Thank you to all those members who attended our 13th AGM on the 12th of June. Minutes of the meeting and the Powerpoint presentation, associated with them and used during the AGM, are now posted on the AGMs and Presentations page.

The 13th Harlaw Hydro AGM will take place at 7.30pm in The Ogston Hall in Balerno. Members have been emailed with a copy of the Newsletter from our chairman, Richard Blackburn, as well as copies of the annual accounts and an agenda.

Anyone can attend but voting is confined to society members.

In 2025 many have enjoyed the sunny dry days – great for those with solar panels not so good for those running hydro-electric systems.

The picture below shows the amount of electricity generated from April-August over the last 10 years. You will see from the ‘Manhattan charts’ that the bumper months vary over the years but 2025 has all the lowest monthly generation.

The minutes from the 12th AGM and the PowerPoint presentation used in it are now available on the website and available for viewing. They can be found in About Us or simply click.

In July 2025 Harlaw Hydro completed a decade of green energy production. In that decade the total revenue earned from generating and selling green energy has passed a £1 million and over £400,000 has been passed to Balerno Village Trust to use for the benefit of the community (this includes supporting the Pentland Community Chest).

If you weren’t able to join us at our AGM this year, or if you are looking for a reminder of what happened, the minutes and and a copy of the PowerPoint presentation used are now on the website and available for viewing. They can be found in About Us or simply click.

Harlaw Hydro congratulates Dean Park Primary School on its 50th Anniversary.  There will be over 40 panels on the school fence created by classes in the school and organisations in the community and these can be viewed from now to 30th June.  The Harlaw Hydro panel is shown below.

The reservoirs are white and frozen, but they are beautiful with the Pentland Hills as a backdrop.

On a normal day at Harlaw Hydro there is little excitement, water comes down, the turbine goes round, and we generate green electricity. In the background there is routine remote monitoring of water levels to try and maximise what we generate and a monthly greasing of bearings.

Last week was different. Despite having plenty of water we were generating in the low 60Kws rather than the 70kws and there was more noise than normal. With cameras to see and remote access to the controls actual visits to the turbine house are limited but Monday was the day scheduled for greasing and the system was not just noisy it was vibrating. Something was clearly not right. The power generated was reduced until the vibration stopped and our maintenance engineers were contacted.

We have a 20mm grill in the water tower to stop debris (and fish) coming down the pipe,
• could this be partially blocked?
• But where did the vibration come from?
• And why was there a Heron standing beside our plunge pool?

Our engineers systematically checked the turbine, including removing the two inspection covers to allow them to inspect the runner (the part of the turbine that spins round and gives us the power). The runner was fine, as good as new, but what was that in the corner? A glove was put on and the body of a 5lb trout was fished out. The fish had been trapped round one of the guide vanes restricting and destabilising the flow to the runner, some how a small stick had also joined in. Fish removed, covers replaced and all now running perfectly.

The heron was disappointed.

Thanks to conscientious monitoring by our team and prompt action by Proterra (the firm that does our maintenance) all is well and no damage done. The addition of a microphone so that we can hear as well as see remotely is being considered.