News

Are you free to join us on the morning of Sunday 22nd May to help with weeding the hedge at Osney Lock Hydro? We’ll be down on the site from 10.30am and would welcome any time you can spare to help us. Please let us know if you are able to lend a hand via…

Congratulations to the residents of West Oxford who have been awarded a Certificate of Honour for their effort and achievements in reducing the community’s carbon emissions to combat climate change over the last eight years. The certificate was presented by Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, Tim Stevenson, during a special ceremony on Monday 9 May 2016 at Oxford…

April was a really good month for output with average output at over 40kW,   At the end of March our total generation was  just short of 100,000kWh. One month on and we are just short of 130,000kWh. We’ve been delighted to have several groups visit the hydro for guided tours this month, including two groups from Oxford…

Thanks to the hydro’s recent high output, we’ve reached a huge milestone in community renewable energy in West Oxford – the generation of the one millionth unit of green electricity from community owned renewables. We’ve come a long way  since the very first installation in 2009 by West Oxford Community Renewables – an 11kWp array on…

Members of the Osney Lock Hydro team have been visiting local primary schools to talk about the project and run workshops on electricity generation as part of science week. Students at St Ebbes Primary School helped Director Ali Lloyd calculate the power generated by the hydro.   Over at North Hinksey Primary, Saskya Huggins joined…

The heavy rains this month has given us a fast flowing river, but increased the height of the weir pool at the bottom of the hydro, and so reducing the hydro head height. Overall, we’ve seen decent results, with more than 16,000 kWh being generated this month, bringing total generation to 73,805kWh by the end…

The last few days have seen good flow conditions on the river, and total generation reached the 60,000kWh mark this morning.

We’ve seen steady generation throughout January, with the total generation hitting 57,000kWh by the end of the month. River conditions have seen the river on ‘red’ with the increased water in the river system, resulting in a decreased drop of head height at the hydro.   The effect of the high flow has sadly been…

We were thrilled to see Osney Lock Hydro featured in this year’s local pantomine.  This beautiful barge formed part of the magnificent set for this year’s West Oxford Pantomime Association’s production of Dick Wellington.

After a long dry summer, with rain fall well below average, we started the New Year with Osney on flood alert. Although we have been spared the record breaking rainfall experienced by Scotland, Wales and North West England this December, the Environment Agency monitors reflect the recent rains with increased flow and river levels. You can keep…

We’ve had a number of questions asked by local residents who are interested in understanding what potential impact, if any, the hydro may have on local flooding.  With the help of the Environment Agency, we have put together the following information which we hope will reassure our neighbours, and help shed light on how local waterways…

We are most upset to learn that misinformation regarding a recent stoppage at Osney Lock Hydro has been circulated to local residents. We would like to reassure residents that the hydro poses no additional risk to flooding, and that our operation is fully integrated into the local waterways management system. On the evening of Thursday 10…