Potential Sites of Hydropower Opportunity
This record is for Approval for Access product AfA175. These data show the location of opportunities for hydropower and the basic environmental sensitivity associated with exploiting them in England and Wales. A total of 25,935 ‘barriers’ are identified and assessed in this project. The term ‘barriers’ is used to describe sites with sufficient drop to provide a hydropower opportunity. They are mostly weirs, but could also be other man-made structures or natural features, such as waterfalls. The average maximum power generation capacity on a barrier was 45Kw, with a total potential capacity of 1178Mw. Environmental sensitivities were assessed. This assessment considered the presence of fish species and whether the site has been designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC). Almost half (46%) of these barriers are classified as highly sensitive, mostly because of the presence of migratory fish species such as salmon and eel. 27% are medium and high sensitivity, and the remainder are unclassified due to a lack of data. When it is assumed that a new scheme has a fish pass built into it, the environmentally compatible opportunities increase considerably. A filtered dataset is also available based on potential power output and environmental sensitivity, AfA206 'Potential Sites of Hydropower Opportunity - filtered'. Given the scale of the project and the data used, the results are not intended to replace any part of an individual site assessment. Instead, the dataset gives national and regional level overviews of the potential opportunities available, their locations, and their relative environmental sensitivity to exploitation. INFORMATION WARNING These data are intended to provide national and regional overviews of the potential hydropower opportunities available, their locations, and their relative environmental sensitivity to exploitation. At site-level, there will be some error inherent in the results as the map uses a national GIS dataset that is based on various sources. One-third of the sites where older ‘Synthetic Aperture RADAR (SAR) data was used for the height estimate include an error of up to one metre. The remaining two-thirds use ‘Light Detection and Ranging’ (LIDAR), which is accurate to 25cm. This means that the data for an individual site may be inaccurate, but at the national and regional level the error will be averaged out to an extent. There is not a high level of confidence in the power generation calculation. The power category takes account of this uncertainty. These data are indicative only and are not intended to replace any part of an individual site assessment, which is necessary for a full scheme appraisal. Attribution statement: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2015. All rights reserved.
dataset
https://ea.sharefile.com/d-s4eaf19553534bcd8
protocol:
name:
description: External version on Defra Data Services Platform
a93f1266-17cb-4785-9654-6fb678c6c9d0
eng
http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/27700
inlandWaters
environment
OpenData
energy supply
energy resource
energy technology
publication
2010-01-13
-6.236
2.072
55.816
49.943
http://data.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/doc/country/england
http://data.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/doc/country/wales
2010-01-01
creation
2010-01-01
revision
2015-12-16
notPlanned
Barriers were identified by assessing natural and manmade features identified in OS MasterMap - Topography. Height has been assigned to the barriers using 25cm LiDAR data in addition to flow derived from LowFLows Enterprise. Potential power has been calculated using flow and height.
Proprietary format | MS Excel (XLS)
Open Government Licence
There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the licence identified.
Environment Agency
data.info@environment-agency.gov.uk
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/environment-agency
description: Environment Agency Website
pointOfContact
Environment Agency
data.info@environment-agency.gov.uk
pointOfContact
2019-02-28