Micro Hydro Association

The UK Community Energy Coalition is currently holding a community energy fortnight. As you'd expect there are a fair few Hydro events on around the country including:
Mountain walking tour in Snowdonia
Tour of Stockport and Torrs Hydro
Chester Weir hydro project
Tour of Whitby Esk energy hydro
Ham Hydro stall at Teddington festival
Click on the links to sign up for attendance.

The EA board have requested that the EA Directors responsible for hydropower regulation need to review their work to date, finding more evidence to support their recommendation of  'option 3 amended' from the Flows Supplementary Consultation. This option was presented to us as members of the Hydropower Working Group as a fait accompli without consultation and with no supporting evidence which is the reason that both the British Hydropower Association and the MHA wrote as I posted earlier.

This is the EA summary of ‘option 3 amended’:


















In assessing potential ecological impact, hydro would be considered 'consumptive' despite water being returned to the river and not consumed using the EA’s standard ‘CAMS/EFI’ approach.  Ecology of river would be split into three bands - low medium and high as set out on the catchment abstraction management maps. There has been no indication what percentage takes would be allowed for these varying sensitivity bands.

This brief respite (2 months we understand) allows the Hydro industry to reaffirm how best we can work with the EA to bring about suitable site specific schemes, without the narrow parameters suggested by the EA.

Let me know if you have any questions,

Thanks,

Kate

The Environment Agency board will be making their decision on whether to accept the recommendations from the Good Practice Guidelines consultation this Thursday 11th July. Board papers can be found here, item 11.
The MHA have responded to the EA with this response stating our withdrawal from the consultation process and issuing this letter to Chairman of the EA, Lord Chris Smith.

28 June 2013

Rural communities across England that aspire to generate their own clean green power are being offered a helping hand today with the launch of a £15 million Government fund.

The Rural Community Energy Fund (RCEF), which opens to applications today, is specifically targeted at helping rural communities access the money needed to carry out feasibility studies into renewable energy projects, and fund the costs associated with applying for planning permission. It is intended that projects will then be able to attract private finance to pay for renewable energy kit and get projects up and running. Funding can be used to support rural projects across the renewable and low carbon energy spectrum including wind, solar, biomass, heat pumps, anaerobic digestion, gas Combined Heat and Power and hydro.

Find out more

Please take note that generators now need to keep records as described in the “Open Letter - Feed-in Tariff (FIT): Guidance for Renewable Installations - Change to Statement of FIT Terms”.

The Statement of FIT Terms will be amended by the FIT Licensee by 1 October 2013. This amendment will include terms to enable the smooth transition from one FIT Licensee to another in the event of a FIT Licensee failure. The terms will require all FIT Generators to:
maintain records of their generation and (where applicable) export meter readings,
maintain records of all FIT Payments received,
Maintain the above records for a period of one year, commencing with the date on which a meter reading is taken by or supplied to a FIT Licensee, or the date on which a FIT payment is received by a FIT Generator.

Please note this condition affects both existing and new FIT Generators.

I am delighted to say that my invitation for someone to take over as administrator of the mha has been taken up by Kate Gilmartin.

Kate has excellent credentials having herself set up a forum for communities with potential hydropower schemes to share information and experiences and act as a mutual support group.  Kate also acts as an independent advisor on CO2 reduction and is an Associate of CO2Sense.

The mha administrator's email address will remain unchanged and for the time being the website will be kept in the same format as now.  Following a handover period, during which I will remain involved, Kate will be writing to outline any proposed developments in the structure and constitution of the mha and in its links with others who have similar aims.

Building up the mha's membership and its activities over the last 3+ years has been a rewarding experience and I would like to thank the many people who have responded to surveys and supported our attempts to improve the opportunities for micro hydro schemes to be developed.

Please contact Kate via administrator@microhydroassociation.org if you have ideas you would like to see considered or points you wish to raise concerning the way forward for the mha.


Gavin King-Smith

This is an initiative of the River Energy Networks (REN)/Mendip Power Group, a hydropower association in England which gained an opportunity to send the Secretary of State for Energy, Ed Davey, the top ten problems facing micro hydropower.

Please complete this form (MS Word format, Adobe .pdf format) and send to Rachel Feilden (info@riverenergy.net) or respond directly to the questions as set out in here

This could help us all if REN can demonstrate a high number of responses from the industry and potential and actual generators.

The full list is available from Ofgem here (large Excel spreadsheet):
Feed-in Tariff Installation Report 31 March 2013
- MS Excel - 41985Kb

I have extracted data for hydro installations in this spreadsheet (also in pdf format here)

Below are analyses of this data for micro hydro schemes (<=100kW) commissioned from 1 April 2010 to 31 March 2013.

My final response on behalf of mha members has been sent to the EA.  Feel free to add comments on the News and Discussion topics page page