second flowing around the weir's bypass, which is designed to keep the watercourse clear and allow passage of small fish and invertbrates.

So the total , Qmax, is approx 9 litres per second

The maths behind this is here:
v notch weir calculations

The flow rate is seasonal and weather related of course, we expect the flow rate to be significantly higher in winter. We havn't (yet) measured the flow in winter, but this photo was taken in January. Clearly very much higher flow than in summer.



And with historical data collected locally we can get a better idea.

The graph below shows the River Tame water level over the last 24 months, measured at the Environment Agency guage site near the Bridge Inn, (less than 1km from here) the difference between mid-summer and winter is clear.

(data source: Environment Agency Location ID: 692440
Environment Agency Gauge ID: 692440-level-stage-i-15_min-m)

weeding and tidying

we're planning to make the area around the stream into a peaceful garden space.

Gardening, landscaping, art installations, easier access and other improvements are on the way.

to start this off we've pulled up the weeds and tidied up;

before:


after:

Notes for 3rd birthday engagement event

Renewable -Hydro/solar Activities 7th September

Mel’s Artwork- If not in situ by then some of the engagement pieces could be made at this event- eg clay throwing. TBC conversation with Matt.

Doc’s Wheel- Show it off and demo it and engage people.
Is there more budget needed to finish this? Any materials needed. Open offer to workshop ideas on axel etc on Friday 28th June at 12pm in Studio 3.

Saddleworth Hydro- info on the work with them around coder dojo week and perhaps short film clip from John Grey of the week’s activities. -Amelia look into.

Cycling trail around Mossley and other local areas around power eg heritage mills and modern renewables.
-A smaller version leading people to The Vale on the day of the event from Market square down to Egmont street and then to the vale as family friendly travel to encourage a safer trip.
-Or before Sunday sessions on the 15th Sept a morning ride ending at The Vale.
Matt, do you need any budget for this idea around engaging people on this or wider work. Let’s keep discussing this.
-Critical Mass style event ending at The Vale in the autumn/winter.- illumination possibilities.

Pedal Power
-Get the pedal power out again for this event.
Could we have a more accessible version for shorter and younger people?
Could there be a workshop session for wider hydro team to learn about making this 2nd one?
Give out prizes or gamify it more. Make a spectacle of it, watching certain folks go head to head.
Matt to see if Julia has a smaller version being brought up from London anytime soon.
Jon and Mark- any budget needed for materials/resources or workshop hours to create this?

Waterplay- Matt. May want to tweak and expand this.
Is there a budget needed for time and materials for these changes. Matt, would you facilitate this on the day or want to ask someone to do this so you can be elsewhere?

Hydro Generator – Have the pieces out to look at and engage with and explain how it would work. Jon could facilitate demo-ing this for some of the day?

Solar Speaker- Jon look into this with a battery or not? Maybe not for this event, but in the future?

Historic aspect of the mills-
A talk or engagement on mill history and difficulties. Could work with Heritage Centre again?
Collect stories?
Get responses from writers?
Host an exhibition?

GARDEN
Insect garden- could make these in ‘crafty’ style session in Studio 1- Who could facilitate this? Jayne? Or will you be busy with other parts of the day?
Or is a garden based session better here so it can end as it’s hard to get people to leave studio 1.

Garden trail/treasure hunt-self led treasure hunt around the vale taking in renewable energy and permaculture etc and history panels.
Could win a prize if send in completed image to socials.
-Could go to someone to receive a certificate for completing it.
-Matt and Jayne, what budget might this need. Would it be solely self-guided with volunteers giving out the activity sheets? Any budget or resources required?

Meditation in the garden
- Gong bath
- Sound bath
- Guided meditation
- Amelia speak to Vanessa, Martha’s mum and seek budget/costs.
Food swap/seed swap
Invite other gardening groups and communities to share ideas, recipes, seeds and produce.
Jayne- will speak to other community gardens about a sort of shared garden party In our garden perhaps then moving in future years but an opportunity to meet others and for them to share what they do here.
Engage Cabasa and their growing/dying project int his too.- Amelia
Gaiai sculpture?
Earth art
Nature wall

Comfort table/space
-Bo suggested a comfort table with water and cups available, mindful things and a space ready to go in an emergency eg someone needs a quiet space etc. Sewing room or tech room both accessible and confined so could be best options. Also a first aid kit there so it could become a medical room too if needs be.

Saddleworth Community Hydro monitoring website collaboration, stage 1

We are teaming up with SCH to add a website with remote monitoring of their hydro generation equipment.

Today we made the first step, installing a 3-phase power monitor so that we can see the generation via a website. The website will be designed and built as a summer school educational project in collaboration with coding and web developer enthusiasts here in Tameside.

we installed current transformers in the main switchboard

attached via cable conduit to an internet connected power monitor

stage 1 of the installation completed ,

update on stream work

more progress on the weir this weekend

Artist Commission for the Hydro Project

The artist opportunity is now live on Global Grooves website.
Please share this far and wide!

