The Board of Ofgem held their June meeting in Scotland and a number of the Directors, including the Chairman, took the opportunity to visit Rumbling Bridge Community Hydro.

Hugh and Catherine Wallace of Glendevon Energy, Rumbling Bridge’s development and operations partner, hosted the visit and had organised an introductory presentation and site visit for the Ofgem party.  Jim Lee and John Malone of Energy4All were also present.

Jim and John were able to describe the community and co-operative aspects of the project. The Ofgem representatives were very interested in the fund-raising process. Jim and John welcomed Ofgem’s positive and active engagement with the community energy sector and also raised and number of general points for discussion, including:

• Difficulty for co-ops to sell generated energy to members
• Observation on the development of electricity networks and concerns around the control and use of system and customer data
• The need for the community voice to be heard during on-going “Smart Grid” development
• Our experience that new export meter installation or change of operator is extremely problematic and costly

The Ofgem Directors were receptive to these points and there was time for more detailed discussion during the tour. The visit was a real opportunity to raise awareness of the community energy sector with Ofgem and some of the issues that the sector faces. Energy4All will maintain and build on the contacts made.

 

Local Community Event –Saturday 28^th October 2017

You are invited to visit the Rumbling Bridge Community Hydro Scheme. There will be a walk down to the Powerhouse then the option to walk up to the intake weir.  Society Directors and technical people will be on hand to answer your questions.

Join us at the Crook of Devon Village Hall at 2pm for a cup of tea with members of the Society where buses will take you to the site

Or

Meet us adjacent to the Semab School car park at 2:30pm prompt

It you plan to attend please email info@rumblingbridgehydro.coop

We are delighted to report that as of Friday 17th March 2017 we have generated 1GWh of power, almost half our annual budget.

We were delighted to welcome under graduates from Dundee University to the Rumbling Bridge Community Hydro Site.

Hugh Wallace (Director) gave a tour of the pump room and hydro site and answered some very thoughtful and well prepared questions from the students.

The weather was also kind, to the relief of all involved!

 

The Open Day and launch event hosted on the 28th October 2016 was a huge success.

Local people along with members and industry professionals were invited to attend the event, which included a guided walk and a switching on ceremony at the pump house. The scheme was officially launched by Paul Wheelhouse MP – the Scottish Energy Minister.

An evening reception was held at Tullibole Castle by kind permission of Lord and Lady Moncrieff.

Visit the Gallery to see further pictures of the event.

 

 

The Rumbling Bridge Community Hydro Society

The official launch and AGM of Rumbling Bridge Community Hydro Society will take place Friday 28th October 2016.

Members and other invited guests will take a guided walk from the Crook of Devon Village Hall via the Weir, pipe route and Rumbling Bridge gorge to the Power House. The Scottish Energy Minister, Paul Wheelhouse will officially launch the project. A drinks reception will take place at the Village Hall , followed by the AGM.

Lord and Lady Moncrieff have kindly given permission for us to hold a members and landowners party at Tullibole Castle in the evening. Limited tickets were available and issued on a first come first served basis.

An open event for the community will be organised shortly to take place in Spring 2017. 

Press Information – please download the press release below.

PRESS RELEASE

 

 

As the date for accreditation of the Feed-in-Tariff comes closer, work at the site continues at a pace. In order to qualify for the tariff which secures a revenue stream for the next twenty years, the site needs to be commissioned before 18th September 2016. The works programme has been carefully planned to ensure we meet this deadline and we are pleased to report that significant milestones have now been reached, however there have been some challenges.

Firstly the excavation work to be carried out in order to install the pipe at the necessary depth proved to be much harder than anticipated and extra teams were needed to dig out some stubborn rock towards the weir end of the trench. Importantly, the turbines have arrived from Slovenia and although they were three weeks late; they are currently being installed in the powerhouse. The civil works at the weir are complete and ready to receive water from the river. The final stage of the programme is to bring all these components together and commission the site. We are hoping the works will be complete and the Feed-in-Tariff accredited with Ofgem before our deadline, but as yet we cannot be certain of that. The whole team is working hard to achieve this and we will communicate the outcome once it is known for certain.

The Rumbling Bridge Board are planning to hold an open day once the site has been handed over, so local people and members of the Society will be invited to attend the official opening ceremony.

Civil works have progressed very well over the past month, with headline progress as follows:

• Powerhouse base and walls cast
• Bulk excavation of railway cutting complete and all but 1 rock blasts complete
• Pipelaying complete between powerhouse and steep slope, and steep slope works commenced
• Pipe laid from edge of chalet park as far as the surge chamber in the railway cutting
• Overall 25% of pipes are in the ground, and 4 out of 5 thrust blocks complete
• Intake river diversion almost ready for putting into service

The hydro plant remains on programme, with the start of installation scheduled as planned for the first
week in July.

The grid connection progressing to programme. a later connection date in late July has been agreed.

Work on the hydro scheme at Rumbling Bridge continues to go according to schedule. The main excavation of the railway siding has been complete and is ready for the pipes to be installed. There is a programme of rock blasting during April that will open up the trench towards the intake weir.

The foundations for the powerhouse are currently being laid. The pipe will be installed from here back toward the intake, so work on the slope up through the village will be starting soon.

Components for the turbine are currently being brought to the factory in Slovenia and we expect it to be delivered on time in early July by which time the powerhouse will be complete and ready to receive it.

 

 

 

It’s been a very wet few months but today provided a blessed respite as the eye of a low pressure system moved over the site. The weather has made life difficult for the contractors while they undertake the deep dig for the pipe route through Briglands Estate. The volume of water coming down through the field is hampering the efforts to remove material to the depths required.

Normally they would come back when the weather improves, however to meet our schedule we have to persevere otherwise we will fall behind. On better news, the pipes have started to arrive on site and the foundations for the power house have been dug. The latter has proved a much easier task than expected with the sandy soil conditions they found at the lower end of the works. We hope the weather will get better soon so our contractors don’t have to wade knee deep in the mire. We’ll keep you updated.