Hydro-electric scheme on the River Thames by Caversham Weir to be built in 2020

Reading Hydro Community Benefit Society (CBS) has announced that its main share offer opens today (December 30, 2019).

The share offer will fund a hydro-electric scheme on the river Thames by Caversham Weir, to be built in 2020.

Two Archimedes Screw turbines should generate about 320MWh of renewable electricity each year, for decades to come.

This is enough to supply about 90 average homes.

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It will also pay for improvements to the local environment around View Island, including a new fish pass to help fish and eels move up the river.

Sophie Paul, chair of the Reading Hydro, who has been involved in the project since the start, said: “I delight in the smell of the water going over Caversham Weir, along with the sight and sound of power in that water.”

Reading Hydro is a volunteer-led Community Benefit Society, which has worked for years to bring this project to fruition.

Reading Hydro is now looking to raise £700,000 through a share offer, and through their pre-registration process, which opened the December 16, have already received over £35,000 of pledges to invest, even before today’s launch.

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The hydropower scheme will be a community-owned asset, with any profits supporting other action to tackle climate change. Individuals and organisations can help offset their carbon emissions by using their money to take positive action.

Individuals and organisations can apply for between £75 and £70,000 of shares, by applying from https://hydro.readinguk.org/shares/.

Andy Tunstall, who looks after Strategy & Marketing for the Society, added: “It’s great to be involved with something that will have so much benefit to the community of Reading on so many levels.”