Hydro plan hits choppy waters

HYDRO group chairman Bill Edwards (left) with Mike Rooke, secretary of Greenfield and Grasscroft Residents’ Association, at the site of the planned power project

MP calls for change in legislation to boost energy income
AN MP has called for a change to legislation which would stop a community hydro-electricity project from getting the best return for the energy it generates.

Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Debbie Abrahams said more should be done to help community schemes, especially given the coalition Government’s promise to be the “greenest government ever”.

She told MPs of the difficulty faced by the Saddleworth Community Hydro group, which recently secured £223,000 from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs to make dreams of a mini-green power station become a reality.

The group was set up in January, 2008, with the intention of developing an idea to use the 100ft high dam at Dovestone Reservoir to generate power.

Surveys have already been done at the proposed site and United Utilities has given its permission for the scheme to go ahead.

The plan is to form an Industrial Provident Society (IPS), a not-for-profit co-operative, where money made from selling the power would be pumped back into further sustainable community projects in Saddleworth.

Speaking in the Energy Bill debate, Mrs Abrahams said: “There are also significant gaps in the bill. One example from my constituency concerns a community hydro project in Saddleworth that might not go ahead because of the anomaly in the current legislation, which is not addressed by the bill, that prevents it from securing the higher feed-in tariff rates.

“Surely that is something we should be encouraging.”

The feed-in tariff (FiT) is the amount small-scale, low carbon energy generators are paid for exporting electricity to the National Grid.

Mrs Abrahams explained that under current regulations the group would be barred from the higher tariff rate of 17.8p per KW for 20 years if it accepts the £223,000 grant and instead will only get a FiT rate of 4.5p.

The anomaly arises because when the FiT rates were set they referred to regulations from 2006 (grants under £200,000) not the 2009 regulations which raised the grant level for which micro-generators could receive the higher tariff rate to £500,000, she said.

Mrs Abrahams added: “The Energy Bill hasn’t done anything to rectify this.

“I met this group and fully support what it is trying to do.

“This project is ultimately for the benefit of the community and the environment and the Government should be supporting them, not putting up barriers. There are other hydro projects that this also impacts on.”