Open Day - 31 August - 3-5pm

As part of the Community Energy fortnight 'Archie' will have an Open day this Saturday 31 August


Come and take a look behind the scenes of the UK's first owned and run Community Hydro.

For other ideas of what to see and do in New Mills www.facebook.com/visitnewmills or search for New Mills on Tripadvisor.

Community Energy fortnight - 24 August to 8 September

Join us for a day of activities including tours of community owned hydro electric schemes in Stockport and New Mills. A coach leaves Stockport Town Hall at 10am to visit Stockport Hydro. From there we will go onto Stockport Masonic Guildhall, 169-171 Wellington Road, SK1 3UA for a lunch reception and energy saving workshops (starts 12 noon). Finally, we''ll visit Torrs Hydro in New Mills for a tour and refreshments (starts 3pm). The coach will leave to return to Stockport Town Hall at 5.00pm.

Please feel free to join us at any point during the day.

Stockport Hydro is a renewable energy scheme at Otterspool Wier on the river Goyt near Marple, Stockport. It has been up and running since October 2012. In addition to contributing to a reduced carbon footprint, Stockport Hydro hope in future years to be able to generate surplus funds, allowing them to support and contribute to a range of other community projects. With two Archimedes screws, which can operate independently and at variable speeds, they have been able to generate power even at times of low water levels: a first, we believe, for schemes such as this.

Torrs Hydro is an example of the power of communities to take action and begin to address the challenges that climate change presents to us all. They are a community owned and community funded organisation. Their reverse Archimedes screw turbine (known as Archie) is designed to produce around 240 000 kWh of electricity over a typical year. This is the equivalent of the annual electricity consumption of around 50 typical British homes and saves over 150 tonnes of CO2 emissions compared to conventional electricity generation. Archie has been producing power since September 2008 and has now passed the 700,000 kWh (700 MWh) mark.

Bookings are required for this event, so please click the button on the right to sign up, or email: membership.northwest@co-operative.coopThe Community Energy Fortnight

The Community Energy Fortnight is an initiative of the Community Energy Coalition. Running from 24th August - 8th September, events will be taking place right across the UK. Through these events, we aim to engage and inspire people about the wide-ranging benefits of community energy, and to generate support for our vision of community energy at scale in the UK by 2020.

New Mills Festival '13 - Lantern Parade

One of the highlights of the New Mills calendar (and Torrs Hydro calendar) is when thousands of people parade past Archie during the New Mills festival.

Each year the town is transformed by thousands (5,000+ last year) of people who have spent weeks making amazing lanterns - they parade through the Torrs riverside park at dusk and this year will finish on Market Street where they will be thoroughly entertained entertained and surrounded by a festival of food and drink !

All of this is free t anyone who wants to attend - but its obviously not free to organise - the cost of insuring an event like this would make most people say 'how much !!'

Fortunately we are surrounded by amazing local people and festival goers who help to make this a reality with their fund raising activities - this year we are also going 'digital' to allow those who do enjoy the festival but arent close enough to help raise funds to make a small donation - we have nearly reached our target and with your help we can get on with the important stuff of actually helping you to enjoy yourselves during the festival - all you have to do is click on the link and donate anything from a £1 - the more you give the more you get back as gifts - just click and you'll see what we mean

New Mills Lantern Parade


Archie will also be transformed with his own light show so do take a look as you walk over the bridge

Great weather for ducklings

After weeks of sunshine and no rain the recent storms brought Archie to life again only to be stopped by... ducklings !

A small family of ducks (including two duckings) had taken a liking to the area close by to the Hydro intake - to be on the safe side we decided to wait until they had moved on - they can still be found further up the River Goyt near to Goytside farm along with the Herons and Canada geese.

A few drops of rain later today will have Archie powering away again.