Aberdulais hydropower station
The weir at Aberdulais
Aberdulais hydropower station is located at a National Trust property in Aberdulais, south Wales.
The Aberdulais hydropower station output is entirely bought by LoCO2 Energy for its customers.
Where is it?
Located in Neath and part of south Wales's 'Waterfall Country', the Aberdulais hydro-station is on the Dulais River. The plant itself is tucked into a small, densely wooded gorge.
Site history
Like many of our hydros, Aberdulais has been used for power for centuries. The waterfall powered a wheel used in the production of copper as far back as 1584. There were later spells in the flour milling and tin industries thorughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before rebirth in 1990 as a hydropower renewable energy generating plant.
Aberdulais was bought by TLS Hydro in 2006 in a state of disrepair and then repaired.
Art history connoisseurs may have seen Aberdulais before in a Turner watercolour.
The hydropower plant
Aberdulais has a single kaplan turbine and a waterwheel, which happens to be the largest electricity generating waterwheel in Europe. As well as powering LoCO2 Energy customers, it also powers the National Trust visitor centre at Aberdulais.
What’s the environmental impact?
Aberdulais can produce 600,000kwh of electricity each year, which is enough to power 180 homes for a year.
We've installed a fishpath at Aberdulais so the salmon can swim up the river.
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