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Wind farms in Scotland
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Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger
986 posts

Re: Wind farms in Scotland
Nov 20, 2011, 11:35
Resonox wrote:
Some programme on last week was extolling the benefits of Hydro-Electricity...which would be used to power great swathes of middle England.....now bearing in mind Hydro-electricity has been on the go in Scotland for several years(decades) now.....when it was first touted it was as FREE energy for everyone...government lies....


My father (now 89) after returning from WW2 service in India, Burma and Malaya was employed building and installing the switching gear for the hydro schemes in Perthshire. It involved many weeks and months away from family. He didn't get rich. He was part of a masssive project which not only built the hydro schemes, but also extended the grid to highland communities, hamlets and farms which had been beyond the reach of the Grid. It was a positive, far sighted project which did much for the country in the aftermath of WW2.
However what Scotland (and the rest of the UK) got was not an endless source of free electricity. It was/is really only ever used for times of peak demand where the National Grid needs a big boost (the Eastenders/ kettle on cup of tea surge). Once you drop the level in a loch, it is dropped, you need to refill it. Sometimes water is piped in from other lochs within the system. There are massive tunnels and piping sytems connecting dozens of lochs. The sluices are opened and whoosh - the turbines turn - the juice is cranked up - the Grid can cope. The nations TVs stay on and everyone's kettles boil!
If you are ever up at Tummel, Lyon, Lochan na Lainge at Lawers or even at the rock art near the Lochay Power Station by Killin, you will find the original sixty year old turbines, switching gear and delightful utilitarian buildings. They sit quietly, often inobtrusively in the landscape, humming away and doing exactly what they were built to do. The rock art by the Lochay Power Station is still there and I love the juxtaposition. I also love pylons across a wild landscape.
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Re: Wind farms in Scotland (Resonox)
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