Snow this evening will become lighter late. Low near 30F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 90%. Snow accumulating 1 to 3 inches..
Snow this evening will become lighter late. Low near 30F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 90%. Snow accumulating 1 to 3 inches. Floating Trash Solution
New turbines at the Albion Hydro facility spin, generating electricity.
New turbines at the Albion Hydro facility spin, generating electricity.
CUMBERLAND – The power of the Blackstone River is now spinning a pair of Archimedes screw turbines at the Albion Dam, generating electric power.
Blackstone River Hydro Holdings brought the full power plant online to close out 2023.
Generator one at Albion has been operational since Nov. 15, and a second generator went live a month later.
Town Planner Glenn Modica had said in April that he expected the turbines to be functional a month later, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony to be held not long after that.
Two 25-ton turbine assemblies were lowered into place a year ago.
Blackstone River Hydro Holdings acquired the project from New England Hydropower Company in 2021, bringing the project to completion.
With the Archimedes screw design at Albion, a canal receives water through a trash rack regulated by a sluice gate. As water pushes the blades, it causes them to spin between 30 and 40 revolutions per minute, and an attached generator stores the energy and then disperses it.
The turbines have an installed capacity of 430 kilowatts, and generate 2,034 megawatt hours of electricity per year.
The Ashton Dam Hydroelectric Project further up the river is still being developed by New England Hydropower, featuring vertical turbines.
Modica confirmed this week that no formal plans have been submitted to the town for that project yet.
In a previous story on a public informational meeting Oct. 10, The Breeze reported on the concerns of various groups, particularly on historic preservation and environmental impacts. New England Hydropower representatives are planning to fix up the badly deteriorated dam as part of the project. They pledged to restore the spillway and raise water levels, promising to release renderings of the project in the near future.
The two-part project on the two dams is heavily regulated and permitted. The Albion project, on the Cumberland side of the river across from the Albion section of Lincoln, is the first such small-scale hydropower plant in the state, according to company representatives.
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So I have a question. You pretty much destroyed the pristineness of a beautiful waterfall on the Blackstone River by putting this god awful eyesore of a power ( whatever ) there. So my question is who benefits from this eyesore? I know I don't. The same with all the solar panel farms, who benefits from them? I know I don't. My electricity rates are not going down. Who is getting the electricity these eyesores are supposed to be generating? I know I'm not. Oh wait, the rumor is the sell off the stored electricity to other countries. GREAT, we destroy our land to benefit others so that land owners can get huge tax breaks on their land. Talk about selling out your own country. I wish I could benefit from all these eyesores because my electricity bill would be much cheaper. But that is never going to happen right.
AMEN! People keep voting BLUE this will continue to happen!
The Blackstone River Watershed Council/Friends of the Blackstone have been trying to get fish passages on the River for decades now. Frank Geary had taken the lead on the project and we were told that the state of Rhode Island and NRCS had appropriated the money for fish passages on the first three days of the Blackstone River.
Furthermore FERC required fish passages on all dams with hydropower.
Does this dam have fish passages that will allow trout eels and any anadromous fish that could possibly make it this far up the river system.
I doubt if this has been done on this dam.
Once again the environment gets short changed to benefit an industry.
Yes it's nice to have hydro-power but at what expense?
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