Kielder Water
Encyclopedia
Reservoir
A reservoir , artificial lake or dam is used to store water.Reservoirs may be created in river valleys by the construction of a dam or may be built by excavation in the ground or by conventional construction techniques such as brickwork or cast concrete.The term reservoir may also be used to...
in Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
in North East England
North East England
North East England is one of the nine official regions of England. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Teesside . The only cities in the region are Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland...
. It is the largest artificial lake in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
by capacity and it is surrounded by Kielder Forest
Kielder Forest
Kielder Forest is a large forestry plantation in Northumberland, England, surrounding the reservoir Kielder Water. It is the largest man-made woodland in Europe...
, the largest human-made woodland in Europe. It was planned in the late 1960s to satisfy an expected rise in demand for water to support a booming UK industrial economy. It was constructed between 1975 and 1981 by an AMEC
AMEC
AMEC plc is a global consultancy, engineering and project management company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is focused on the oil and gas, minerals and metals, renewable energy, environment and infrastructure sectors and has offices in 40 countries worldwide...
/Balfour Beatty
Balfour Beatty
Balfour Beatty plc is a British construction, engineering, military housing, rail and investment services company. It is one of the largest construction companies in the UK, and the 15th largest in the world...
joint venture and was opened by Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
in 1982. It took two years for the valley to fill with water completely once construction was completed.
The decline of traditional heavy industry, together with more water-efficient industrial processes and better control of water supply leakage, served to undermine the original justification for the reservoir and many came to criticise the government-funded project as a white elephant
White elephant
A white elephant is an idiom for a valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth...
. In recent years, however, Kielder Water has come into its own, with underground springs ensuring that it always remains at high levels, regardless of the prevailing climate condition. This means that while the south of England is often forced to implement drought strategies and hosepipe bans, north east England enjoys plentiful water supplies.
The reservoir's main use is to provide compensating discharges into the North Tyne to support abstractions of water further downstream. It also underpins the Kielder Transfer Scheme, whereby water can be transferred to the Wear and the Tees, to meet shortfalls in those areas.
With water shortages in southern Britain apparently worsening by the year, some opinions, especially the privatised water companies, favour the building of further reservoirs of this size. Opposing arguments favour better water-resource management, improved conservation measures, control of leakage and changes in social attitudes to the use of water to manage the apparent shortfall.
Kielder Water is owned by Northumbrian Water
Northumbrian Water
Northumbrian Water Group plc is the holding company for several companies in the water supply, sewerage and waste water industries. NWG's largest subsidiary is Northumbrian Water Limited , which is one of ten companies in England and Wales that are regulated water supply and sewerage utilities...
, and holds 200 billion litres (44 billion gallons, or 0.2 cubic km), making it the largest reservoir in the UK by capacity (Rutland Water
Rutland Water
Rutland Water is Anglian Water's drinking water reservoir in the county of Rutland, England, just east of the county town Oakham. It was known as Empingham Reservoir during its construction and until its official opening in 1976. The centre of its dam is at British national grid reference...
is the largest by surface area). Kielder Water has a 27.5 miles (44.3 km) shoreline.
It is also one of the region's major tourist venues, attracting over a quarter of a million visitors a year who come to enjoy the wide range of leisure opportunities on offer.
There are two main visitor centres at Kielder Water—Leaplish waterside park and Tower Knowe visitor centre—and other facilities at Kielder
Kielder, Northumberland
Kielder Village is a small settlement in North Tynedale, Northumberland, England. Located at the head of Kielder Water and in the north west of Kielder Forest, the village is from the Scottish border.-History:...
, Falstone
Falstone
Falstone is a small village in Northumberland, England, just south of Kielder Water. The village is from the Anglo–Scottish border. The name Falstone means "speckled stone".Falstone holds a popular annual agricultural show.- Governance :...
and Stannersburn villages.
Hydro electric plant
Kielder Water is also the site of England's largest hydro electric plant. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth IIElizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
on 26 May 1982 and is owned by Northumbrian Water
Northumbrian Water
Northumbrian Water Group plc is the holding company for several companies in the water supply, sewerage and waste water industries. NWG's largest subsidiary is Northumbrian Water Limited , which is one of ten companies in England and Wales that are regulated water supply and sewerage utilities...
. In December 2005, RWE Npower Renewables
Npower (UK)
RWE Npower plc is a UK-based electricity and gas supply generation company, formerly known as Innogy plc. As Innogy plc it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index...
bought the rights to operate the plant and sell the electricity generated by it, with a contract lasting until 2025. Following the takeover, the turbines were refurbished in 2005–2006, which increased the efficiency of the electricity generation. Controls were also updated, meaning that the plant can be operated from Dolgarrog
Dolgarrog
Dolgarrog is a small village in the Conwy County Borough in North Wales situated between Llanrwst and Conwy, very close to the Conwy River. The village is well known for its industrial history since the 18th century and the Eigiau dam disaster, which occurred in 1925...
in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
.
The plant generates electricity using dual turbines which produce 6 megawatts (MW) of electricity. It also uses a 5.5 MW Kaplan turbine
Kaplan turbine
The Kaplan turbine is a propeller-type water turbine which has adjustable blades. It was developed in 1913 by the Austrian professor Viktor Kaplan, who combined automatically adjusted propeller blades with automatically adjusted wicket gates to achieve efficiency over a wide range of flow and...
, which generates electricity when water release takes place. A 500 kilowatt (kW) Francis turbine
Francis turbine
The Francis turbine is a type of water turbine that was developed by James B. Francis in Lowell, Massachusetts. It is an inward-flow reaction turbine that combines radial and axial flow concepts....
also generates constantly from the compensation flow of water from the reservoir into the North Tyne. This gives the reservoir a total generating capacity of 12 MW, and an average production of 20,000 MWh
MWH
MWH may stand for:* International Air Transport Association airport code for Grant County International Airport* MWH Global, an international water engineering consultancy* Men Without Hats, a Canadian New Wave band...
of electricity per year, a saving of 8,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
per year compared to fossil fuel based methods of generation.