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Tag: Water

Low flows for the River Thames at Reading is likely to continue

06/09/202210/09/2022 Anne WheldonLeave a comment
Coutersy of Callum Cromwell, Callum’s Night Photography

Reading Hydro volunteer Wilson Chan is a PhD student at Reading University, carrying out research on the impacts of climate change on UK water resources.  He’s applied his data modelling expertise to predict likely flow in the River Thames over the next few months. In a future blog he’ll update the data and also discuss the likely impact of climate change on the Thames flow. It’s great to have Wilson’s data modelling expertise to help us understand river flow better (even though the outlook is somewhat gloomy for the next few months….).

July 2022 has been confirmed the driest July on record for southern England.  The same month also saw a record-breaking heatwave with temperatures reaching 40°C for the first time. Precursors to the latest drought were a drier than average winter and spring 2022, and the driest winter-spring sequence since the 1970s. The flow of the River Thames at Reading has been declining since spring 2022 and high evaporation from the exceptionally hot and dry summer has exacerbated this decline. This low flow means that Reading Hydro hasn’t been able to generate electricity since June. So what is the outlook for the coming months?

To look at this, I followed the UKCEH Hydrological Outlook “Ensemble Streamflow Prediction” (ESP) technique based on historical climate to look at the likely river flows over the coming year. Details of the model and technique are in this paper, and the results are summarised in the graphs below.

The black line at the left of the upper graph is the actual flow of the Thames at Reading up to August 2022.  Each of the 56 grey lines that continue from August suggest the possible flow for the coming year, modelled by assuming that the rainfall and temperature will be identical to one of the past 56 years. The variation in weather from year to year leads to a large variation in predicted river flow, as anyone who has lived in Reading for a long time would expect. I have highlighted what would happen if we have a repeat of weather from particularly dry years (i.e. 1976, 2003 and 2011).  

It’s useful to see the wide range of plausible flow rates, but how do we know what flow is likely on a given future day?  The approach I used is to calculate the percentage of simulations falling in defined ‘bands’ of flow rate, which gives the probability that, based on past weather, the flow on a particular day next year will lie within this band, as shown in the lower graph.  Here, I’ve chosen thresholds relevant to Reading Hydro: a) 5.24 m/s, the hands-off flow below which we are never allowed to generate, b) 11.44 m/s, the minimum flow required for full generation and c) 37.9 m/s, the average flow of Thames at Reading.

The prediction isn’t very encouraging. It suggests that, without exceptionally high rainfall soon, there is a high likelihood that river flow will be below the level needed for the Reading Hydro turbines to re-start operation, until at least October 2022.

Our Annual Report & Financial Statement

26/03/202016/06/2021 Chris Brook
Reading Hydro AGM

Reading Hydro CBS Ltd has released its Annual Report and Financial Statement (up until 30th September 2019), ahead of our AGM on the 30th March 2020, hosted online with Zoom.

To review this report, please follow this link. A permanent link to this report will be placed on our website in due course.

With many thanks,

The Directors, Reading Hydro CBS Ltd

JOIN US AT OUR UPCOMING AGM AND ACTIVITY MEETING AT THAMES LIDO

18/03/201931/12/2019 Erica PurvisLeave a comment

Join us on Tuesday the 26th of March from 6:30pm for a 7pm start, until around 9:30pm, for our Annual General Meeting.

What better place to have the Reading Hydro AGM than right next to Caversham Weir, at the Thames Lido? They’ve kindly donated their meeting room for our evening use.

We’ll be quickly going through our AGM business, review of activities and accounts for the 2017 to 2019 period, give you further updates on what’s been happening more recently, and then have an activity evening where you can all contribute. It’s a chance to hear more about key areas of support and skills we may be looking for in the next stages.

Member, community share investor, volunteer or just curious to get involved, we’d love to see you there!

If possible, please let us know if you’ll be joining so we can keep a track on numbers. You can let us know if you’ll be joining either via our facebook event or dropping us an email.


WE’VE BEAN BUSY

18/05/201831/12/2019 Erica PurvisLeave a comment

It’s been a busy couple of months for Reading Hydro since our AGM at the end of March.

Firstly we want to say thank you to all who joined us there, voted, ate cake and helped us take Reading Hydro forward. Alongside this a huge and overdue welcome to all our new members that joined that evening and since. Apologies for our slow response in sharing more information about what we’ve been up to since then, alongside the different ways you can get involved:

To name a few:

There’s our facebook group where all can share ideas, inspiration and events (whether you’re a member or not). You can also follow and interact on our various social medis platforms, Twitter and Instagram. You can also ping us @rdgHydro or #rdgukHydro and we’ll pick up what you’re sharing (we love anything around the river, on the river, incolving the community, environment and renewable energy).

