Saddleworth Hydro's big anniversary

Children from a Mahdlo holiday club learn to grow and cook food in raised beds

The Saddleworth Community Hydro is celebrating 10 years of generating green energy and funding.

And the anniversary in September reveals an amazing tale of ordinary folk achieving extraordinary things.

For the past 10 years local people have taken compensation from water flowing from Dovestone Reservoir in Oldham and converted its energy into electricity to sell into the National Grid.

In fact, all the profits of the sales to put many thousands of pounds’ worth of funding into local groups’ green projects.

That’s a whole decade of saving hundreds of tonnes of CO2 and generating over 3 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity.

Grants are allocated to lower carbon emissions, to fund biodiversity, to combat climate change or to promote repair and recycling.

Alison Brittle, chair of Saddleworth Hydro, said: “The Energy Crisis of 2022 enabled us to negotiate a very favourable two-year contract for the power which we sell.

“As a community benefit society, we have decided to prioritise our grants to projects which will do most to support those living in areas of deprivation in Oldham and surrounding areas, while continuing to award grants within Saddleworth.

“It shows a group of local people can actually do something to combat the climate emergency.

"We are not powerless or helpless!”

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