Providing essential and affordable water to farmers in Canterbury

Barrhill Chertsey Irrigation Scheme—Stage 2

Having reliable water for farmers to irrigate their land is vital to their success. The Barrhill Chertsey irrigation and hydropower project provided just that.

Barrhill Chertsey Irrigation Company commissioned our team to provide full design services for the new intake, settling pond, fish screen, water pipeline and hydro scheme. We investigated the river process, erosion and flood risk, water reliability, and ran geotechnical and dam breach analyses. We assisted further with dam safety requirements, pipeline surge analysis, thrust restraint and backfill requirements as well as resource consent and tender documentation. We also provided supervision of all key construction.

We proposed using glass reinforced plastic pipes, which had previously not been used widely in New Zealand, and leveraged our experience in the small hydro sector to develop a scheme with a crossflow turbine that operated over a wide range of heads and flows. An added project bonus is the energy recovery turbine that generates renewable power for the wider community.

The result of our work? Affordable water for the farming community and production of free energy back to the network for the wider region.