Artist Opportunity

Tameside Council and United Utilities Update!

Tameside Council came yesterday to view the pipe we've seen discharge from in rainy weather.
They contacted United Utilities again and they came out early this morning.

After investigation United Utilities have discovered that there is a kitchen sink connected to that pipe and the build up is at points being sent into the pipe.

This is a great relief that it's not sewage and brilliant to discover the source of the problem.

United Utilities have gone to tell the homeowner about the issue. They will also inform Environment Agency who will serve the homeowner a notice to change this in 90 days. If it's not done by then they may then send a follow up 90 day notice.

I will keep on top of chasing up the Environment Agency on this and the follow up to ensure it's sorted. It may take months, but it's a good result.

puddle clay, Chew reservoir, Chew valley Tramway

While searching for a source of puddle clay to use in our project, I discovered that the puddle clay used to build Chew reservoir was dug from clay pits very close to us here in Micklehurst, and transported by a specially built tramway up to the reservoir site.

Chew reservoir is about 5 miles away, and 300 metres (1000 feet) higher above us in the Pennine hills. It's a really interesting walk following the route of the old tramway.

Chew Valley Tramway

It'd be great to use locally sourced materials of course. Coincidentally, the clay pits where the puddle clay for Chew reservoir was sourced must be within a few hunderd metres of our project.

Can anyone find the exact location? iI's probably marked on an old map as "clay pits", or "puddle fields" .

We've found a piece of (very) old cast-iron tram rail on our site. It's being used to hold up a bridge across our stream, could there be a connection ?

,,, probably not, this type of rail is much older than what would have been used in 1907 when Chew Valley Tramway was built. It's a cast iron rail called a fish-belly rail because of it's distinctive shape, which is designed to provide extra strength towards the middle of the rail.



There is clearly plenty of interesting, and potentially helpful, industrial history to be explored around here!

update on stream work

working on the collection weir ( i.e. the dam ).

We came up against a significant challenge of how to level-off the stream bed at the base of the weir, so that it's flat and smooth to make a good seal.



The initial plan was to make a concrete base 150mm thick and 300mm wide on the stream bed. This has some drawbacks; it is rather more invasive than we'd like, and difficult to do well, due to the water flowing continuously through the work area.

Using concrete requires a temporary diversion of the water flow while it is solidifying, at least a couple of hours. Concrete does set really well underwater, but the work area needs to be free from flowing water which would wash away the cement slurry before it has time to set.

We tried out a temporary dam upstream, to divert the water past the work area through two 150mm pipes;





But... we found it really difficult to make a good enough seal to divert the water effectively enough that we could lay the concrete.

After doing some more research we've decided to use a natural clay, known as puddle clay or bentonite. This is a tried and tested traditional way of sealing canals and watercourses, dams etc. It's a natural material and has ecological benefits over using concrete in the stream bed. It doesnt set hard like concrete, so it's easy to modify, adapt or remove . And it can be applied under running water.

So we have a quantity of engineering-grade bentonite clay being delivered in the next few days.

bentonite clay

This will be something of an experiment / learning process. let's see ...

some pics of work done

making the stainless steel fixings for the feeder pipe;







fixing the anchor bolts with injection mortar;



bolting in place using a string line as a guide:

Mid way project session

Thanks to everyone who came to the midway project session.

I'll do a few posts sharing some of the notes and discussions we had.

Firstly, on the license, a few links below for further reading.

Hydro scheme License pre-Application Form

Guidance to apply for a new hydropower scheme

what they advise you read before pre-application
All of the docs in the above link have been withdrawn and no longer relevant, but there's nothing else on that website...

Visit from Saddleworth Community Hydro

We had a visit from Peter from Saddleworth Community Hydro last week.
We plan to work with them and Stalybridge Coder Dojo on coding and tech for sustainability.

More information to come...

Riverwatch

The health of our waterways has come up a lot in workshops.

Have you heard of River Watch?
River Watch

You can take part 3-6th May and report what you see in your local river and feed into wider national research.

stream work

today we fitted the turbine feed pipe and started grouting the stone banking on the far side with lime morar to stabilise it and reduce leakage:

Community Energy England

Community Energy Across England

An excellent resource of other energy projects. You can sort by type of energy produced!

British Hydro Association

We've had a great meeting with British Hydro Association. They are very connected and Kate Gilmartin told us about a biannual Community Hydro Forum meeting. It's happening this Wednesday 7-8.30pm Community Hydro Forum Meeting

Their website has lots of interesting new including their manifesto to highlight governments hydro policy blind spots. British Hydro Association

Why is hydro not being expanded more within the netzero framework?
What can we do to encourage more hydro across the country?

