Clearing the way for clean energy

An afternoon spent clearing the trash screens at Sandford Hydro (located at Sandford-on-Thames just south of Oxford) to optimise energy generation. The hydro uses three Archimedes screws to generated electricity to power the local homes. To stop large debris entering and damaging the screws there are trash screens, our task was to clear the debris from one of these screens to increase the power generated by the middle screw. After two hours of hard work clearing logs, buckets, washing up bowls and a lot of plant material we'd almost doubled the screw's power output! This one screw, from our hard work, increased its power output by 40kW! This was enough to power an extra 100 homes , not bad for two hours of cleaning!