Engineering news
A multidisciplinary team of engineers is making progress in the construction of a £2.5 million hydroelectric power project in County Durham.
The hydroelectric power station is being built at Selset Reservoir, 14km northwest of Barnard Castle, by RWE Npower Renewables in a partnership with Northumbrian Water, which operates a number of reservoirs in the area.
Mechanical, civil and electrical engineers and a team of contractors began work at the site in April. Completion of the project is scheduled for the end of the year. The hydroelectric power station will generate enough electricity to power about 1,000 homes at full capacity. The turbine and mechanical and electrical plant are being supplied by Germany’s Andritz Hydro. The project is RWE Npower Renewables’ first hydroelectric power station to be built in England, following similar schemes in north Wales and Scotland. Selset Reservoir discharges into a weir pond, providing a natural source of energy that the power station will use to generate electricity.
The powerhouse for the station will be built in the style of a Teesdale farm building in stone and with a pitched roof so that it blends in with the local environment. One of the challenges for the engineers working on the project is that the site is relatively confined. Tim James, project manager at RWE Npower Renewables, said: “It’s a very challenging site. Even though we are in the middle of the countryside, it’s very compact.
“My civil contractor has likened the project to trying to work in a city centre because the area where we are constructing the powerhouse is surrounded on four sides; by the dam; by the dam abutment; by some of the infrastructure, a valve house and a pipe trench; and on the other side we’ve got the weir pond. It’s challenging to get more than one workspace going at any one time.”
The Selset site is being developed following an invitation by Northumbrian Water to tender for the construction of hydroelectric projects on its reservoirs. “It’s an interesting project because a lot of our hydro schemes are ‘run-of-river’ schemes,” said James.
James added: “Water is transferred from Selset Reservoir to two other reservoirs in the system and we are just taking advantage of this flow.
“The reservoir has been operating for 60 years and we’re going to be able to take advantage of that free energy for the first time.”
RWE Npower Renewables is involved in a number of hydroelectric schemes as well as marine energy and on and offshore wind projects.