1 Kw Hydro example

In the UK, this is planned to be flatpacked for sale and does not require an impounding license as it doesn't remove water from the river or dam the water.
1 kW hydro example

Hydrology Flood Roadmap

Government roadmap for flood defences until 2046 proposes hydrology as one part of the plan. Road map

How could hydropower come to be used in these schemes flood mitigation schemes? If we're creating more reservoirs and syphoning off more water for flood defences, it would be an opportunity to begin generating energy too.

stream work, feed pipe brackets fitted

we've added more concrete to support far side of the weir:





and fixed stainless steel brackets for mounting the feeder pipe between the weir and the turbine





next job is to fit the feeder pipe

Barriers to Community Energy

Saddleworth Community Hydro shared the 'open call for evidence' from the government's Energy Security and Net Zero Department.
Barriers to Community Energy

We are taking part and you can too. Have you got experience of looking for or struggling to get access to renewables as a community group? Do you want to organise renewables in your community but face barriers? Fill in the consultation- link above.

Massive Attack's Renewable Festival

Massive Attack are playing a '100% renewable' live music festival this August.
As a live music venue we are interested in learning more about how to offset audience travel and our own energy use, as the article mentions, live music event's biggest emissions come from audience travel. 100% renewable music festival

Thoughts on what more we can do?

recent post

hey that's a really nicely presented post (post # 74 )

how did you make the picture collage ? it's very effective,

Learning new skills

Really learned a lot about how to use tools effectively today. I haven't had the opportunity to use some of the power tools since my school days, which was a long time ago. Thank you so much, you are so generous with you knowledge and you make it so easy to ask and understand.
Here are a few photos from today.

Spring Up!

Last weekend we had the pedal power station out at Spring Up!
Engaging visitors to the event in renewable energy, power consumption, and the hydro turbine.

It was a great way to get people thinking differently and a replicable use of technology we'll use for the hydro power.

I believe the max Watts achieved on the bike were 265Watts.

Alphin Cycle's, Mark, created this useful doc for comparable use.
Power use comparisons

Pedal power

Mark and Jon came to give us a session on how the pedal powered generator works and how to set it up.

sunday 7th april

fitted stainless steel channels to left and right sides which will support the dam,
bolted in place and sealed

also added some more concrete to seal around the concret post on the far side

saturday 30th march, fixing the dam anchors

drilled and glued stainless steel anchor bolts into the concrete where the dam will be fitted

saturday 30th march, making pipe fixings

we made some stainless steel fixing clamps for the 160mm pipe which will feed water from the dam, downstream to the turbine

Recent pix



Brookside Omnibus Edition

starting on the new hydro dam

we fixed a concrete post into the stream bed, this is the start of building a 1.2 metre high weir to increase the potential water pressure to the turbine, which will be positioned a few metres downstream.

we'll be doing more on this over the next few days.

first, we diverted the main flow away from the work area ( which is on the far side), and dug a hole about 35 cm deep down to the stream bed:



then we put the post in and filled the hole with concrete. Checked it for vertical :



left it to soldify, the concrete sets solid in about 20 minutes :



next job is to build around it to bond it to the drystone wall river bank, to make it stronger and storm proof,

it snowed here today, if the weather is OK tomorrow we will do some more work on this...

watch this space !

Natural Garden

This morning we made seed bombs and throw them around the Vale Hydro project nature area. Everyone was really interested in Sherly our generator and what plans we have to make the area into a lovely natural bog garden filled with art, science, natural power and beautiful natural planting. After we took a short stroll to spread more wild flower seeds.
As more families had arrived to make seed bombs we made a second batch.
To make scattering the seed bomb more fun we made catapults out of twigs laying around. The children made the best ones, they just kept tweaking their designs until the very best catapult possible was achieved. Then everyone played seed bomb cricket with the stone carvers. We had such a good morning. I can’t guarantee where the wildflowers may pop up this year. That’s seed bomb cricket for you.

Growing Knowledge online

'Idle Women' built this web resource in lockdown for women to share knowledge of plant medicines as well as how to grow best.
I like the forum style topic and responses which is something we discussed changing/upgrading this website to to make it more interactive for anyone who wishes to engage and learn through the project online. Growing Knowledge

Hydro for Gateshead's Baltic?

Arts venues looking to renewable power amidst a crisis of costs for energy bills.
Article

today at the stream

today got a new concrete post: ( the previous one was stolen)


apologies to those who arrived before i got there, i got held up buying the fence post.

we spent some time cleaning out the stream some more, and preparing to fit the concrete post which will form the far side of the dam:


there's been some fly tipping, we will put up some signage next week and another cctv camera to help prevent this in future.


also cleaned out some more of the swamp, this is draining well.


we should be able to concrete the post in place at the next meet

plan to meet at midday next saturday 10th Feb to carry on the stream works,

Today's Session

Hi everyone,
We had a great chance to reconvene today after the longer than planned winter break.

We had a useful chat about finishing the turbine and getting it 'road worthy' asap. Jon will be out there approx. 11-3 this Saturday for anyone who wants to lend a hand getting messy in the stream.

