A community-owned 50kW Archimedes screw hydroelectric turbine has been installed on the River Esk at Ruswarp, near Whitby, North Yorkshire to generate electricity for local residents.
The River Esk can send up to 4 tonnes of water down the Archimedean screw every second – forcing it to rotate whilst a generator extracts the energy made by the turning of the screw, converting it into electricity.
As principal contractor, national engineering and construction company JN Bentley was responsible for the design of the scheme, which has also included the refurbishment of the existing Environment Agency fish pass and its conversion to a Larinier-type fish pass to help increase the River Esk’s salmon and sea trout stocks.
Whites Concrete supplied the pre-cast concrete chamber for the 11-tonne Archimedean screw turbine installed on the banks of the River Esk in Whitby, North Yorkshire.
The Whites Concrete chamber, constructed using robust Groundwall L-shaped units to house the 2.9m diameter screw turbine, which will operate with up to 4 cumec with a rated capacity of 51.6KW as it generates electricity for Esk Energy (Yorkshire) Limited, an industrial provident society set up and managed by local residents. Esk Energy secured funding towards the cost of the project through a community share issue along with the necessary planning and license permissions.
The Whitby Esk Energy project is run by volunteers through Esk Energy (Yorkshire) Limited, a registered society, whose main aim is to reduce the carbon footprint of the Esk Valley through generating renewable electricity.
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