Hydropower is a mature and proven technology that helped shape the landscape of North-West England but it is now viewed as a resource with limited opportunity. In the past, it determined the location of industry and provided reliable power to carry out a range of tasks. However, since the end of the 19th century, its importance has declined.

The resource that supported the Industrial Revolution is still contained within the landscape and can still be harnessed to our advantage. With current calls for diverse clean supplies of energy, all resources should be examined and exploited wherever economically possible. This project will identify the potential capacity and define methods to circumvent the barriers to its development. North-West England has both suitable drainage systems and consistent demand making hydro and more especially low-head hydro, an attractive proposition.

There is no single barrier to the utilisation of small hydropower; there are several obstacles that impede development together. Indeed, the North-West currently does generate a limited amount of hydropower (~1.6 MW, or about 1.4% of the region's renewable capacity (0.6% of generation from less than 10 sites)) and occasionally new sites are investigated, both by Utilities or private investors.

The obstacles can be thought of as a series of questions that would be posed when deciding whether to develop systems or not. The questions require expertise from several disciplines to answer with sufficient confidence and their responses have to be integrated through an economic evaluation to produce a decision.

There are a number of potential users of a resource model who will each have different perspectives. These range from the Environment Agency who, as regulators, control the issue of licences for abstraction, are responsible for the chemical and biological condition and quality of the water, but are also mandated to encourage the use of clean renewable power to mitigate climate change. Large organisations such as United Utilities and Hyder may see the opportunity to exploit market potential, using the tool to target opportunities. At a smaller scale, a number of NW organisations are keen to be involved in the expansion of a new system, these include manufacturers, civil engineers and design.

The project addresses research issues across many disciplines and is not designed simply to collate existing knowledge. It is intended that it will form a framework on which other projects will hang to investigate new turbine designs, the impacts of climate change on NW hydrology, standardised environmental impact assessment and the dynamics of public attitudes.

Aims and Objectives

The principal aim of the NW Hydro Resource Model project is to develop a tactical tool that assists with identifying hydro power generation options for potential sites in the North West of England through multidisciplinary research. This tool operates within explicit levels of confidence; the sources of data used are clearly identified and where possible are openly available to the user. The underpinning system contains models, data and interpretations that can be applied at a region or sub-region scale for more strategic planning.

The project general aims will be achieved through the following specific objectives:

1. To develop a generic and fundamental understanding of the barriers to deployment of hydro systems in the North-West.

2. To integrate the different disciplines involved so that their information needs are met and conclusions can feed into the decision process in combination with other disciplines.

3. To benchmark the output of the model and compare with actual decisions.

4. To design the model as a functional tool so that its output is timely and valued by users.

5. To develop forms of output in consultation with users so that they are relevant to their needs.