Two large-scale plants planned at Glendoe

SSE is now seeking to develop two new large scale pumped storage hydro electric schemes in the Great Glen.

The Scottish Government has been asked to provide its formal opinion on the scope of the environmental impact statement that would accompany planning applications for the schemes, currently scheduled to be submitted during 2011.  They would be the first pumped storage schemes to be developed in Great Britain since work on the Dinorwig scheme began in 1974.

SSE already owns and operates a 300MW (megawatt) pumped storage scheme at Foyers, on the south side of Loch Ness, which produces 300GWh of electricity in a typical year to help meet peak demand. It has also submitted to Scottish Ministers an application for consent to develop a 60MW pumped storage scheme at its existing Sloy hydro electric power station at Loch Lomond, allowing it to produce an additional 100GWh (gigawatt hours) of electricity in a typical year to help meet peak demand.

Pumped storage schemes involve two bodies of water, located at different heights. During periods of low demand for power, electricity is used to pump water from the lower loch to the upper reservoir. This water is then released to create power at a time when demand is high.  Amongst other things, pumped storage schemes complement the growing, but variable, amount of electricity produced by many renewable energy schemes, including wind farms.

The proposed schemes are on the north side of the Great Glen and, subject to final design and agreements, it is envisaged they would have an installed capacity of between 300MW and 600MW each and be able to produce a total of 1,000GWh of electricity in a typical year to help meet peak demand. In both cases, the upper reservoirs would be large, enabling electricity generation to continue for longer periods, without the need to pump water from the loch below, than is the case for other pumped storage schemes in Great Britain.

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