.jpg)
image for illustration: Knockando Woolmill, Julian Paren via Wikimedia Commons
Knockando Woolmill, Scotland’s oldest working woolmill, has partnered Octopus Energy to bring its 19th-century waterwheel back to life, as the mill will use Octopus’ Shape Shifter Agile platform to help manage energy use and buy back power generated from the mill’s soon-to-be-restored hydro generator.
The Business Desk writes:
The partnership follows the Speyside woolmill securing more than £77,000 in funding from Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the Berry Burn Community Fund and others, to reinstate its Victorian overshot waterwheel, to turn a piece of industrial heritage into a working source of renewable energy… to generate up to 67kWh of renewable power per day…
Lady Irwin, chair of Knockando Woolmill Trust, said: ‘This project represents the perfect meeting point between heritage and innovation… restoring it allows us not only to reconnect with our industrial past, but to safeguard the Mill’s future through renewable energy generation.’
Installed in the 1860s and powered by the nearby Knockando Burn, the waterwheel originally drove production at the Mill until the arrival of electricity in 1949…
