Scotland has been a champion of renewable energy for many years. The first Hydro plant was seen in Scotland as early as 1948 with Pitlochry, being the most famous in the country.
50 years on a new £140m power station is being built at Glendoe, by Fort Augustus, Loch Ness. It is still till two years from completion but when operational it will create equivalent power to 50 wind turbines.
Construction work began in February last year when Tony Blair detonated a controlled explosion at Glendoe, 1,800ft above the loch in the Monadhliath mountains where the average rainfall is about 1500mm - compared to under 700mm in Edinburgh.
The scheme, which is being developed by Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) owners of Scottish Hydro will involve the construction of a 35-metre-high dam at the head of Glen Tarff and a power station in a cavern 250 metres below ground level inside Borlum Hill. Inside the cavern will be the turbine turned by the force of the water flowing through it, and the generator which converts that force into electricity and despite being one of the biggest hydro stations, once complete it will be almost invisible. The turbine house will be underground and the reservoir and dam cannot be seen from any home or public road.
The turbine will be able to potentially generate enough energy to power a city the size of Glasgow, and is promised to be the most efficient hydro plant in the UK.
Even if the scheme is a success it is unlikely that such a large hydro project of will be repeated in Scotland, but the country has huge capacity for smaller schemes that could help the meet its targets for renewables. In Scotland there are currently 79 hydro projects, mostly in the Highlands and much of it built in the 1950s. A further ten schemes have consent and another 19 are planned, and it is felt there are still countless opportunities in Scotland for small-scale hydro developments. A British government report found that Scotland has almost 90 per cent of the UK’s potential for small hydro power.
The government’s Renewable Obligations Scheme has put an onus on all electricity suppliers to provide some of their energy from green sources as it strives to achieve its 40 per cent renewable energy target for electricity by 2020.
