They weren’t burying a physique, they had been marking the spot of the UK’s very first city hydro challenge – and the timing was essential.
In 4 days’ time, planning permission for the entire growth would expire. However the gap was dug and everybody cheered. Work – such because it was – had begun.
One afternoon in July 2014, a bunch of individuals gathered to dig a gap subsequent to the River Don in Tillydrone.
Now, they simply wanted to search out £1.2 million.
The essential precept of hydropower is that water is piped from a better degree to a decrease degree, with the ensuing water stress getting used to generate electrical energy.
For most individuals, a picture of an enormous dam most likely springs to thoughts. However “micro” variations do precisely the identical job simply on a smaller scale.
The Tillydrone micro-hydro scheme is situated on a bend of the River Don on the fringe of a former paper mill.
By short-cutting this bend within the river, the hydro makes use of the sloping river mattress that drops about 2.5m and over a distance of simply 200m.
The set up makes use of a 25 tonne Archimedes screw to maneuver the water from the excessive floor to the decrease floor.
It’s this move of water that drives a mechanical shaft which then drives an electrical generator.
A cable connects the entire challenge as much as the nationwide grid and the renewable vitality flows seamlessly into our houses.
Simply a few miles from Aberdeen’s metropolis centre, it’s the primary city hydro challenge of its variety within the UK.
However getting it up and working wasn’t straightforward.
For a whole bunch of years, the River Don powered every kind of trade. The primary paper mill opened in 1696 and was quickly joined by wool and cornmeal factories, all fuelled by the unrelenting move of the water.
However as know-how superior, corporations left the riverbanks one after the other, leaving nature to take over as soon as extra.
