Ballybofey hydro lights
TreeHugger recently featured an article on Ireland trying out water powered street lights. It’s pretty funny, because the photo that they include is of the Ha’penny Bridge when in fact the scheme is setting up over in Donegal. That’s beside the point, it’s good that these big global blogs are picking up on stories from the smaller towns in our country. In fact, I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about the scheme earlier as my old man works part-time in renewable energy.
“It can produce enough energy to power up to three lights. However, we will just use one light at first,” [energy development officer Toni] Needham said.
The hydro unit cost €3,000. The council provided €50,000 in 2008 to pilot alternative energy lighting. LH Ecotech Ltd in Co Laois has been contracted by the council to supply and install hydro and solar power lights on the Ballybofey bridge.
After the winter water levels drop on the River Finn, a micro hydro-turbine is going to be installed under a bridge in Ballybofey. The water pressure will power a 110 watt turbine, energy generated will charge up batteries, which will then power a 30 watt LED mounted above the bridge. The lights will also have solar panels for times when the water pressure drops. This move by the county council is progressive, but not enough. Once they tap into the power of the river, they may realise that they can power more than just the lights on the bridge. It will be interesting to see how the council starts to harness more renewable energy-power, and if other county councils follow suit.
This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
