PROJECT CASE STUDIES

RDC has been involved in a range of small hydro projects in the south of England, as consultants to several different clients; local authorities, farmers, property developers and community groups.

Small Hydro | Jesus Weir, Cambridge City Council

RDC has carried out a study for Cambridge City Council Carry for 2 potential micro-hydro sites of 15 kW capacity within the city as part of the Council's policy for sustainable energy and link to the Cambridge Sustainable City initiative.

This involved outlining the appropriate turbine technologies for the head and flow seen at site, providing outline costings of turbine options, including grid connection, undertaking basic economic analysis and carbon savings of the preferred options at each site and holding initial discussions with the Environment Agency (EA) on abstraction, flood defence and impoundment issues, as well as any aquatic bio-diversity sensitivities.

Small Hydro | Stour and Vale Hydro Group

RDC provided specialist advice to the SVHG to assist 4 mill owners in Dorset and Wiltshire prepare micro-hydro projects for development. This involved full feasibility study packages for each site, considering hydrological analysis, selection of appropriate turbine plant, grid connection aspects, schematic design and costing as well as EA licence negotiation.

The total capacity of the first 3 schemes is 16 kW and projects are planned to be installed in 2009.

Wood Fuel | Woodchip Installation

RDC is in the process of designing a 150 kW woodchip boiler system at a community centre in Dorset to provide centralised heating to several buildings. This will involve specifying the most effective boiler plant in a new energy store with an underground bunker for storage of woodchip and design of a heat main pipe for the space heating and hot water services for the 35 residential rooms on site.

The project will save £ 11,000 a year on the current inefficient and expensive electricity and log-based heating system and offer affordable and sustainable energy into the future.

Energy Audits | Monkton Wyld Court Energy Survey

Monkton Wyld Court in west Dorset is run as an holistic education centre providing courses on low-impact living.  The main house is a Victorian parsonage and as an old building requires improvements in the insulation and use of its energy.  RDC has assisted the centre in starting an energy audit process, identifying where energy is wasted and how to improve the management of oil and electricity and within the buildings.

Part of the study was to consider the potential for further renewable energy initiatives (the centre already has solar thermal and PV), and a centralised heating system based on a woodchip boiler is now being considered as well as a small wind turbine.