On a misty Friday morning, three engineers braved the midges and headed out to walk the river. Highland Eco Design won a tender to review four potential community hydro schemes. After visiting Swordale, Galson and Gress, they “saved the best to last”. We haven’t had any serious rain for weeks. I thought this would be a bad thing – they said no -it’s exactly what we need to see. The level of the river they saw was the level that SEPA will insist is retained as a minimum throughout the year.
We walked from the Scottish Water weir down to the shore then back up to walk another tributary. It’s clear that there are a number of options for a scheme. There is one big constraint though -SSE will only allow a 50kW generator onto the grid. Until the interconnector goes under the sea to Ullapool – which will be a few years away yet – 50kW is where it’s at. So the dilemma is whether to design a 50kW scheme now or to build a bigger scheme and constrain it to 50kW until the new cable is in place. If we build a 50kW scheme, do we build it on a smaller tributary, keeping the bigger stream clear for future or do we use the best stream and get the best output now? So many questions – and three engineers to think about it – one already has his thinking cap on!
#hebrides #community #harris #hydro #haris #Hydroelectricschemes #hydroelectric #northharris