Saski Huggins

On Sunday 8th November a team of local volunteers made short work of planting hedging plants along the boundary of the site.  The plants were donated by the Woodland Trust as part of The First World War Centenary Woods project to plant millions of native trees to commemorate the First World War. The hedge is the first…

A quick post to share the great news that the recent rains have done their job and the hydro is generating. With impeccable timing the screw started turning yesterday afternoon,  just in time for the pre-AGM tours. Generation is dependent on river flow at Osney, which in turn depends on rain fall in the Thames…

5th September sees the start of the third Community Energy Fortnight.  There are a range of great events happening up and down the country.  You can find out more on their website. There are range of inspiring events – from seeing inside a wind turbine, building your own solar panel, to a tour of our very own…

UPDATE: The tours are now all full.  We hope to hold more tours in the future. Please contact us to let us know if you’d like to know about future tour dates.   This September we’ll be taking part in Oxford Open Doors – a  weekend when we celebrate Oxford and all that makes it special –…

This year’s AGM will be taking place in West Oxford on Tuesday 6th October 6-8pm.  We’ll also be offering Members attending the AGM the opportunity to have a guided tour of the hydro beforehand.   Please save the date, and watch out for an email with further details in September.    

We’ve been delighted by the enthusiastic response to the news that the hydro is now operational with many requests for visits from local residents, council groups and other community groups interested in setting up their own community owned hydro schemes. Our only disappointment is that visitors are currently unable to see the screw turning as…

We have been working with residents living very close to the hydro to help identify the source of disruptive noise and vibrations which they have been experiencing in their homes recently. These have been traced back to the new weir B gate, which forms part of the new weir complex near Osney Lock. The Environment…

Great news from the river bank – we have started generating in earnest! With all the various tests successfully completed the hydro was ready to start generating, and with the recent rain, last Friday there was enough water in the river for the hydro to start running. The summer time is traditionally a time of lower…

Today marks another important day down at the river bank – the start of the final testing phase for the hydro. The hydro plant was technically commissioned on 30th January but that wasn’t the end of the story for the development work. A further phase of telecommunications installation and lock-keeper training then had to begin.…

Last summer we were thrilled to be awarded a grant by the University of Oxford Small Community Grants Scheme to enable us to carry out audience research and interpretation plan for development for the public open space.  A short film featuring three of the projects the fund has supported – including OLH – has just been…

Osney Lock Hydro will be featured on this Monday’s Inside Out (South) on BBC 1 at 7.30pm.   Local wind farm Westmill will also ‘star’ in this article on community energy.  Missed, it?  You can catch in on the BBC iplayer here.

Our GE59 test was carried out this morning, and following a satisfactory test of the generating equipment, the hydro has been officially commissioned – the executive team celebrated with much needed hot chocolate after a chilly on-site orientation session this lunchtime. There are still final bits of work to do before we get fully operational,…