There has been some small thefts from the stream as well as some frustrating fly tipping! Jayne as Good Earth Inc is going to make a sign for the area to politely get the attention of any potential repeat offenders to realise it's not wasteland, but part of The Vale's gardens and this hydro project.

We also talked more about the workshops for young people. We've been looking at coding and how this can be used for good causes to share knowledge, open access and create change.
Jon is going to look at what a modular training session with cause and effect for coding might look like.
Jayne is going to look into 'Dragon's Door' game which sees young people utilising coding language to navigate a game as a team and see how we could incorporate something like this.

We'll be speaking to the wider Global Grooves team about how to add the Carnival aspect to these workshops and keep them dynamic and fun whilst also engaging on the hydro and positive change for the environment.

We'll meet again in a fortnight for more planning and Jon is in the stream this Saturday (3rd) 11-3.

Amelia

Fish Pass

Ribble Trust Fish Pass

Information on another fish pass on a large scale!

Solar powered visitor centre

In Borth, Wales


Some photos are too large, they are photos from my phone, not a link. I'll send to you Jon

Local climate action

Forget Cop- local climate action
Article in the Guardian on the the importance local climate action bringing more tangible results.

Worth a read.

Tree tree planting

hi,
City of Trees does lots of free stuff with schools. Perhaps we can work with them when we begin to think about workshops with local schools.

https://www.cityoftrees.org.uk/ schools

Some great info about tree collars

Copied email with kind offer of tubex nature shelters

Hi Melanie,

We have mostly used Tubex’s Nature shelters to date as well as a few Vigilis Bio shelters. You’ll need 1.2m shelters if the main threat is from roe deer. If there’s red deer you might need to go bigger but these are pretty big and I tend to use the smallest shelter we can, to make sure the trees don’t get too drawn up and spindly when they emerge.

We are looking at some new shelters for this season called Tree Hugger and Rainbow’s Terra shelter – which appear to be more biodegradable and compostable on site compared with the Tubex but the science around it all is a bit baffling when comparing one with another. We haven’t used those new ones yet so they’re untested by us.

Most of those 1.2m shelters are pretty narrow compared with a hand span so I’m not sure they will fit around the trees. The shelters come nested in 5s so they become progressively narrower from about 15-20mm diameter.

We haven’t really looked into wider individual protection as most of the trees we plant in those situations are whips/saplings. We have carried planting using large posts (x3 or x4) which encircle fruit trees which are then wrapped in tall weld mesh and stapled to the posts – more work and cost than an individual shelter with a 1.5m stake to support it. The attached photo shows the type of thing.

Another option we’re heard about but not used is the cactus guards

Tree guard livestock, tree protector livestock - Cactus Tree Guards, Cumbria, UK

These look pretty vicious, and we’ve shied away from this for that reason, particularly if there’s any public access involved.

Another new product we’ve heard about is a spray on treatment called Trico. It’s made from sheep fat and it is sprayed on trees and is unpalatable to deer (and sheep). It needs someone with a spraying certificate to administer it and it’ll probably need applying twice a year.

Another method being trialled at the moment is wrapping untreated wool around the growing tips of the tree/shrub. Deer apparently don’t like it. This is volunteer friendly and can be fitted around whatever size/shape (that wouldn’t go in a normal tree shelter). We haven’t trialled it and it might be difficult to do en mass for 1000s of trees but in your situation might be worth trying…?

If you’ve got rabbits on site as well, then the Trico and wool probably won’t be very effective against them and you’d need something else (like a shorter shelter 0.6m) as well!

Please let me know if you’ve got any queries. We do have some Tubex Nature shelters at our office in Trafford Park and I’m sure we could spare 5 of them (with the stakes) if you wanted to try them out.

If you do try the wool option, we would be interested in hearing how you get on. tree guards

Regard

Andy

Andrew Long

Woodlands Officer

City of Trees team

city of trees website

t: 0161 872 1660

m: 07770 903 542

Unit 3, Discovery Works, Third Ave, Trafford Park, Stretford, Manchester M17 1BW

Today's Session

Today we were joined by 3 members of Saddleworth Hydro for our session.
We were looking at our communication on this website, social media and how we communicate together.
We have decided on a whatsapp group for the team to trial for 1 month to share:
-Notices
-Updates
-Website sharing
-Polls for meeting dates or other events
-Invitations to events
-Items like images to be shared/uploaded on website by another member of the team.

We began looking at what we want the content on this website/blog to be to make it as impactful as possible.
Matt suggested a Who, Where, What, How, Why model in order to organise sections.
So far we have discussed Who. This needs to include:
Who we are, how we work within Global Grooves/The Vale.
Who are funders are.
Who are current stakeholders are.
Who we aim to engage with in terms of education and young people.
Who we want to engage in the future.

Alison from Saddleworth Hydro suggested the first page should be as simple as possible and we discussed a mission statement and site map, including live energy monitoring on that page.

We also began deciding on drop downs such as 'History' and 'Technical' drop down menu rather than all one long scrolling site.