We’ve been holding monthly action evenings although in the last months have interspersed this with being and taking part at some events andworking on our plans.

As well as this, members can also opt in to join our slack working group communication, if you want to get active on particular topics. A key one at the moment is further publicty and communication support, digital online, graphic design, social media and community building.

Sun and Smiles on Bean Pole Day

No it wasn’t a spelling mistake in the title. Last month we took part in a wonderful yearly event held in the beautiful Caversham Court grounds. Bean Pole day, put on by Reading’s and Berkshire’s EcoNet conservation volunteers.

What is Bean Pole day, I hear you say? Well it’s an opportunity to buy Bean Poles (long thin peices of wood) as well as peas sticks, that you will be able to use to truss your beans and peas to.

Alongside this there were a whole host of local growing and green, ethical groups inlcuding growers from Tilehurst, Friends of the Earth, Global Justice now, the Reading Beekeepers and Food 4 Familes.

” But this seems to be something that would be too good to be true in Reading” – New member 

We had a great time sharing what we’re up to at Reading Hydro as well as welcoming new member to the Community Benefit Society.  A definite event to look out for and attend next year (especially when the sun shines)!

Hydro Field Trip

Members of the team and some of our wider board of experts also undertook a trip to the wilds of Cambridgeshire to visit a hydro scheme under development at the moment at Eaton Socon.

Here they are actually implementing the same VerdErg Venturi Enhanced Turbine Technology that we are looking at implementing in Reading. Like us, the part of the River Great Ouse that it is being implemented in has a low head of 1.4m.

It’s actually being installed right beside The River Mill pub that was the old mill there, so soon the pub will be getting much of it’s electricity from renewable hydro power and in a lovely sort of way, reclaiming it’s original heritage. We can’t wait to see it working later this year.

Planning Planning

The great thing about Reading Hydro is  seeing the different skills and support from our members and team that come forward to help with certain aspects.

Over the last number of Action Evenings, we’d been focusing on planning and structuring the different tasks. Ultimately ensuring that all the activities were documented and the flow of getting to building the Hydro were captured.

Recently we got together and restructured and detailed our planning and now have our Project Control Centre  or PCC, (as all good engineering projects should be filled with acronyms), up and running. Particular thanks to all who have been involved with this. 

Look Out For Our GDPR Communication and Updates

By now you’ve no doubt been unundated by countless emails from organisations, asking you to reconfirm you’d still like to hear from  them, alongside our own.

For those of you who are members, as part of your membership is our communication to you on Reading Hydro and key events such as our AGM, so this additional email is primariliy related to our wider supporters who may not be members. Howevere, it’s quick and easy though to review and update your email details (or even sign up to our newsletter if not already) here.

We look forward to collaborating and sharing more with our growing community.

WORLD WATER DAY 2018

22/03/201822/03/2018 Erica PurvisLeave a comment

Today is World Water Day 2018

It’s a day designated by the United Nations to focus the attention on the importance of water!

As yes, as the saying going ‘Water is Life” 

Sustainable Development Goal 6 commits the world to ensuring that everyone has access to safe water by 2030, and includes targets on protecting the natural environment and reducing pollution.

This years theme is ‘Nature for Water‘, exploring how we can use nature to overcome the water challenges of the 21st century.

So let’s respect it, cherish it, protect it and learn from the energy and life it creates!

Show your water love and take a picture of the water in your life for Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and tag it #rdgukhydro

JOIN US FOR OUR AGM, ACTION EVENING (AND CAKE) – 27th of March, 7:30pm to 10:00pm The Outlook

15/03/201815/03/2018 Erica PurvisLeave a comment

Come along to Reading Hydro’s 2nd AGM , hear updates, get involved and celebrate the progress we’ve all made!

We’ll be sharing where we’re up to with the project and reflect what we’ve done towards our objectives. Then carry on building on this together.

As a member it’s important that you are able to share your views, ideas and help us shape Reading Hydro going forward!

If you are not already a member you are more than welcome to join us as well and if you want can also join there. Just £1 to join our community co-op (we are a Community Benefit Society)

We’ll be downstairs at The Outlook  (which also serves food) and we’ll be bringing some cake (including Vegan).

We’re looking forward to seeing and working with our members, volunteers and supporters to continue moving Reading Hydro forward!

News

  • Recent rains have reduced our generation
  • Reading Hydro highlighted at COP27
  • Generation starts again
  • Reading Hydro & Running Out of Time Relay
  • Low flows for the River Thames at Reading is likely to continue
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