On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:18:21 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

Feed in Tariff is for small scale systems, so operators of large
scale hydro schemes will get nothing from it.

I would have thought that taking advantage of reservoir flood control
let down would be a fairly small scale scheme.

I made a *very* rough guesstimate that the let down from Cow Green
would be in the order of a megawatt. FITs apply to Hydro schemes up
to 5MW.

It could certainly be attractive for people owning former mill houses by
a river etc.

I suspect your average mill water wheel will only produce a couple of
kW, not much head but hopefully reasonable flow. According to:

http://www.reuk.co.uk/Calculation-of-Hydro-Power.htm

3m head and 20l/sec can be realistically expected to generate 353W.

Cow Green: 20m head 10,000l/sec (10 cu m/sec) 1,177,200W.

Trouble is Cow Green is in the middle of no where, it would be costly
to put in the line to get the power out. 1MW is 90A at 11kV. I reckon
I^2R losses would be starting to kick in so you'd need to put in a
33kV rather than a link to the nearest 11kV line and local upgrade of
that.

--
Cheers
Dave.