THE River Lyd is figuratively putting its shoulder to the wheel for the Forest Pennant stoneworks at Cannop Ponds.

The company is celebrating the switch on of its micro hydro generation turbine.

Harnessing the power of the River Lyd, the turbine installation will produce around 50,000 kW hours of electricity over a 12 month period, over a third of the company's usage.

The stoneworks, serving both Forest Pennant and sister company Forest of Dean Stone Firms, houses all of the companies' cutting equipment and consumes in the region of 180,000 kWh per annum. This is on a fixed contract from npower at 9.4p per unit/kW, equivalent to an annual electricity bill of £18,000.

The electricity generated by the hydro turbine is fed into the distribution network of the stoneworks and what isn't consumed on site is exported to the national grid.

Forest Pennant managing director, Nick Horton, estimates that the net contribution to the company, when the Feed In Tariff has been added to the 9.4p, will be in the region of £15,000 a year.

"In simple terms we get around 83 per cent of our electricity free, and this is not only index linked but underwritten by the Government for the next 20 years," said Nick.