You can be happy when it rains

"Normally we would all be complaining about the rain - now every time the heavens open all we can see are kilowatts of electricity falling out of the sky," says one of the founders of community hydro scheme, Settle Hydro.

Similar small-scale projects, including one at Kirkthorpe Weir, have been or are being considered around the country as a way of providing revenue and reducing carbon emissions.

Settle community groups have set themselves up as an "industrial and provident society" to build and operate a 50kw plant on the town's weir that will generate 184,000kwh of green, renewable electricity a year, enough to power around 50 houses.(cont)

They hope to raise £100,000 from their share issue - each share costs £1 - with the rest of the money cominbg from grants and a bank loan to be repaid from revenue generated by selling electricity to the national grid.

The money will be used to purchase and install the plant, which uses a modernised version of a 2000 year-old Greek invention - the Archimedean screw.

A feasibility study suggests the scheme will work well. They hope to start construction in January and to have the plant up and running by the middle of next year.

Investors are being promised a fair return on their money - up to a maximum of 7.5% a year but the organisers of the project stress that they should see it as a social rather than a financial investment.

Shares will not be traded, investors who want to get out will have to sell them back to the owning society, and any excess profits will be used to fund other green projects in the town.

The Guardian