"Is this the end for the traditional British watermill?"

[AE-NMidlands]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -watermill
"Is this the end for the traditional British watermill?" Hardly traditional, but...

Hundreds of mills could be converted to generate clean electricity – but the Environment Agency has just raised application fees by up to 790%
New hydropower schemes to help transform and preserve some of the country’s historic watermills face being wrecked by a huge increase in application fees, energy campaigners warn.

Some watermills have already had turbines installed to generate clean electricity, but campaigners say there are hundreds more across Britain which could be converted to hydropower to help conserve the sites and power the nation.

The Environment Agency now faces criticism for discouraging small-scale hydropower schemes which can be installed in watermills after increasing application costs on 1 April in England from £1,500 to fees ranging from £6,110 to £13,392 – in some cases, a 790% increase. A decade ago, the application fee for a hydropower scheme was just £135.

The money is not returned for an unsuccessful application, meaning many potential schemes are likely to be unaffordable.
etc

The govt. really are "cutting the green crap" aren't they? Underfund the EA so it can't protect the environment any more, put up consent charges to prevent green energy schemes going ahead... It seems to me that you can almost rely on them to do the wrong thing.
A

[billi]

What a disaster to move that route !


Wouöd be much better to investigate into natural sound hydro ideas , instead of banning them

Same here in Germany https://renewablesnow.com/news/germanys ... ns-781124/

[Stinsy]

There is always a bureaucrat somewhere who, on a fundamental level, doesn’t get it…

[Mr Gus]

Govt, shallower than the millponds themselves.

[renewablejohn]

Stealth is your friend when it comes to hydro.

[smegal]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -watermill
"Is this the end for the traditional British watermill?" Hardly traditional, but...

Hundreds of mills could be converted to generate clean electricity – but the Environment Agency has just raised application fees by up to 790%
New hydropower schemes to help transform and preserve some of the country’s historic watermills face being wrecked by a huge increase in application fees, energy campaigners warn.

Some watermills have already had turbines installed to generate clean electricity, but campaigners say there are hundreds more across Britain which could be converted to hydropower to help conserve the sites and power the nation.

The Environment Agency now faces criticism for discouraging small-scale hydropower schemes which can be installed in watermills after increasing application costs on 1 April in England from £1,500 to fees ranging from £6,110 to £13,392 – in some cases, a 790% increase. A decade ago, the application fee for a hydropower scheme was just £135.

The money is not returned for an unsuccessful application, meaning many potential schemes are likely to be unaffordable.
etc

The govt. really are "cutting the green crap" aren't they? Underfund the EA so it can't protect the environment any more, put up consent charges to prevent green energy schemes going ahead... It seems to me that you can almost rely on them to do the wrong thing.
A

If you think that's bad, wait until you see the cost of fish (or worse, eel) protection measures. Unfortunately, the cost of making sure fish don't get minced is an expensive business. Common sense would allow for dispensations for smaller schemes.

[nowty]

Stealth is your friend when it comes to hydro.

Similar to my water sourced heat pump.



Nothing to see here.

[renewablejohn]

Stealth is your friend when it comes to hydro.

Similar to my water sourced heat pump.



Nothing to see here.

Have always been impressed with your effort with this so much so if I ever get ny class Q planning on my chicken shed conversion then this is how it will be heated.

[renewablejohn]

Seems like Wales is not a good place to have a hydro system.

https://www.westerntelegraph.co.uk/news ... c-turbine/

Government really do need to sort out this mess an actually encourage hydro generation.

[Mart]

What really 'grinds my gears' and also saddens me, is that this is just temporary abstraction, with negligible water loss and reflects historic water use, even if the mills haven't operated for years/decades.

I'm not trying to second guess the 'experts', and I assume there is something to consider, but this water is returned quickly, and only a short(ish) distance downstream/river, so even the old £1,500 fee is somewhat extreme/ridiculous.

Edit - Just a thought, but over the last year or so, the Gov has started to backtrack on some of its blatant anti-RE decisions, such as on-shore wind planning. Plus the invasion of Ukraine has proven the need to accelerate RE rollout asap, if only for financial reasons (reduce gas demand/peak prices). So maybe some reversal is possible.

But that said, this price increase was after the invasion started last year, and gas prices had been spiking prior to that ..... so maybe not.