From the outside, it looks like a green shipping container on an industrial block in the suburbs. But on the inside, there's plenty going on.
The box is part of a little-known but growing Melbourne Water network of "mini-hydro" electric plants generating electricity in suburban Melbourne, and in the hills beyond.
If you're interested in alternative ways to generate electricity this story has been ticking away in the background for quite some time. Whenever there has been news of this kind of power generation there are always doubters turning up and saying its insignificant, crackpot, fantasy land stuff etc. etc. etc. These naysayers are typically ideologically committed to the Big Power, Super Grid' solutions. – nuclear, big hydro, coal, gas.
This story seems to be turning much of this negativity on its head. It seems that there may now be profitable to intergraded electricity generation within the hydraulics of water reticulation and sewerage systems. Naysayers take note, it’s happening in Melbourne and Sydney and the evidence is Tasmanian policymakers and bureaucrats are looking the other way.
This is the kind of thing that bobs up from time to time that local government in concert with State government needs to be active in the investigation of how such initiatives can be applied in Tasmania not to mention Hobart and Launceston.
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