First Windsor Castle Now Chatsworth House To Generate Electricity
The Duke of Devonshire is keen to follow Windsor Castle and hopes the River Derwent will be able to generate electricity for Chatsworth House.
Utility Exchange reported recently that Windsor Castle was set to go green as the River Thames is to be used to generate electricity. The company behind the Windsor Castle project, Southeast Power Engineering, is currently in talks with the Duke of Devonshire over plans to develop a similar scheme in the Derbyshire countryside to power Chatsworth House.
Chatsworth already generates a third of its electricity via turbines installed in 1893 which helps to reduce its business electricity costs. At the time, the 8th Duke of Devonshire commissioned water powered turbines to make use of the gravity fed water system that is used in the fountains at Chatsworth. Chatsworth used green electricity until 1936 when the house was connected to the National Grid.
However, the 11th Duke decided to return to the environmentally friendly way of generating electricity in the 1980’s and he commissioned a new turbine to be fed by the same pipes used in the 1890’s. This now generates a third of the electricity for the house but with rising business electricity prices the 12th Duke wants to increase the amount of renewable electricity at Chatsworth and hopes a scheme similar to the one planned for Windsor Castle can be implemented in Derbyshire.
However, it looks like the turbines needed for the project will have to be built abroad as Southeast Power Engineering can’t get a bank to lend the money to build the turbines.
Director of Southeast Power Engineering, David Dechambreau, said “I have got a local company that would be willing to build the turbines, but we are finding it difficult to find the financial support needed to build this Archimedes-type pump for the first time”.
It’s not only Windsor Castle and Chatsworth House that hope to reduce their business electricity costs by installing renewable energy. Southeast Power has a number of other projects on the Thames and River Avon which will help homes and businesses to reduce their energy costs at a time when both gas and business electricity prices are increasing.
However, it’s seems a shame that such projects can’t get the UK funding or backing required and that turbines needed to generate renewable energy have to be built on the continent.