Jayne suggested we look at an image that could be lit up as we build up the total generated energy through the monitoring. e.g Hartshead pike's windows or outline gets lit up throughout the year as we get close to a target we set for annual energy monitoring.

Next time we'll look at the How, Why and Where aspects.

Thanks everyone for your input.

Experiment with my children in the kitchen

The twins and I tried out a kitchen experiment for a eco bypass at the hydro project. We used the things we could find around our kitchen and garden.
At first we tried to simulate the the water fall with our shower tap into a see though box. We tried making the dam with plastic lids from old containers. This didn't work to well because we could not seal the dam section well enough. We could start to see how it would work even though it was not perfect.
Next we gathered stones and made a natural slipway into the bypass, and built a simulation of the hydro tube that will feed the water to the turbine. We tried to make the water pool behind the dam. This process worked and we could see water flowing through the pipe and running down a different channel to the bypass.
The box cracked a little, and so the dam still didn't fill up enough to cover the pipe properly.
We made a diagram of our design for the stream, but we thought we may have to change the lower outlet if the water does not flow fast enough to fill the dam on the other side. We thought we could make a lower catch for water to the generator dam to solve this problem?
We had some fun thinking about the problem and making up an experiment to try out our ideas.

Water Powered Kinetic Sculpture

Public Art Water Sculpture

'Transforming Movement' By Luke Tupper. A water powered kinetic sculpture and public artwork, displayed in Dulverton Leat, England, from the 1st to the 31st of July.

Rising temperatures

Christine Sun Kim, The Sound of Temperature Rising Forever, 2020, Los Angeles, USA

Communicating through art

Amazing to see the dirty work in the marshy ground getting started! Nice photos, Jayne!

Thinking ahead to Wednesday- how can we communicate the hydro project through art?
Here's a project from Boston University getting young people sharing their science projects through art.

Art to explain science

Our dirty weekend

Trying to add some photos from this weekend. Not sure how successful it is? This is the text, hopefully you got two photos.

We had a bit of dirty weekend, in the mud and rain. We started improving access to the bog garden and stream, unblocking the drainage and preparing the ground to install the hydro turbine.

Building better access to the stream for the hydro generator project. We made a firmer pathway for people to access the stream, whilst making sure that we left spaces for natural pools to carry on forming, providing vital areas for frogs, newts and invertebrates.

What can one person do?

With the funds and the right landscape they can power 300 homes!

This article on an Alaskan creating a hydro generator (almost!) singlehandedly is a great example of how one individual can impact change in their local community. Imagine what 100 people in the same circumstances could do? And then 1,000 people? We might not all be able to create a hydro in all landscapes, but individuals can find innovate solutions where they call home.

Alaskan Hydro

Future Earth

I'd highly recommend Future Earth.
A 4 part series from the BBC focusing on solutions to the climate crisis. Featuring innovative ideas such as whiter than white paint that can cool whole cities by 3 degrees Fahrenheit and heat resistance cities. None of them are solutions on their own, but together with more action they can transform our future world.
Most importantly, these are often simple and replicable ideas that citizens can campaign for and promote to their local and national leaders to instigate change and protect future generations.
Future Earth on BBC

tasks to do

some info on what we intend to do next

increase water pressure and flow: hydroupgrade1.pdf

make an archimedes screw: archimedes screw

Pavegen - generating power with footsteps

Imagine a dancefloor with the ability to turn movement into electricity...more info here. Pavegen website

Phase 2 - Session 1

My pictures from Wednesday's session.

The next sessions


Join us on the 1st or 4th November 2-4pm to continue to work on research and development of the prototype generator.
We'd suggest bringing waterproof shoes and clothes you don't mind getting messy!

Contact us at hello@the-vale.co.uk 01457 238 089 if you have any questions.

Thanks
Amelia

Why UKRI are funding community led research

Our project's funder UKRI on why the Community Knowledge Fund was created and more on the wider project we're all a part of. [url=https://medium.com/@UKRI/why-were-funding-community-led-research-and-innovation-f7f9d2550917]Read the blog post here[/url]

Language we use of participation and togetherness

There's something radical that can be grasped with language alone.

This brilliant piece on language reflecting the power of participation is a timely and important article around communities being empowered to make change.
Language and Power of Participation

Community Energy England

Community Energy
Community Energy England
A useful link or community energy projects across England. Worth a look!

Power Station streets

Power Street
A great short video on a road in Walthamstow working to make their homes a power station by getting every house solar panels.

2nd phase funding

Announcement Klaxon!
We've been successful in the 2nd phase of the Community Knowledge Fund with UKRI and The Young Foundation.

This is a year's funding to continue this amazing project and broaden the reach to engage and share the current learning and knowledge.

I hope those of you engaged so far will be on board for working together on this amazing opportunity.

Amelia

The Health of Our Rivers

Check out the episode of BBC Inside Science from BBC Radio 4.

