The answer to future energy problems for many of us may be on our doorstep, or at least not far from it. An Oxfordshire company has teamed up with British Waterways to oversee the building of 25 small-scale hydro power plants which will produce enough electricity to supply 40,000 homes.

Clive Arup, chairman of The Small Hydro Company, based at Little Wittenham, said: “The process of gaining planning consent for the first five weirs is now underway and we hope they will be up and running in 2010.”

The company came into existence about 18 months ago after Mr Arup, a civil engineer, met with fellow engineers to hammer out a way forward for such small-scale schemes.

Now the company has arranged about £120m of private finance with the London-based venture capitalist Climate Change Capital’s Ventus fund to bring the schemes on stream.

Mr Arup said: “Just to get planning permission costs about £100,000. And we envisage the average cost of a scheme will be about £2m each.”

British Waterways, which manages 2,200 miles of UK waterways, reckons the scheme will eventually create 150 jobs and save 170,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.

Representatives of The Small Hydro Company have scoured the country for suitable weirs and have come up with five sites to get the scheme underway. There are two on the Trent, and one each on the Don, Aire, and Ouse.

Mr Arup said: “These are very sound projects which present no planning issues.”

He added: “We would like to have had a scheme in the Thames Valley on the first list, but there were problems over land ownership.

“Very often there was one, if not two, private owners to deal with. British Waterways owns hundreds of suitable sites further North, so it makes sense to start there.

“We need to get some schemes up and going so that we can show planners, and anyone else concerned, that they are a realistic idea and do not cause too much disruption to install.”

Small hydro schemes powering local communities have long been running in France and Germany, and Mr Arup explained that he was planning to install turbines made by German company, Caplan. They would operate underwater out of sight.

He said: “We have worked out a formula for calculating revenue per kilowatt hour. According to our business model the power from the weirs would be sold to the National Grid. British Waterways, as owner of the sites, will receive a proportion of the money earned.”

The idea behind The Small Hydro Company fits in with official Government policy. Climate Change and Energy Secretary Ed Milliband has said that the Government will be introducing a new ‘feed-in tariff’ for small-scale renewables to reward projects such as these hydro-electric schemes with guaranteed cash payments.

He added: “We need to get the first sites going, then we can show them to planners and anyone else interested so that they can see for themselves how little disruption they cause.

“At the moment many people are, understandably, a little distrustful because anything that has an industrial ring to it worries them.”

One aspect that might help some local people get over any fears they might have of the schemes, is the idea that the installation work could sometimes be carried out in conjunction with flood defence work.

The plan to develop the small hydro schemes follows an announcement last year that British Waterways would develop wind turbines on land next to canals.

Mr Milliband commented: “By committing to build small hydro-power stations and wind turbines, British Waterways is playing an important role in generating renewable energy from the UK’s natural resources.

“This will help cut carbon emissions and further secure energy supplies. We want even more homes, communities, businesses and public sector organisations to take action and play their part in tackling climate change.”

He added that any income generated by the hydro schemes would be reinvested in Britain’s 2,200 miles of waterways.

The Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, said: "Britain's waterways were the arteries of our economy, providing transport and power.

"This scheme shows how with ingenuity and innovation they can once again deliver real economic, social, and environmental benefits, especially in tackling and adapting to climate change."

About 40 per cent of the United Kingdom's renewable electricity is provided by hydro-power, but few large schemes have been constructed since the 1980s. Globally, hydro generates about 20 per cent of electricity requirements.

Mr Arup, who came up with the idea to champion the cause of small water generators after he became wheelchair bound, explained that, surprisingly, raising capital for smaller schemes was not as tricky as might have been expected because, ironically, financiers were now looking at smaller schemes which, before the credit crunch, they might not even have considered.

So if you are wondering whether the lights will go out when the energy gap finally hits Oxfordshire, look no further than that weir near you to solve the problem — and bask in the joy of knowing you are doing your bit to stop global warming.

Name: The Small Hydro Company Established: 2007 Director: Clive Arup Number of staff: Four directors Annual turnover: N/a Contact: 01865 408532 Web: www.smallhydro.co.uk