One in the chamber for concrete specialist as turbine project reaches completion

Whites Concrete has supplied a pre-cast concrete chamber for an 11-tonne Archimedean screw turbine installed on the banks of the River Esk in Whitby, North Yorkshire by national engineering and construction company JN Bentley. The Whites Concrete chamber has been constructed using robust Groundwall L-shaped units, to house the 2.9m diameter screw turbine. The latter will operate with up to 4 cumec with a rated capacity of 51.6KW as it generates electricity for Esk Energy (Yorkshire), an industrial provident society set up and managed by local residents. Esk Energy secured funding towards the cost of the project through a community share issue along with the necessary planning and license permissions. As principal contractor, JN Bentley was responsible for the design of the scheme, which has also included the refurbishment of the existing Environment Agency fish pass and its conversion to a Larinier-type fish pass to help increase the River Esk’s salmon and sea trout stocks. The River Esk can send up to 4 tonnes of water down the Archimedean screw every second – forcing it to rotate whilst a generator extracts the energy made by the turning of the screw, converting it into electricity.