Great references to Citizen Science, community work and crowd sourcing research to monitor and hopefully change the quality of our rviers.
What Makes a Healthy River?

turbine prototype building

we've done some more on the prototype turbine,

here's a picture the internal archimedes screw type turbine we tested first;



we are making another turbine insert using a jetski impeller, to use in the same housing



we'll be testing this as soon as it's welded together sometime next week hopefully

Where next for Micro or Macro hydropower?

Where next, Hydro in Mossley

Where would another good spot for a hydro on a micro or macro scale be?

On Google most bits of river aren't registered, so you can put the nearest building, or spot registered on the list and add a note of where you mean. Or, you can add it as a missing place under - outdoor- and then -hiking spot, and hopefully google will add it to be a clickable/saveable area.

Add as you wish, but ideally local to Mossley or edges.

Our favourite bodies of water


I've done some mapping of where participants favourite bodies of water was.

Add yours if I've missed it, or you want to log yours.
Bodies of Water

Energy Provider Switch!

We've managed to move the annex's energy provider over to Octopus Energy!
This means we can (in future months) put any energy back into the grid through the grid tide inverter.

Most energy suppliers, now the government say the don't have to cater for all users to contribute to the grid, don't offer the service to new customers. Our current energy supplier, Yu Energy said they could not accept energy back into the grid through renewables.

Many people purchasing new solar panels, wind, hydro or other renewable power supplies can't put these into the grid unless they're with a company who allows them to.

'Because grid-connection requirements vary, you or your system supplier/installer should contact your power provider to learn about its specific grid-connection requirements before purchasing any part of your renewable energy system. See our page on balance-of-system equipment requirements for small renewable energy systems.'
https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/ grid-connected-renewable-energy- systems

It also means, being with Octopus, the electricity we use in the Annex will be from renewable energy sources. We may also be able to move our gas to 'carbon neutral' on a more expensive 'Green' tariff which includes many offsetting projects Octopus is engaged with Renewable World

Re: First test of the turbine

It was good to see the first test of the turbine. I like the way that you have (I assume!) enclosed the generator within the plastic piping as this will likely protect it from the weather. Well done also on doing the flow measurements. I think that one site that I have been following about such matters is worth sharing here, for ideas, and that is he OpenSouceLowTech YouTube channel of Daniel Connell

There are 3 videos on this channel that may be particularly interesting as they seem to be perhaps on a similar scale to what is happening at the Vale. These are:

‘$50 Water Turbine-5 kilowatt hrs/day - Open Source, DIY’ (see link ,

‘Real World Results From The $50 Water Turbine’ (see: link ,

‘The $50 Water Turbine -Build Tutorial 1.0’ (see: link ,

Whilst I presume that it would be an option to just run the turbine on the basis of whatever is flowing though it, many projects seem to create (or use) a pool of some kind and then use a syphon to draw water through the turbine. Such an arrangement would likely benefit from a inlet filter of some kind, but there are lots of good ideas out there.

Re: First test of the turbine

It was good to see the first test of the turbine. I like the way that you have (I assume!) enclosed the generator within the plastic piping as this will likely protect it from the weather. Well done also on doing the flow measurements. I think that one site that I have been following about such matters is worth sharing here, for ideas, and that is he OpenSouceLowTech YouTube channel of Daniel Connell - see: link

There are 3 videos on this channel that may be particularly interesting as they seem to be perhaps on a similar scale to what is happening at the Vale. These are:

‘$50 Water Turbine-5 kilowatt hrs/day - Open Source, DIY’ (see: [url= https://youtu.be/ibCu0PxIZA4] link[/url],

‘Real World Results From The $50 Water Turbine’ (see: [url= https://youtu.be/lBl4Sdw0dXo] link[/url],

‘The $50 Water Turbine -Build Tutorial 1.0’ (see: [url= https://youtu.be/hJbiSY2CijE] link[/url],

Whilst I presume that it would be an option to just run the turbine on the basis of whatever is flowing though it, many projects seem to create (or use) a pool of some kind and then use a syphon to draw water through the turbine. Such an arrangement would likely benefit from a inlet filter of some kind, but there are lots of good ideas out there.

Music Meets Energy

While I was in the Outer Hebrides I saw islands powered mostly by renewable wind turbines (woo!) and individual crofts with peat stacked high to burn throughout the year. A huge juxtaposition of polluting and unsustainable resources (yet traditional and cultural), and renewable wind energy.

At Hebridean Celt Festival an Orkney based band, Fara, performed and shared their songs named after their famous renewably powered islands and their folkloric response to them.
In this video they describe water power in Orkney and how it's inspired their music.

Fara- Energy Islands

Where is the power ?

C'mmon Jon !!

Brookside Omnibus Edition

Photos and video from our recent sessions.

first test of the turbine

Granada TV report on Vale Hydro

Here's a link to the article on ITV / Granada reports's website;

granada TV article

They focused mainly on the headline grabbing nature of our project and almost completely ignored the community, educational and climate awareness aspects, but hey that's journalism for you !

