Scotland considering hydro electricity

The government of Scotland is considering the revival of hydro-electricity generation in order to aid the country in meeting the green power goals. The Minister of Energy, Jim Mather, is scheduled to enter into discussions with one of the hydro-electricity generation specialists in Scotland.

The cabinet is of the view that electricity generated from hydro sources could assist the country in reaching its goals of producing half of its electricity from green sources by the year 2020.

This comes in the wake of the rejection of a planned wind farm on Lewis on the grounds that it was a blot on the landscape and an environmental hazard especially to the peatland found there. Had it been given the go-ahead the wind farm would have emerged as the largest in Scotland. Other wind energy projects which have been nipped in the bud include one in Aberdeenshire and another one close to Perth.

The wave of rejections is making ministers have a second thought about wind energy and that’s why hydro-power is looking more attractive. As long ago as the 1940s when generation of power from hydro sources was all the rave, over one hundred sites were considered as having potential but many decades later only twenty nine of them have been exploited, the most notable of which is the Glendoe project which took an investment of one hundred and forty million pounds. The project will have a capacity of generating one hundred megawatts which is the equivalent of the consumption of a city like Glasgow.

Throughout Scotland, power from hydro sources comprises twelve per cent of the combined capacity.