Rotork electric valve actuators are being used throughout a river level management automation project performed by the Environment Agency in the region of East Anglia, UK. The ambitious project, designed to improve flood protection in Norfolk and Suffolk, involves automating manually operated sluice gates at river weir and bypass channel locations throughout the area and linking them by telemetry to centralised control rooms. Traditional manual operation of these sluices could be labour-intensive, inefficient and hazardous. Electric actuation, working automatically in response to a signal from an upstream level sensor, introduces the ability to raise or lower the gates in small stages at frequent intervals, and therefore react with far more accuracy to changing river conditions. However, the lack of a mains electricity supply at some locations was a fundamental complication. The solution was offered by Rotork, who manufacture an actuator that can operate from a DC stored energy source. A self-contained package was devised, running from a bank of batteries that are kept charged by wind and/or solar power. The first site to be modernised, on the River Yare at Keswick Mill near Norwich, was commissioned in 1999. Other automated sites include nearby Trowse, Hellesden Mill at Norwich on the River Wensum and Glevering Mill near Woodbridge on the River Deben.
