Taking the high road to hydro: how dam project will reshape power
Coire Glas, SSE’s mammoth electricity project in Scotland, will be a huge boost for net zero, but has hit snags with ministers over pricing
From an artificial reservoir, water will be channelled down a shaft within the mountain to drive turbines before draining into Loch Lochy
The Times
Along with three executives from the energy company SSE, I’m scrambling across the upper slopes of Ben Tee in the Scottish highlands. We are trying to get a glimpse of a high mountain corrie soon to vanish under water for ever.
We peer down on a remote glen. Apart from a new temporary track carved through the peat to accommodate all-terrain vehicles, there is no sign of human habitation at all, just thousands of acres of bog, deer grass, burn and rock.
In a few years, however, a dam 600 metres wide and 92 metres tall is set to be constructed here, creating an artificial lake containing the equivalent of 11,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
From that high-level reservoir, water will be channelled down a near-vertical
