Worcester was one of the first UK cities to be lit with electric light generated by hydroelectric power.

The hydroelectric power station was located on the site of a previous watermill at Powick weir on the river Teme. It began generating on October 11 1894, and generated 200 kilowatts to power the cities new electric street lights.

The Powick hydroelectric station continued to operate until its closure in 1973.

However, the engineer’s’ initial plans in 1892 were to build the hydroelectric station at Diglis weir rather than Powick, because the Severn has at least twice as much river flow than the Teme, meaning that it would generate twice the power.

A hydroelectric engineer who visited Diglis weir in 2016 advised that a modern fish-friendly hydroelectric station at Diglis weir could generate around 400 kilowatts of power, twice as much as the old Powick station, and twice as much as the new hydroelectric station that began generating in 2014 at Pershore weir on the Avon (pictured above).

The advantage of hydroelectric power is that it reliably generates both day and night, and through the winter, when photo-voltaic panels don’’t work.