The plans for a new £12m energy scheme at Snowdonia National Park have been refused by NRW.

The plan was to use water from the River Conwy for a hydroelectric scheme but this will now not go ahead due to the negative effect it would have on the environment.

RWE Innogy UK are the company who applied for the permit and claimed that its hydro power stations in the area could provide power to more than 3,200 households. However their plans faced major opposition from environmentalists and businesses among others, who feared that the scheme would greatly reduce the amount of water from the waterfall.

The reason the permit was refused was because the company wanted to extract too much water.

Head of operations for NRW, Sian Williams, had the following to say –

“The Conwy is an important natural asset for the area and we’ve conducted a detailed assessment of the proposals before reaching this decision. We support sustainable developments in the right places.
But the evidence we’ve scrutinised shows that the proposal submitted could harm the local environment. As such, we can’t grant it a permit.”