Torrs Hydro, New Mills | Clean green electricity since 2008

2023 AGM

This year’s AGM was on Saturday 20th May 2023
The details are here AGM 2023

15 Years’ Clean, Green Energy!

Please join us in celebrating Archie’s 15th “birthday” on Saturday, September 30th from 2 till 4pm, down at the site. Volunteers will be on hand to show you around and answer any questions you may have.

Green Power

Our reverse Archimedes screw turbine (known as Archie) is located at the confluence of two rivers, the Sett and the Goyt. Since he started generating in the summer of 2008, Archie has produced over 1,764 MWh of clean, green electricity that is sent directly to the nearby Co-op supermarket. Any surplus is fed into the National Grid.

Power produced in August 2023: 18,012 kWh (12.9 MWh) Another wet month, which may not be great for humans, especially parents of school age children, but is great for Archie! Unfortunately the wet weather also scuppered our attempt to perform some preventative maintenance in August; the bottom bearing would benefit from some TLC, and although our stalwart volunteers had the sandbags and work parties all ready to go the river did not cooperate and we will have to wait for a low river level coinciding with a weekend when our volunteers are available.
Power produced so far in 2023, to the end of August: 126,763 kWh (126.763 MWh)
Total power produced to the end of August 2023: 1,764.179 MWh
Carbon saved so far: over 416 metric tonnes This figure is based on the current average for the National Grid of 236 g/kWh (electricityinfo.org). When we began generating in September 2008 the National Grid had a much worse carbon footprint, so this figure is a very conservative estimate.

Torrs Hydro New Mills Limited

Torrs Hydro New Mills Limited is a Community Benefit Society incorporated in 2007. We are collectively and democratically owned by its members, and it is thanks to our members’ investment in withdrawable, community shares (i.e. very distinct from the transferable shares of a private or public company), as well as some grant funding, that the capital was raised to build the plant.
Back in 2007 we were almost unique in raising community share capital.
Learn more about the society, including the Annual Reports that describe important events in each year and each year’s Financial Report.

Community Power

Torrs Hydro is an example of the power of communities to take action and begin to address the challenges that climate change presents to us all. We are a community owned and community funded organisation.

Volunteers

Torrs Hydro is run entirely by volunteers. Amongst them are engineers, health and safety specialists, teachers, community workers, computer whizz kids etc, etc, basically just ordinary folk with a passion for green technology. Do you have time to spare to help Archie?

The daily checks on the site
Work parties to unblock and clean up Archie
Show organised groups around the site (mostly Monday to Friday)
The administration of our Community Benefit Society