Nonetheless it was publicity for the Vale's venue and our project, even if the most important points were overlooked and edited out.

video on making archimedes screw

been looking around for a simple instruction video for model/prototype making, this has a lot of interesting ideas
archimedes screw video

Who to move to to buy the hydropower energy?

We are currently in a contract with Yu Energy until September.
They have said that they don't buy back energy and don't have the means to do this for us.

I've made enquiries with Octopus, who Saddleworth Hydro use to buy their energy.

If not, who else does similar schemes and would be worthy of asking? amelia@globalgrooves.org - email me if you have any thoughts on this.

Guidance and regulations of waterways

Gov guidance

We've been looking into the rules and regs around hydropower in water courses in the UK, England specifically.

There is a lot of info to take in and it can appear a bit daunting, and expensive.
On further interrogation of the information it appears we don't need a permit for flood risk, or license to abstract, license to impound, or a fish pass approval.

For due diligence we will contact the pre application enquiries at the Environment Agency to get confirmation that we don't need any of the above permits or licenses.

It's great there are stringent rules to stop people putting the wrong type of things in the waterways or causing flood risk. However, small scale projects like this might feel there's no way forward looking at the complicated bureaucracy, not to mention the hypocrisy when the water companies allow sewage into our rivers and seas daily! (soap box rant, over!).

"V notch" weir water measurement

we are planning to make and install a V notch weir to measure the flow rate in the stream

some info on V notch weirs here;

design and calculations
v notch design

v notch flow calculator

we will be starting this work on saturday June 17th

microhydro organisation, interesting reading

micro hydro association

watercourse upgrades

here's a short video of work done by volunteers on 12th June

watercourse works

we fitted safety railings to the edge of the watercourse and cleared a lot of the rubbish which has accumulated over years of neglect.

thanks to everyone who helped with organising and doing, a good team effort.

Fitting the Railings

Getting mucky in the stream

Thanks to everyone who came along today to litter pick in and around the stream.

The Litter Bugs were a huge help and we got very wet and mucky in the stream pulling up possibly decades old debris in the form of bags of silt/sand, as well as string, huge sections of the old fire hoses and other bits of litter.
We didn't get it all, Kurt suggested a crow bar to help lift up some of the stream sludge/rocks etc to lift get some of the hose and other bits out.

We also cleared the Himalayan balsam.

Next steps are to get reed beds in and clear the clogged up culvert with the stagnant water.
We'll let you know when the next bit of stream clearing will be.

A tour from a larger scale operation

When we reached Saddleworth Community Hydro we were cheerily greeted by some of their volunteer team. Tea, squash and biscuits were a welcome treat after our walk.

Alison, Andrew and the team showed us around the site and talked us through some of their challenges and shared knowledge on how it works. I'll try and summarise some of it here, although others will have more to add I'm sure.

The most interesting thing I learned was that Dove Stone reservoir was not primarily a reservoir for drinking water. It was built to power the paper mill, which required a vast amount of clean water to in its production of cigarette papers. I had always assumed it was the reservoir for our local drinking water.
Capacity 102 million gallons (464 million litres) Maximum depth 62 feet (20 metres)

Challenges-
The water in the reservoir which powers the hydro legally has to be a minimum of 185 litres a second as it flows into the Tame or they can be fined.

The height of the water in the reservoir is key to the hydro generating more power. When we visited it was around 37kW due to the height of the water in the reservoir being lower. We haven't had rain locally for at least 2 weeks, and no meaningful rain in much longer. They could generate around 50kW but the water is regularly lowered by United Utilities diverting the water to other reservoirs for other reasons. Last year in a terrible drought they managed to maintain their generator throughout, but changing climate and longer periods without rain are a constant threat.

Getting United Utilities to OK the plans was really difficult for the group.
They persevered and got it to happen.

How did they do it?
They had a member fund a feasibility study and discovered their initial site wasn't worth the energy to create based on what it could produce.
They looked at this site instead and got a grant from EU, and Defra as well as smaller grants and shareholders as a Community Benefit Company. They raised and were granted a total of half a million pounds and it was built over 3 months one winter.

They sell the electricity to Octopus Energy and get a brilliant rate. They give the National Grid approximately the equivalent of powering 100 houses.

How do they maintain it?
12 self taught maintenance engineers deal with maintaining it regularly. They have £2K a year for maintenance but usually only spend £500.

The Vale to Dove Stone Reservoir

On Saturday 10th June Sarah, Project Manager at Global Grooves, a trained Walk Leader led us on a hike from The Vale to Dove Stone Reservoir to visit Saddleworth Hydro on their open day for Great Big Green Week.

Sarah led us to various sites of interest related to our stream. We went to the mouth of the stream where it forms as flow off from Buckton Castle hill, learned it's named Tamyon Brook and discussed the importance of water in the decision for a settlement at Buckton Castle in the Medieval period.

