Totnes - the River Dart and the Electricity Generating Weir - EP4

After a very agreeable lunch in the Steam Packet, next to The River Dart, in Totnes, I decided to visit the River Dart Weir - something I have never done before even though I lived beside the river in my childhood.
And fascinating as the weir was I did not expect to see that they were generating electricity, using an archimedes screw turbine. Using fresh water coming down stream from Dartmoor, 1.25 Megawatts of electricity is generated annually - enough for 330 homes!
‪@RobLittleuk‬

[@graemebowyer4901]

Very interesting, beats me while we don't have many more of the contraptions, after all, we have enough rivers and PLENTY of water.

[@RobLittleuk]

Exactly !

[@Stefan_trekkie]

They speak like green energy is a new thing.. Not knowing that the first factories in the UK where water wheel powered in the 1800's

[@RobLittleuk]

I can only reply by saying "exactly" !

[@chrisweeks6973]

They are considerably older than that. Waterwheels were in use during the Helenistic Period (323 BC - 30 BC) and the Roman Period (8 BC - 5 AD) and in other cultures, too. In the UK they were used extensivly from the 1st Industrial Revolution (1760 and on). As a boy I used to cycle past the Saxon Mill at Guy's Cliffe, just outside Warwick; the waterwheel mill there on the Avon River dates from the early 1600's, was rebuilt in 1822 and remained operational as a corn mill until 1938.

[@Stefan_trekkie]

@@chrisweeks6973 I mean it to have more complex industrial manufacturing machines outputting something at the end on mass at good speeds. Sawing, working on metals /lathe turning, milling, pneumatic hammers etc./

[@chrisweeks6973]

@@Stefan_trekkie Fair enough; for industrial output one obviously has to go back to the Industrial Revolution, commenced around 1760.