Of all the rains of the last few weeks, nothing has matched 23rd December when over 3" of rain fell in 24hours bringing the river up to '100 year levels', at least per the Environment Agency data.  Reassuringly, it seems the Millers of old new how to organise these things, and just as the river level was approaching the air-bricks, the river breached the opposite bank and rushed away, over into the meadow and across the road to the mill pond and river downstream.  The archimedes screw was surrounded with water briefly, that thankfully subsided relatively quickly and we are now back to generating!  Just feel very sorry for those that have been flooded. 

Having placed our original deposit 18 months ago, our eagerly anticipated Renault Zoe finally arrived in October... but disaster, it will not charge while we have our hydro system running.  The idea was to use some of our surplus power generation for completely green motoring.  And yet it has now sat on the drive for the last 6 weeks.  MannPower/ Parkers can apparently show that the exported power from the hydro meets the standards of the grid and yet it seems it does not fall within what the Zoe will 'tolerate'.  We are currently trying to escalate the issue within Renault but so far nothing.  So, be warned, if you have a home hydro or perhaps wind turbine etc, it may not work.  All ideas greatly appreciated and in the meantime... Renault... Help!!