'Power from the glens' explored

By Denise Glass
BBC Scotland news website

Faskally power station features a visitor centre and fish ladder

This weekend the Scottish Renewables Festival is taking place exploring how the power of the wind, sun and water can be used to provide electricity in a more environmentally friendly way.

But way before renewable energy became a fashionable term the north of Scotland was leading the way with hydro electric power, which sees running water used to turn turbines and generate electricity.

The water can either be stored behind a dam and then released to create the flow or the natural downward flow of rivers is used.

It is thought that about 10% of Scotland's electricity is provided by hydro power.

The first hydro electric scheme to provide electricity to the public was launched in 1890. It was created by Benedictine monks to provide power for their Abbey in Fort Augustus, along with the 800 inhabitants of the village at Loch Ness.

Large houses and estates also used hydro power, including Balmoral, the Queen's Aberdeenshire residence.

In the 1920s a water-driven turbine was installed to provide electric lighting and in the 1950s it was used to power the sawmill.

Then, last year, a generator was installed to connect the turbine to the National Grid.

It's very toxic and gave them all headaches and of course they just kept blowing each other up Emma Wood Author

However, it was in 1930 that the first large-scale hydro electric scheme came into operation at Rannoch and Tummel Bridge in Perthshire.

In 1943, the Hydro Electric Development (Scotland) Act was passed and the boom-time for hydro electric power began with the aim of using 'the power from the glens' to create energy for homes and businesses across the north of Scotland.

By 1965, 54 main power stations and 78 dams had been built.

The work was carried out by Scots supported by Eastern Europeans displaced by the war and former German and Italian prisoners of war.

The people who dug the tunnels were known as the Tunnel Tigers and their work was dangerous.

Emma Wood is the author of a book called The Hydro Boys: Pioneers of Renewable Energy.

She said: "They were underground and they were in the dark, they were using gelignite which gives off a horrible reek - they call it the jelly reek - it's very toxic and gave them all headaches and of course they just kept blowing each other up.

Building large tunnels for the hydro schemes is dangerous work

"These dreadful, casual accidents involving people just sitting around having their tea and off goes some charge which wasn't properly dealt with and four or five people killed just like that.

"'Life was cheap' was one of the quotations I remember a policeman who was working at Glenmoriston gave me."

"They [the workers] were living in camps. They sometimes had parties in them and they sometimes had fights in them and all sorts of things went on as they were earning fabulous amounts of money.

"In the 60s they were earning 200 quid a week so that's a lot of money then, and it would have been relatively the same in the 40s, way more than anybody else was earning in the Highlands at that time."

In some places, the men were nicknamed the Weekend Millionaires because of their outrageous behaviour when they were not working.

Hydro electric power was not without its critics. There were concerns about flooded valleys, damage to fish stocks and the impact that large dams would have on the landscape.

And even today there are concerns about some of the smaller schemes being planned because of potential ecological damage and the impact on activities such as canoeing.

One of the ways builders got round the potential impact on salmon breeding was to create fish passes to allow salmon and trout through.

The fish ladder and visitor centre at Pitlochry has become a tourist attraction which is visited by an estimated 500,000 people a year.

The Glendoe hydro electric scheme is Scotland's biggest in 50 years

After a lull in the building of big hydro power stations, the first major scheme in more than 50 years was opened.

Glendoe, at Loch Ness, became operational in December.

It cost more than £160m to build and, just like in those earlier schemes, Eastern Europeans, particularly Poles, played a big part in its construction.

David Williams from the British Hydropower Association predicts it will not be the last of its kind.

He said: "There is scope for more large ones, everyone tends to say Glendoe's the last big one we're ever going to build.

"But 20 years ago, in my early days in the industry, people said we were never going to have a big scheme ever again in Scotland and suddenly the political, economic and the technological conditions are right and we get Glendoe coming along.

"There are large sites up to 100MW, which Glendoe is, still available for development but it needs companies like Scottish and Southern and Scottish Power to do those projects.

"On the other side there are a lot of smaller developers who are capable of developing smaller hydro schemes, up to about 5MW or a little bit more each, and the more small ones you have the more overall stability you'll have in the system."