Research into the United Utilities waterworks near our stream revealed that it was opened in 1989 and was a cutting edge facility and built by renowned architect, at a cost of £10 million. This cutting edge facility was one of the first water treatments to be monitored by computers. Now it's in the hands of United Utilities there is very little information, but we can see a solar panel field on part of the site!
Buckton Castle Water Treatment Works

We went along the Roman Road to 40 Road, houses built for mill workers in a row of 40 terraces to work at the mills built along the river Tame as they needed the water to generate the power for the mills.
One of these mills, once had a wind turbine, but it now stands proudly with its wings dismantled as a monument to a pipe dream. Jon has heard it may not have had planning permission, or it wasn't generating enough power as it had been built in a valley.

With the stops and discussions it took approx 2 hours from The Vale, and lots of knowledge was shared by the group along the way. It was the hottest day of the year so far, the ground was dry and the sun was unrelenting. It certainly kept the threat of climate change prevalent in our minds as we walked through our historically boggy and wet landscape on such a scorching day.

painting the railings

Mel here,

Just put the first coat of paint on the safety rails, if anyone's around on Tuesday to help install please message Amelia or Jon.

tasks to do

we aim to have the waterway cleared, the 'V' notch guage installed and the first prototype micro-generator installed as soon as possible, suggested tasks and dates below,

click to enlarge

we'll need as much help as we can muster, please feel free to comment and make suggestions as well as of course getting stuck in and helping in whichever way is best for you

more info to follow,

keep an eye on this if you can volunteer some of your time to help out

saddleworth community hydro

on saturday 10th June we will be visiting Saddleworth Community Hydro for inspiration and fact-finding, and a decent walk in the countryside

here's their website:

saddleworth community hydro

sketches and pics of the water channel

pictures of the water channel before we start work;





and sketches with basic dimensions;

Niagra Falls Hydro Project

This Clipping, taken from the Devon and Exeter Daily Gazette on 4th March 1887. It was here that Nikola Tesla advocated for the use of AC power and Westinghouse and the State of New York concurred and indeed conquered!

restore rivers wiki

this is a website / wiki maintained by UK environment agency with info on river quality restoration projects around the EU

restore rivers wiki

lots of info here if you are interested in rivers and especially clean rivers with biodiversity and flood risk mitigation

( also a good example of an online wiki )

"V notch" weir water measurement

we are planning to make and install a V notch weir to measure the flow rate in the stream

some info on V notch weirs here;

design and calculations
v notch design

example of commercial design
v notch example

safety rails coming soon

We have a plan for safety rails down at the stream. We'll be using recycled rails from a local engineering firm, ( Crescent Sheet metal at Woodend mill, Mossley ).

The rails were made as film props for the award winning channel 4 TV series "No Offence" see wikipedia . We can put them to good use in the knowledge that they are in keeping with our re-use policy.

calculations from the first sessions

this might help too: notes from the first session, including some basic calculations, are on the wiki here
session notes
the kettle experiment and calculations we did are at the bottom of that page

The calculation we did on the first Tuesday

I had to look up one or two web sites as, I can honestly say I went away scratching my head. I found a few web sites with the info I picked up from our session, and got really excited at understanding. I will add two links, just in case anyone else was a bit like me and didn’t really getting the physic's bit.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ guides/z2gjtv4/revision/5

I will just get the u tube link now hold on.

https://youtube.com/watch?v= uuWC_m5HJv0&feature=share

I have some more to add later if it helps.

UK's power usage

https://grid.iamkate.com
Check out the above link to see the current ratio of different energy powering the UK, LIVE!

As I write this we're on 44% Renewables.
Wouldn't it be something to see the Hydro grow and the whole renewable sector increase well above 50%!

Community Energy

Hi Everyone - this is such an exciting project for Mossley and thanks to everyone getting behind it. I just wanted to share a story I read last year about a community energy project which I bookmarked, it's for a Wind Turbine, not hydro, but is still inspiring to know about:

Bristol Community Wind Turbine

notes from the first meeting on 2nd May

We explored some key concepts of energy, work, power, and and how this relates to energy use, energy generation.

How and why we measure energy, how can energy be stored, how is it converted from one form to another, where does it come from. Basic stuff which is helpful to appreciating what we are working towards.

We did some experiments on everyday things like how much energy does it take boiling a kette of water, and how does this relate to hydro power generation.

There's more detail and a short write-up on the wiki, so if your interested have a look there. (follow the link >> session notes)

session notes

more about bits and pieces

We can re-use electric bike wheels and electric hoverboard wheels as generators, we need to get them rotating and generating under the power of the water, then collect the electric power.

If... we generate enough power, we can use it to contribute towards electric power use here at the Vale. (This is where the grid-tied-inverter comes in; it converts low voltage power from the electric generators to standard mains voltage which we can use in our arts centre buildings.)

We will research existing hydro-power installations in our locality and learn how this stuff works. Then we can experiment and build our own prototypes which we can develop and improve as we gain experience and knowledge.