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The Whitby Esk Energy – Ruswarp Hydro

a community-owned 50kW Archimedes screw hydroelectric turbine on the River Esk at Ruswarp, near Whitby, North Yorkshire
Whitby Esk Energy is a member

a member of

The scheme is run by volunteers through Esk Energy (Yorkshire) Limited, a registered society.  Our main aim is to reduce the carbon footprint of the Esk Valley through generating renewable electricity. Learn – Share – Educate


Rory’s Blog – summer 2024

Here we are in July, and I recently picked up a news article suggesting we’ve had one of the 6 wettest Springs since 1838; it certainly feels that way…but one real advantage of being involved with the turbine is that I can look out at the rain and think about all the lovely power we will generate. Ideal conditions for generation involve plenty of steady rain, which is just what we have been getting. As a result we have had probably our best Spring  and early Summer since we started.

I should add that too much rain can also cause us problems: if there’s too much water coming down, particularly if tides are high, river levels below the turbine rise too much and we can’t run…it’s gravity, not flow, that drives the screw round; if we lose the drop from above to below the dam, we lose power. Also very heavy rain/high river tends to bring down a lot of dead wood which clogs up the intake screen – I’ll talk more about this, perhaps in the Autumn.

And it hasn’t been all wet misery with the weather; we had a good working party in April, when a lot of site tidying and a number of outstanding jobs got done;  we then entertained a party of students for the University of Hull at the end of the month: they were bright and keen and asked lots of sensible questions; we hope they will go on to become green energy advocates and help to change the world.

Rory Newman, Chair of Esk Energy

Logs cleared from inlet

 

Whitby Esk Energy tours

Would you like to visit our community-owned 50kW Archimedes screw hydroelectric turbine on the River Esk at Ruswarp, near Whitby and find out how we generate renewable electricity?

We can arrange tours round the site for individuals and groups of up to 30, both during the week and at weekends, depending on the availability of our volunteers.

To find our more, please get in touch.

 

 

Visits from University of Hull students

Over the last few years we have hosted tours for MSc Renewable Energy students from the University of Hull.

We’ve had great feedback from the visits including the following from one of the lecturers:

“I’m writing to thank you for all the support that you and the other volunteers have given over the last 3.5 years. It’s been hugely appreciated, and a lot of students have benefited. They usually start the day looking forward to visiting a hydro plant, and finish the day enthused about community energy!”

 

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