Turning Streams Into Cash
Monday, December 7th, 2009Howard Williams, an enterprising sheep farmer in mid-Wales, has installed a water turbine over a stream just next to his farm. This sterling idea nets Howell a cool £900 a month. He produces 11kw of energy from the small stream shed above the village of Abercraf – roughly enough to power 20 houses.
“It’s not going to generate all of our electricity needs but it’s going to produce a lot of it” says Chris Blake head of a local initiative called The Green Valleys “If we can get 40 or 50 schemes in this area then it really does start to make a big difference.” So if this tech has been available for some time why has it only just started to be put into use? There are dozens of flowing streams up and down the country and if a single turbine hut can produce enough electricity for 20 houses surely it’s worth developing further. At a cost of 25 grand each they’re not cheap but they pay for themselves in little over 2 years, surely there’s not many greener ways to produce fuel?
“This valley probably has scope for four or five such schemes which would make it a carbon negative valley, this within 5 years.” Chris continued. Fair play to the farming boy-o’s.
